“…Dun Moch,” as Elyd approached, the phrase fell from Callista’s lips rather than the usual soft, silky flutter her words were carried on.
She was perched in a handstand – like a sprouting plant – atop a stone in the Viscaran mountain valley, balanced by a front-and-back split of her blue-linen-clad legs above her head akin to a gymnast or ballerina. Her light, flaxen-blonde hair dangled messily around her face towards the ground, but despite the veteran Sheriff’s approach, neither did her eyes open nor her attention seem to falter from her task. Below them was the small waterfall behind Glitch’s – no, Genevieve’s – home, shouting as it dived into the rocky pond spring.
She’d been like this for at least an hour now, overlooking the Haughts’ property in the morning sun. The only movement around her was the aforementioned waterfall below, and a few small stones levitating around her. Elyd could have sworn at one point she saw a bird briefly land on Callista’s toes.
“That’s what the Inquisitor was doing when she got into your head,” the soft-voiced young Jedi explained, her usual peppy demeanor replaced by this oddly disciplined tranquility.
As Elyd took in the sight of the tranquil Knight, she leaned back on one leg, the slight hiss of the hydraulic system clamped to her legs like a sigh. She’d not been sure how to dress for such training as that of the mind, so she’d prepared in her usual more physically flexible garb. She’d gotten used to the bite of the mountain air on her bare shoulders - and it eased the heat of her worn muscles from her usual workout.
She didn’t offer any words of her own at first, shifting her gaze off the side of the mountain watched over her and her wife’s property. Home.
“I am listening.” She lowered herself to the ground, to Callista’s side. Crossing her legs still hurt, somewhat - but it was no worse than the soreness that she felt along her arms and back. Though she drew her breath in, and then slowly out - her attention was on the Jedi, her discipline bare as she made herself ready to learn.
A smooth exhale came along with the slow uncurling of Callista’s body as she brought her legs together and then down, shifting to right herself and then sit down on the rock where she was perched. The lightly-toned muscles of her arms eased and she rubbed softly at them with her hands, as they were bare and open to the air with the blonde wearing a slim exercise top.
She looked down to Elyd, facing the Sheriff now. “Dun Moch isn’t specifically a telepathic technique, but they’ll often try to read thoughts or emotions as part of it so they know what to go after. It’s about getting under your skin, shaking your focus, using your emotional and mental weaknesses against you to get the advantage.”
“The Inquisitor felt your rage,” Callista carried on to say, folding her hands loosely between her crossed legs. “Your shame, your guilt, your grief. She could tell how important Elliot was to you, and so she used that against you. Other Sith could try the same by bringing up your squad… or Geni. Any button you have, they’ll try and find and press.”
Then, lightening up a bit, she straightened her posture and gave a small smile, brushing a slightly trembling-from-ache hand through her hair to give it some semblance of order. “So how do we stop them finding those buttons, if they don’t already know about them…?”
“You… hide them away?” Elyd offers, hopefully. She rolled her shoulders back as she entered her more controlled posture - though refrained from cracking her neck as she so desperately wanted to.
“I am, admittedly, a very emotional person. Not like you Jedi - when I feel something, I wear it on my sleeve. I’m not used to… holding that back.” She sighs, exhaling a breath. The chill of the mountain air collected it in a puff that billowed around her. “I need to be able to protect myself, and those I love.”
Her gaze turned over the edge, down at her home - at the woman she knew still rested inside it, and how much it pained Elyd to imagine her being hurt. She refused to let that happen. So she turned to Callista again, determined. “Whatever it is, no matter how much practice or time it takes. I have to.”
“It doesn’t have to be about hiding things away,” Callista noted in reply. “Not even for Jedi. It’s more about having the control to choose what you let them see – if anything at all.”
The small woman peered down at Elyd, her face soft with youthful innocence despite everything. “Let’s say, for example, what I told you about the first time. The blinding, confusing wall - knots and signs and whatever else. It’s difficult to keep your thoughts entirely focused on something like that, especially in a conversation. But it’s doable. Meditation helps a little. Emptying your mind completely is good practice for then filling it up to capacity…”
“So let’s try something.” The Jedi smiled faintly, and the floating rocks around the two of them slowly hovered down to rest on the ridge again. “I want you to go through the meditation I’ve shown you, and just focus on purely being in the moment. No thoughts, no memories, no emotions… just mindful observation. Feel the present. The air, the ground, your clothes, your own body. When you feel like you’re ready to shift gears, let me know.”
She listened to the young Knight’s words carefully, taking each sentence and letting her mind chew on those words and what they meant. Elyd was someone who worked best with tangible things - words, in their nature - were the opposite. Fleeting sounds that carried meaning that could differ in interpretation based on a person’s inflection, tone, or personal experience.
A simple nod of understanding would do as her response. She centered herself after such and closed her eyes. She let the darkness creep around her vision and swallow her into a being of that singular moment. In her time practicing her meditation for the Sacred Sleep, she’d gotten proficient at falling into this state of being. Breathing. Feeling the prickle of the wind on her bare shoulders, caressing over her back. The soft pressure of her bandeau around her chest moving with each inhale and exhale.
The world became a soft, swirling mass of sensations around her. The slight shift of her hair that blew across her face with the gentle breeze, and the folds of her clothing that rested against her skin. Her voice held a soft hum in its tone as she finally spoke again. “I’m ready.”
There was a faint shifting sound, though Elyd could not see what Callista was doing to cause it. When the girl spoke, though, the Sheriff could infer - the near-whisper of Callista’s smooth voice was much closer now, along with the faint warmth of her breath on the scarred woman’s face.
“Now - change the present,” she said cryptically at first. Her hushed speech practically seemed to reverberate in Elyd’s skull, echoing off of unseen hills and crags that it should never reach at such delicate volume. “You are in the mountains. The wind is cold, bracing. The little hairs on your neck and your arms are standing up. The sun is covered by clouds - everything is layered in grey. You stand at the bottom of a sheer cliffside. It looms up into the sky above you, too high to see the summit. You have a hammer, you have climbing spikes, you have rope. You must climb to the top… so do it.”
“Think of every crack and crevice, every detail of the rock face – let them form before your eyes. Think where you should place each spike. How to angle it. How to attach your rope - what knot do you use? What’s the process for tying that knot? How will you do it while you’re holding on? What if you slip, what if you fall - consider every possibility, consider your response, and play all of it out. Step by step, movement by movement. Climb the endless mountain, Elyd.”
She took a deep breath as in her mind’s eye, the cliff face rose in front of her. Sheer and imposing, she drew her eyes up the stone, until it faded into obscurity at the edges of her vision. Another breath, she began to analyze her first move.
There were cracks in the rock, just wide enough for her to fit her fingertips in. She pulled her core tight and began to rise. Finding the slots where she could tuck her boots, and where she needed to pause in order to secure an anchor point. She climbed and climbed. Finding her rhythm in the ascent. Sometimes, her line snapped, or an anchor point came loose, or the cliff broke off beneath her hold. She considered the outcomes and drew herself back to where she was once again secure.
Each aspect of her climb was a focused task, including her hands, her mind, her memory, and her body. It was something she loved, that rose her adrenaline levels and left her breathing heavy with a racing heart. Dangerous in its own right, but there was a kind of peace she felt from that same aspect. Every movement was a carefully designed action. She did as she was bid. She climbed.
Outside the howling winds and rocky ascent of Elyd’s mindscape, Callista watched the Sheriff for a few long moments. She couldn’t see the process Elyd was going through, not quite, but she could sense the deep, intense concentration and focus. Her thoughts danced around her in invisible wisps of color, and with a metaphysical push, she extended her consciousness towards Elyd. She prodded at the woman’s mind, searching and seeking, but not for anything more particular than the entry itself into the veteran’s thoughts…
As Elyd continued her steady ascent, her body slowly began to weigh more - as if carrying another along. She paused for but a moment, trying to sort out the cause for the shift in her mind’s body. She wasn’t climbing alone, but that was all she could discern. There was nothing she could do about it, so she angled her chin upwards, and looked for the next handhold.
“I cannot stop.”
There, Callista thought to herself, now observing as if through a warped mirror, Elyd’s craggy climb. She remained as she was for a breath, then another, trying to refine her focus and technique – touching minds directly was not something she was entirely used to, yet.
But simply watching and waiting without first prompting something would get her nowhere, not without help or far greater knowledge of such things. And so…
“Why Viscara?” her voice was carried on the mountain breeze into the imaginary winds biting at Elyd on her expedition. “What made you come here, of all places?”
Elyd’s skin already prickled with what blew around her along her climb, but when the words were carried along on them, she shivered.
She moved up to another handhold, securing her position on an anchor point as she looked for the next. “It was my last chance. Not a choice, but a plea.”
Her scanning eyes locked onto the next ledge, her fingertips becoming raw. She didn’t mind the pain of sore muscles or flesh rubbed raw. They were simple pains - ones she had control over. Ones she could overcome.
The weight around Elyd seemed to build as she talked - not just from the effort of speaking while she focused so, but from that extra presence seeming to cling and bear down on her. It was less a weight of gravity and more of sluggishness and paralysis. It did not need to make her fall, only to halt her progress.
“A plea for what? Forgiveness? Redemption?” Callista’s voice was butterfly kisses, but the words were anvils. “You wanted to be able to forgive yourself, not to get it from anyone else. Why not go home again?”
As she kept talking, Callista dug in deeper, looking for any crack in focus or faltering, wandering thoughts, any thread she could pull on to lead her further in and unravel the knots Elyd’s mind was tied up in. A memory, a regret, a hope, a fond curiosity.
Through strained muscle and heavy breath, Elyd continued her climb. She’d entirely forgotten why she was here, what she was climbing for. All she knew is that she must. Deeper than a primal urge, whatever she drew on within her told her to continue on.
She tried to ignore the weight of the words that clutched at her. The pull to bite back. Her body was stubborn, but her mind answered. “There is nothing back there for me. There is possibility here.”
Her memories roiled as she climbed. Her shoulders shuddering, and her legs burned. Memories of a medical center. Long, awful nights of fevers, sick, and yearning. Doctors speculating on if she’d live. She’d consumed too much. She couldn’t do that again. Complete and utter shame.
Even still, with the sting of tears in her eyes, she climbed.
A beat, a breath, a pang of empathy in Callista as the visualized climb slowed and wavered. Elyd’s hand reaching for the next craggy outcropping became desperate, remembered grab for a cup of water. Hands shaking, sweats, the world spinning through frosted glass.
“You tried everything to escape that pain, didn’t you?” the Jedi’s voice wafted through the woman’s consciousness. “Anything to forget, to wash it out, to quiet the voices. To feel something good for once. You blamed yourself, and so you became a willing victim. The way they looked at you hurt almost as much as what the spice did to you, but you welcomed it because you felt like you deserved it.”
“Most of them didn’t even know what happened - but they didn’t need to. They looked at you and saw just another washed-up junkie,” Callista’s sorrowful assessment - part observation, part conjecture - seemed almost like a backing narration to the flashbacks. “But even that was better than them knowing the truth. You’d rather be pitied than forsaken…”
As Elyd’s tears streamed down her cheeks, the skies above the cliffside darkened. The rain came down in sheets, slicking the stone and blurring the lines between the mountain and the OR and the ICU even further. Stomach pumps, dialysis, denial of the pain medication she so desperately needed for her legs - and for everything else, it felt like at the time.
The rocks that she gripped at gradually became slick and difficult to keep hold of through her climb, and her knuckles went practically white with her tightness of grip. She could feel the rising heat in her calves where the scars remained. Felt the old wounds practically splitting open, though when she glanced down they remained perfectly fine - but they still burned.
The words that Callista spoke into her mind had become cutting, more than just weights. They threatened to slice at her fingertips that precariously kept her clung to the wall. To open her gut and throat where she kept those old secrets and feelings so deeply hidden. Her breathing had become shallow and rapid, not the strong and controlled rhythm of her climb. Her head spun and swam at the same time, spiraling out of her clear focus.
“These are memories… not real…. not anymore.” her voice wavered, clearly trying to convince herself. She choked back the tears and rain, blinking hard to try and clear her vision. She rock face was still blurring between her rapidly shifting recollection of the past, and she desperately reached out to search for another handhold, for the next place she could anchor herself.
“Elly… Elly,” Callista’s voice became a little more insistent, urgent with concern. “That’s enough, Elly, come back.”
In the physical world, Callista clambered down from her rock and knelt in front of Elyd, leaning forward and pulling the scarred woman into a hugging embrace. “You’re right, they’re not real anymore. They can’t hurt you now. It’s okay…”
Elyd’s physical body had begun to sob through broken breaths and leaned into the hug - for that anchor she’d needed in the moment. Her vision and her memories swirled, though gradually came back to reality, and the mountain cliff that the two had been sitting atop.
“I… I failed didn’t I?” She’d choke out, trying to slow her breathing down, pulling from her practiced calming techniques. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut but all she saw was the memories in that darkness. So she kept them open, tears and cold air stinging.
“Shhh, shh… it’s okay, Elly,” Callista rubbed her back slowly. “You did great. There’s always room to get better, but you did awesome… I’m sorry I took things there.”
The young Jedi gave a small squeeze and pulled back just enough to look Elyd in the eyes. “You’re better than all that. You are. And no matter what happened back then… you’re here now. You’re loved and you’re wanted.”
She rubbed the back of her hand over one eye, clearing a portion of her vision. She was shivering from both the visceral experience and the sharp bite of the wind. “It felt so real.” The words curdled in her throat, disgust filling her tone - though it was unclear if it was disgust at the feeling, the memories, or herself.
“Don’t… don’t be sorry. They won’t be. When they try to hurt me.” She swallowed her sobs, as she was slowly able to pull her tattered mind together. She met the Jedi’s eyes as reality clarified once more. The slight hint of gold flecks almost seemed to remain, glinting in the light.
Mirrored there in Callista’s eyes were her own, natural gold flecks, along with specks of blue. The blonde nodded slightly. “Still… next time maybe we’ll aim for something less… visceral. Work our way up.”
With a glance down the cliff’s edge to the water below, and feeling again the biting chill of the wind, Callista frowned slightly and then looked back to Elyd. “…Why don’t we get down from here and maybe do something else? Go for a run, maybe?”
Elyd considered for a few silent moments, before accepting with a small nod. She rubbed at her bare biceps, smoothing out the goosebumps. “Yeah… something that doesn’t need my head.” She drew herself into the center of her mass and ran fingers through her hair. Regaining her sense of physical self with small, purposeful touches.
“We… will do it again… right? I can’t - won’t - give up.”
“Of course,” the smaller woman said as she stood up slowly and offered a hand to help Elyd do the same. “Just one step at a time.”
She took the offered hand; the support returned with a thankful expression. Elyd’s memory echoed once more, the familiar words once from a different source at the start of her rehab journey. She gave a small smile at the reminder.
“Yeah. One step at a time.”
