Writing: Aftermath

    ...to Jaydn's death.

    I'm making up for my lack of posting, see? Two posts. Maybe three, if I can hang onto consciousness long enough to work on the next thing I've got in mind.

    These are just my scrawls for the aftermath of Jade's death. Truth be told, while I didn't shed a tear writing the actual death scene, I cried writing these. (I suppose the time at which I wrote it might've been part of that. It was either really later, or really early. One of the two. Somewhere between 12 AM and 2 AM, how about that?)

    Other notes to keep in mind:
    -- Charro ki sotan -- Gogamian, an apology.
    -- Charro shik -- Gogamian, I love you.
    Jay equates to Jhidek Vhander, Ruu's (epic) hubby who she loves to bits.
    Charles is Jade's contact who is amazing and originally from the steampunk alternate reality.


    Novarr held Sarris by the shoulders, his voice shaking as he told her, “Don’t blame yourself for this, Sar. You can’t blame yourself for this.”
    She shook her head, grabbing his forearms, but the Warrior couldn’t force his hands away. She drew in shuddering breaths as she continued to shake her head, over and over and over, unable to stop, because this could not be happening.
    Dear God, don’t do this to me, Sarris begged silently as Novarr pulled her close, dropping his head to her shoulder.
 

    Ruu’s grip tightened on the comm. and her voice was so very quiet. “You’re lying to me.”
    “I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry. I wish I were, but I’m not.” Novarr said to her, sounding as unstable as her heart was beginning to feel.
    “No, Dad, you have to be lying to me. Jade can’t be—be—“ She couldn’t finish, couldn’t think of her little sister – her precious little sister – and imagine never being able to see her brown eyes again. “Please, Daddy, don’t tell me this,” Ruu pleaded, her voice catching in her throat as the first tear slid down her cheek. “Please, Daddy.”
    “I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry.”
    She crossed her free arm over her stomach, a sob breaking from her throat. “How, Daddy? Who took her away from us?”
    It took a moment for him to answer, voice rough as well and Ruusan tried to remember if she’d ever seen her father cry. “Her ship was shot down by space pirates, Ruu. Charles tracked her down a couple of days ago.”
    “Was anyone there? Please tell me she wasn’t alone, at the very least, Daddy.” Where was Jay?
    “She wasn’t. A local found her before she— before she was gone,” the Hunter explained to his remaining daughter, fighting the urge to breakdown again. “He said... he said that she had things she wanted to tell us through him.”
    Ruu clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs, desperate for someone to hold her, but Jay had gone to his parents for a bit to talk with Raina and his dad.
    “She said she loved us, Ruu. All of us. And that—“ he halted to try and regain his composure. “Charro ki sotan and charro shik. He said those were her last words to us, Ruu.”
    The woman nodded, unable to speak, unable to get the words from her closed throat, because Jaydn was gone. Jaydn was dead.


    Neither Sarris nor Novarr slept that night. Her grief came in the tears that traced her face, not a noise passing from her lips, but Novarr’s chest heaved for air as he cried for his lost daughter.
    The apartment was so black that night, so empty and lonely and Novarr clung to Sarris, clung to his wife, because he didn’t know how to handle this.
    He couldn’t handle this. His Jaydn, his baby girl who held his hand so very tightly that first day even though she hadn’t known a lick of Galactic. So he clung to Sarris and tried not to think, tried not to realize she was gone forever.


    And since that all looks like such a puny amount, I'm going to go find my initial scrawl for when Novarr brought Jaydn home in the very beginning, when she's five and Ruu is seven, I believe.
    Additional notes:
    -- Ey, Ji -- Gogamian, yes and no.
    Galactic equates to English.
    And Novarr is a bounty hunter. Have I mentioned that before?


    “Sar, you around?” Novarr called, leading Jaydn into the apartment by the hand.
    The five-year old studied her new surroundings with quiet interest, and looked up at him with a bit of question in her gaze.
    “Hang on a sec,” he said, ruffling her hair and heading farther into the space.
    Jaydn trailed along at his heels as Sarris appeared with a basket of clothes on her hip and Ruusan hanging onto her arm, in the midst of asking something.
    His wife and daughter both paused at his small shadow.
    “Say, Sar, how much of your Gogamian can you recall?” Novarr asked with a congenial grin.
    “...Why?” She said, setting her basket on the ground, gray eyes on Jaydn.
    “Because this little lady doesn’t seem to speak a lick of Galactic,” the man explained, guiding the child forward with a hand on her head. “It was a very quiet trip home, to say the least.”
    Sarris crouched down to Jaydn’s level, meeting the girl’s brown gaze with a calculating look. It was a moment before she spoke, and Novarr didn’t understand a word of what she said.
    But Jaydn seemed to perk up and she replied to whatever Sarris had said with a simple, “Ji.”
    Sar glanced up at him. “Where are her parents?”
    “Dead.” He said, settling down on the floor as well. “Gogamian pirate ship, and she was the only one left after all was said and done. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with her, so I decided to take responsibility.”
    His wife nodded and returned her attention to Jaydn. The five-year-old voiced what seemed to be a question.
    Sarris glanced over her shoulder at Ruusan, whose blue eyes portrayed her confusion with the situation.
    Novarr smiled at his daughter and held out an arm for her while Sarris answered Jaydn’s inquiry.
    “What’s she saying?” Ruu asked, hugging his waist.
    “She wants to know if you’re our daughter, because your eyes are so bright and your hair is so curly,” Sarris said, without looking away from Jaydn.
    Novarr reached out to tap the child on the shoulder, bringing her gaze around. He pointed to his chest and said, “Novarr.”
    Accustomed to this game, Jaydn pointed to herself and dutifully repeated, “Jaydn.”
    He tapped Ruu’s nose. “Ruusan.”
    Jaydn blinked. “Ruusan?”
    “Ey,” Sarris broke in, then continued with a sentence that included Ruusan’s name and her own.
    “Sar, you need to ask her if she wants to be part of our family,” Novarr murmured after a few minutes of interchange in Gogamian between Sarris and Jaydn.
    Gray eyes flicked to him, and he caught the hopeful light in her eyes as she nodded.
    Jaydn waited patiently for them to finish talking, looking around the apartment with now-undisguised curiosity.


    ...You have no idea how many little red lines I've got in this bit, as Sar, Novarr, Ruusan, and Jaydn, are all not included in the dictionary and thus get marked as spelled wrong.

    At any rate, that shall be all for this post.

    I hope you maybe enjoyed it, despite the initial depressing stuff and then the subsequent heavy-weighting of Jaydn's death, and thank you, as always, for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me to know that somebody actually enjoys reading the little scribbles I come up with.

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulties.

Writing: "The End" (Jaydn's Death)

    Man, its been a while, again. Which I apologize for, profusely.

    Life has been life, I have been me, and writing had been predominantly with my bestie, Penny. We've been working on that deviant storyline I mentioned... a long time ago. If I've mentioned it at all. I can't actually remember right now.

    In light of that, I've decided to post a bit I wrote for Jaydn, Ruusan's sister and my most troubling character, in the original storyline, where she is... not who I wish she'd turned out to be.

    Things may be a bit jumbled, as I haven't posted anything with Jaydn prior to now, but, to be blunt, this scrawl is the one I wrote the night I decided that Jade would die. I know that it's kind of heartless to put it that way, but it wasn't looking like Jade was ever going to change her way. While her actions weren't exactly bad, they still hurt, both herself and her family.

    (After this, I think I'm going to write out a summary-ish something for the three different storylines involving Penny and I's characters, to help you keep them straight as I inevitably post a some stuff that I've had tucked into my back pocket.)

    Jaydn is Gogamian, which is the language that she speaks throughout the scrawl. I shall provide a translation, so you can understand her last words:
     -- Shak -- A curse, which she shouldn't be saying, but does anyways.
     -- Charro ki sotan -- A very sincere apology
     -- Charro shik -- I love you.

    (There's a reason they both start with charro, but I'm too lazy to go look up the document explaining it all.)

     Alright, I won't keep you any longer.


    “I’ll be back sometime soon,” Jaydn promised, on the doorstep of Ruusan and Jhidek’s apartment, bag over her shoulder.
    Vivian clung to her legs stubbornly, but Ruu smiled, Ellora in the sling on her front.
    “You’d better be back, Jade, or you will be in serious trouble,” her elder sister warned, dragging her into a hug.
    “Yes, Ruu,” she said obediently, embracing her sister in return.
    “I love you, Jaydn. Be safe, alright? I want to see you back in one piece.” Ruu’s voice was serious next to her ear, but it drew a partial smile from Jaydn.
     “Love you too, sis,” she murmured, drawing away and ruffling her niece’s hair in parting.

~~*~~

    Jaydn leaned back in the seat, holding the comm. to her ear as she watched stars slip by out the viewport. “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m going to be back in town by next week, then we can do something. Dinner, maybe.”
    “You know I worry about you?” Novarr questioned over the link.
    An amused smile tugged at her mouth. “Yes, but you really don’t need to. I’m fine, truly.”
    His sigh was lengthy. “You said that the day you nearly died, Jaydn.”
    Jade’s good humor fled in a heartbeat, and she didn’t say anything in reply, struggling with the pain that rose up in her chest.
    “We want to see you in a week, Jade, and no later or I’ll have your mother send out all her little minions to find you and so we can bring you back.”
    “Mom doesn’t have minions, Dad,” Jaydn reminded quietly, pushing her fingers into her pant pockets.
    “You know what I mean.”
    If she could have seen him, she knew he would’ve been shrugging in that offhand way he always did.
    “I love you, Jade. You my favorite Jaydn in the whole galaxy.”
    “I’m the only Jaydn you’ve got, so I hope I’m your favorite,” Jade said, unable to resist the urge to poke some halfhearted humor back at him.
    “Exactly,” Novarr murmured. “The only one I’ve got, so be careful and give your mom a call. She worries a lot about you.”
    “I’ve got it, Dad.”
    It was only after he bid her farewell and she closed the link between them that she realized she’d forgotten to tell him I love you in return. Well, she could do it when she got home. Filing that memo away, she keyed in Charles' comm. number to find out where they were meeting the next day.

~~*~~

    The only thing Jaydn could process when she regained consciousness was that pain was burning, tearing, and ripping its way through her. It was like fire in her veins and she couldn’t keep from screaming. Over and over, until she had no breath left in her lungs to continue crying out.
    Heat surrounded her, but when Jade tried to open her eyes to see why, she couldn’t, and she couldn’t move either.
    It took one experimental twitch of her legs to realize why, and to make agony take over her mind again. She couldn’t feel her toes, but not because her legs were numb, but because there was nothing to feel from her knees downward.
    Jaydn drew in a ragged breath, reaching out, scrabbling for something to try and pull herself upright. Pain was overwhelming her to the point of being unable to function though and she collapsed back onto the metal floor beneath her.
    Coherency drifted and Jade didn’t see the way blood pooled beneath her body from her severed legs, its edges spreading by the moment.

    “—otta wake up!!” A voice yelled above her.
    Jaydn cracked her eyes open, almost unable to do so because of a stinging sensation that she couldn’t pinpoint the reason for. Why am I so cold?
    A hazy, blurry face hovered overhead, with a shock of blond hair and blue eyes that made her think of Ruu.
    I’m not seeing her again, am I?
    “My dad’s coming,” the boy said, his words too loud for her taste. “He’ll know what to do. You’re gonna be okay.”
    Shak, I forget to tell Dad I loved him when we talked...and I never called Mom like I said I would...
    “Hey, are you awake? You need to try and stay conscious, okay?”
    Charles is going to be waiting at the rendezvous point...
    “Oi, don’t close your eyes,” he said urgently, and Jaydn felt a light touch on her forehead.
    “I need...” she started but her voice wouldn’t come out.
    Jade blinked her eyes open again, staring upwards, at the gray roof above her, swallowing to try and make the words come out. The boy was there, a frown on his fair face.
    “I need...” and she heard the cracking words sound this time, and nearly closed her eyes again, in relief this time. “I need...”
    “Hey, you shouldn’t talk. Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise.”
    The woman would’ve shaken her head if it didn’t hurt so much. The coldness was spreading; she could feel it in her chest now, creeping closer and closer to her heart.
    “You have to tell them...” Jaydn managed, every sound that left her tongue burning her throat. “You tell them that I love them.”
    “Who?” He asked before he could stop himself. “Wait, no, you’re going to tell them yourself. You’re gonna be okay.”
    A ghost of a smile pulled at her lips. Jade wondered if the moist feeling on them was blood. “I’m not.”
    “Yes, you are.” Blue eyes were fierce with determination. “You’re gonna go home to your family and you’re gonna be okay.”
    “I’m bleeding out, buddy,” Jaydn said faintly, vision blurring again from the extended effort to focus. “I just want you... to tell them... that I love them.”
    There was a long silence from above her, then an uneven voice said, “Okay. I’ll tell them, but only if you can’t.”
    Sadness tugged at her consciousness and Jade lifted one arm, fingers outspread. At least, she thought they were. The coldness had long since penetrated her hands. “Hold my hand?” She requested, closing her eyes.
    A hand wrapped around her, warm and rough and alive. “You’ve gotta be okay.”
   Jaydn shook her head absently, holding tight to him, to that last bit of life. Pain had all but faded now. Physical pain, that was. Not the pain in her heart.
    “Tell Ruu that I love her...” she whispered. “Tell Momma that I love her... Tell Daddy that...I love him...”
    The words were coming out quieter, but Jade refused to let them fail her now.
    “Charro ki sotan. Tell them... charro ki sotan... and... charro shik...”
    The hand around hers tightened. “I’ve got it. I’ll tell them. I promise you, I will tell them. I won’t forget.”
    “Thank you,” Jaydn said, and drew in a last breath, then the coldness reached her heart...
     And made it stop beating.


   With that pleasant note, let me inform you that, after Cameron dies, Ruu moves to Norsha'acite to get away from the memories and ends up falling in love with Jhidek Vhander a couple of years later. Ellora is their first daughter. And Charles is an awesome side character who works with Jaydn occasionally as her contact. He originated in the alternate Steampunk storyline that Penny and I did, but I love him so much that I drag him along to other realities.

    Also, I'm going to double-check this, but if there are any glaring errors, please blame it on the fact that I wrote this out while sitting in a moving van on a highway in Korea. Tends to do funny things to your spelling quality.

    I feel like I'm a roll, so don't be too surprised if there is a post or two stacked on top of this. I have some aftermath that I wrote that I'll probably put up.

    Thank you so much for reading and putting up with my highly erratic posting schedule! And sorry for putting up this up right after Valentine's Day.

   Actually, how was your Valentine's? Hopefully, it went really well and maybe you even got some chocolate. I got a bothersome stitch out of my mouth, a freebie flower at the commissary,  and then went to the airport to meet our cousins' grandparents who had a layover here in Seoul.

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulties.