Small smile. "It is. Jerky, and things. But thank you."

...Is it all right if she stays like this just for a little while. This is not something she's found it especially easy to ensure she gets enough of either. 

It is more than alright; she is glad to help with this.

...More than all right?

She is a little tense - she never imagined this would be an issue at all, she could keep going like this but it is definitely going to be noticeable.

Why wouldn't it be?  You're - someone she trusts, Beryllia, and those are as precious as kyber.

...She is honoured.

Sirenna Herself seems to trust her, and - nothing has contradicted that - and she's being held - she trusts her too. Mostly. Quite a lot. 

She seems to be trembling a little, which is an extremely unusual and frightening state of affairs. 

She still - doesn't quite see why it's more than all right - no, in fact, she can, it's just an unusual way for people to relate to her these days -

Hey, hey, it's okay, let it out, you're feeling a lot right now, that's why you're shaking...  You don't need to be invincible, Beryllia.  Not here.  You're among people who already know that that's a mask.  You don't need it right now.

Looking at it from this angle, the Most High seeming invulnerable except to each other is extremely important for their position, and also not especially good for them as people. It's part of the business with them only taking as much leisure as is absolutely strategically necessary. It's another sign of how bad things are, seen from this point of view. 

But none of that actually applies here, does it. 

...And also Darth Mourne is more like her. She gets her as a person. Myre is very kind when she has five minutes to be, Khemez is an honourable man, but neither of them are her sort of person and it's not really safe to talk to anyone who is outside the confessional seal and not really even then. Except Sirenna, but She's also busy.

Beryllia should turn her attention on herself and put herself back together like any other penitent but actually she isn't going to do that right now, she's going to hold on and bury her face for a while. 

There you go, just like that.  It's going to be alright.  And fuck that 'should'.  You do not need it here.  Indeed, sometimes in order to heal first something needs to break.

Give yourself grace, Beryllia.  This is a lot of past trauma coming due all at once, and for now, there is nothing more pressing.  Let yourself be hurt, let yourself have been hurt, and grieve it.  This is the best way to use this time, is to tend to your needs.  You can allow yourself to have them.

Happily divine magic isn't the sort that can just lash out of you, or it really, really would, she itches she wants to tear a way out.

...She never even bothered to track them down and execute them. She could do it. It would be a waste of her strength better spent elsewhere, arguably at least a little sinful, probably the navies and privateers they sponsor got them and if not they'd be old now, but she could do it, it wouldn't even take her an hour. 

She shifts up and leans into her a little way. 

"...I'd hazard that at least divining if they're dead wouldn't be too loud.  It's normal to want - closure."

And, honestly, she wouldn't regret the slaving rapists' deaths overmuch, either.

But...

Vengeance isn't justice.  No matter how prettily it's dressed up.  If you are going to use overwhelming power to kill, you must not lose sight of the fact that power's purpose is to protect.

She holds Beryllia close, regardless.

She knows. She knows very well. Technically speaking it would be perfectly legal, she has every legitimate authority, there's a credible witness and that sure is a lot of mortal sins. But she is not going to actually do it, or even waste the effort finding out. That is not what miracles are for.

And - the thing is, it wasn't personal. Slavery is an entire trade in heathen lands. There are thousands more like them.

It is not the morality of it she was thinking about. Just - it's the kind of thought she doesn't normally express, she said it because - because she's having trouble coping and it seemed relevant.  

Ah.

...It is not impossible that she might be able to tell, with no god to offend by trying - no matter that she's sure enough Jedi would call it a frivolous use of the Force in kind.

But yes, she takes your meaning.

...It wasn't personal for them, perhaps.  For you...  It was, in fact, horribly personal.  It was, in enough of a sense, about you, and...  Well.  You have every right to feel wounded by that.

...Indeed. She had to be beaten quite severely, as well, to stop her resisting, and the pain was considerable, even when she was Chosen she couldn't afford to heal it until the day after they took the ship. 

(She is long since over the pointless self-hatred of not getting a clear enough conception of the Goddess to be Chosen until too late, realistically it's surprising she ever managed it.)

It was mostly the feeling of being - unable to escape, constrained, unable to do anything, only ever waiting for it to happen again - she was very young, at the time.

(She's still absent from the Force, but it's obvious anyway that the cracks are starting to show. She's tangibly tense, almost vibrating, there's too much energy in her and she can't work miracles and there's nothing to stab and nothing to work on and nothing to do-)

That's probably why the current situation doesn't sit well with her. She needs to be doing something, anything, something real.

...She's on the one hand tempted to offer a spar, something that's definitely real - but on the other hand she's not entirely sure that would be a particularly good idea, nor can the Force help her solve this one.  Your thoughts, Beryllia?

She loves sparring. She doesn't get to do it often, but she loves it. It'll be interesting, not being able to do any magic - Ophelia is unarmoured, they could go barehanded, she'd probably have to remove the Regalia to make it fair - normally she'd just heal any injuries but she cannot without attracting attention - 

She's actually armored to a degree, but yes, not like what she expects you'd call armor.

"I think I'm willing to take the risk that one miracle is loud to find out if smaller miracles are quiet, if we do want to try more full-contact sparring.  I have reason to suspect they might be.  And it wouldn't be overly difficult to mock up a blunted spear of similar behavior."

Being able to do that without immediately having to potentially fight off an attack from the Emperor would make a difference.

"That would - be incredible, I think. The spear is a holy artefact, you can study it - you will be safe but it burns the wicked to touch it."

The thought of sparring with her is making her excited, the world feeling real again and not just too intense. 

... She'd like to stay here just a little longer and hold her a little tighter. She doesn't cry very much, hasn't really in a long time, but her eyes are a little damp now.

Absolutely be held as firmly and for as long as you'd like.

When that's done, once Beryllia has let herself cry, as and if she wants to...

"Shall we try healing just a small injury, first?"

It takes her a while. 

It doesn't quite feel like crying would work - it's more a kind of tension than it is grief. A kind of inability to escape or a kind of heaviness or hollowness - but she does, a very little. 

And - yes, that sounds wise. 

She does have her own ability to heal herself, at least, though it kind of sucks because she optimized her training for quick and reliable more than 'not feeling awful'.

She'll just make a small cut somewhere unimportant.