Hours pass in his sleep. The ear pods falls from Vin's ears at some point in his tossing and turning, letting the gentle melody transition into the symphony now playing for no audience to invade the emptiness of the cabin. A rising crescendo of chanting, horns, and strings... The old soldier groans from an ache of pain his side. Vin grasps at his side and his hand is covered in the crimson of his life. He looks to Drael, who stares back at him in horror, unable to speak. "Help me." Vin shouts, but he notices the man straining against an invisible wall. Vin recognizes the deadly hum of a lightsaber behind him. The crash the blades make as they hit a solid object makes him jump and turn, ignoring the pain. He turns to face Lebenha, Sovia, and Ceph - lightsabers all ablaze. Each attempting to strike at one another with the blade. There is anger is Lebenha's stance - Vin recognizes it from her brief outburst before. Her blade seems to seek out Sovia's neck, only to be forced to parry a clumsy thrust from Ceph. Pandemonium unfolds between three, and Vin can't decide who is the aggressor or the defender. A few meters away in the relative safe of a balcony, Vin notices Nils standing to the side smiling quietly as if admiring a painter's masterful strokes upon a canvas. It wasn't the strangest reaction Vin had seen from the man, but his lack of apathy in helping his buddy Ceph seemed even more off-putting. Vin looks to his side, noticing the dead Devaronian's blaster in its holster. He draws it in practice coordination and points it toward the three crazed duelists, but he can't shake Nil's look. It grasps at his thoughts. The calmness. Lack of emotion. He looks at the man again in confusion, but the three Jedi's blades swinging and swiping ever closer demand his attention. Unsure of the situation, Vin shouts, "STOP!" Their blades continue to flourish and block as they dance across the hanger, ignoring him. He fires a warning bolt at the warring cluster, ensuring that it would not accidently make a mark, but Sovia leaps high into a flip dodging a slice as the projectile sails through the air. She angles her blade to deflect it but not back toward him. She turns the energy into her two opponent's below and the bolt sizzles as it is deflected between the three of them in a deadly dervish. The blood pumps in his ears as the frustration grows, drowning out the battle. But all of it, the gleeful man on the balcony, the reason for his friends fighting, or Drael's invisible prison no longer matter. Vin feels his insides ignite in a blistering fire. A gout of pure pain. His eyes glaze over and the world goes still. In the slowness, his head bows low to gaze at his chest. The red glow disguises the blood splattering across his sternum - the charred flesh and gapping hole chiseled through his armor. T he blade vanishes with its work done. He does not here the sizzling noise of the lightsaber deactivating. Vin instinctive tries to turn to see his attacker. Behind him as the world seems to sway, his eye lock upon the child holding the cylindrical hilt. He couldn't have been no older than ten years old. "Why?" Vin asks with a groan, the last bits of air escaping his lungs and a tear in his eyes from the suffering. The man feels old, like more than his years have ever weighed upon him. He can stand no longer. His legs buckle from his girth as he tumbles, feeling the edge of railing he could not see, screaming a scream that he could not hear. He plummets head first, the duracrete pavement incoming. One hundred meters.... ... fifty meters... ten meters. Vin bangs his head on the top of the bunk above him as he recoils from the deadly impact. The pain was a welcome reprieve. Vin noticed the buds on the floor still playing some other classical piece. He was never so grateful to be alive; to be wrong. His eyes tear up in the joy of it.
