A Pass In the Halls

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

The Handmaiden moved like a slithering snake, her head hidden beneath a deep hood, her body consumed by black robes, her hands tucked within her sleeves. She seemed to float along, no echoing footsteps, no pitter patter of bare feet, nothing. She moved like a ghost, flowing through the halls and avoided by all. People seemed to avoid looking at her, seemed to avoid eye contact with her. They shifted and moved away from her, from apprentice to master, simply avoiding her touch, her very gaze.

They did not fear her.

No.

There was nothing to fear from one such as her, they feared the thoughts she provoked, the ideas that she poached from the deepest recesses of the mind. It was here within the Halls of the Sith Temple that those thoughts were easily found, here within the darkest depths of the abyss that the Handmaiden was within her element. The walls seemed to grow and shrink as she walked, the spikes upon the ceiling seemed to lower and pressure against those who wandered by her, a strange rumbling reaching through the earth as she simply moved through the halls.

This was the domain of her mistress, the center of power and strength. Those who walked here tread carefully, and those who did not found themselves with questions to answer. An odd sensation would linger within the spine, and a thought would come to the forefront of the mind. The Handmaiden stepped forward, her eyes settling in front of her and her cloak just barely pulling back.

The sound of boots wore against the floor, a feeling of trepidation and stigma hung in the air. The Handmaiden ceased her floating, coming to a stop as her head tilted up and to the side, her hood floating to only cover half her face.

A bright yellow eye would search, locking onto bright baby blues.

 

[Hal Terrano]

He was a man that operated on auto-pilot.

An existence fully dominated by the notion of routine. Wake up. Breakfast. Exercise. Archive. Sleep. Was it this regimented process that had kept him sane thus far in life? Or was it such programming that had doomed his humanity from the start. A creature lacking spontaneity, perhaps even a will.

Heavy-boots almost marched down the hall of the Sith Temple, blue eyes unfocused and staring straight ahead, as if anybody else that existed around him ceased to exist. Blinkered, eliminating any and all distractions that might have disrupted precious routine.

It was still early morning and he had just eaten, there was absolutely no question that it was a breakfast consisting of plain oats. Teaspoon of honey. Slow release energy for another day ahead of him. Looks like snot! Next in his itinerary was a run, cardio being just as important as strength in a balanced body.

A moment. A pause in his step. His gaze becoming focused as the architecture of the temple hall came back into vision, stepping out of the blur. There was a woman ahead of him, hooded and more importantly staring, a single yellow eye daring to step out from behind the shroud. In that moment Terrano's advance stopped, and his Yuuzhan Vong biots stared back.

He frowned, at her and in general.

Then as quickly as it had happened, the moment ended. He resumed the march, inwardly disapproving of that slight delay in his schedule.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

The man could keep walking, he would keep walking.

The Handmaiden moved forward, her step still there, the pitter patter of her feet still silent. He would move past her, slowly walking down the hall of the Sith Temple. Gradually he would make his way further and further down the hallway, yet the sight of others would disappear. Acolytes, Knights, even Masters began to simply go. Either they disappeared far off in the distance or they walked past Hal, never to be seen again. The halls themselves continued their odd twists, though never turning. There was no bend in the road, no curve, no intersection to take.

The hall seemed to stretch forever, expanding and stretching as Hal simply kept on walking.

Eventually the walls themselves began to change, began to shift and alter themselves. They turned from harsh lines and spiked ceilings, flattening and changing in such a subtle manner that one would not have noticed them. Curves began to form within the rock, soft architecture replacing the cold jagged edges that usually made up the construction of the Sith Temple. Everything would slowly shift, everything would slowly change.

Then Hal would find himself wandering past the same figure he had passed before.

The Handmaiden stood, hooded and cloaked, both eyes hidden yet a small smile pulling at her lips, the tattoo upon her chin shifting slightly as the expression carried on her face.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Initially he noticed nothing.

Logical given that the finer details were often lost when one simple walked forward through life, not daring to stop and turn their head.

It was only when he had carried himself long enough without turning that he even realised that something was off. He should have turned by now, perhaps maybe even a while ago. Forehead creased slightly, born half from concern and half from anger.

Terrano kept walking, but craned his neck to look behind himself. There was nobody behind him. His scowl deepened at this revelation, it wasn't right. Even if those he had walked past were long gone, surely there were those travelling in the same direction as him. What was this? Or perhaps a better question was, who was this?

Nonetheless the man continued going forward, having to come out of his autopilot to actually observe what was happening around him. Something was different, and it wasn't just the sudden absence of life alongside him within the hall.

Where was he?

Eventually he came across another soul. One that was hooded, face half obscured but the other half clearly smiling. The woman from before? The one that had been staring at him with that single predatory eye?

Finally, Hal came to a stop before the woman, a stony frown etched into his pale features. “Cease this,” he stated coldly, plainly, as he usually did.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Cease?" Her lips parted, though the word that she spoke did not match the way that her mouth moved. Instead it seemed as though she were saying much more, though nothing but silence fell from her lips. Her face was still hidden beneath the cloak, her eyes tucked just beneath the tip of the cowl. Her horns stuck out from beneath the black cloth, both of the protruding from her face as she cocked her head slightly to the side. "Such a thing is not within my power."

Again her lips did not match what she had said, the words only ringing within the air.

The walls around them kept changing, altering themselves almost naturally. The stone eroded, heavy spiked faces drawing into tight curves, jagged pillars forming into rounded columns. Everything seemed to form together, become much more neat, much more ornate. The ceiling would become less oppressive, growing above them until it reached the very skies. Statues appeared behind The Handmaiden, great stone giants that stretched above the two Sith.

Hal would recognize this, he would see where they were, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

It was a memory of the past, an echo that had been torn from time and space. They stood within it's grand halls, the Handmaiden observing the former Jedi with interest, the rim of her yellow eyes showing beneath her hood.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Evidently it was not the answer that he had wanted.

The default blue that his Yuuzhan Vong biots had sat at began to change, deep crimson swirling throughout his eyes, like blood upon ice. Anger. Those alien eyes always worked to be betray him, changing colour alongside emotion and leaving him as an open book to all that wished to read.

Regardless of his rage the scene still shifted around him, the once very oppressive walls of the Sith Temple ever shifting, still changing around him. At first the man didn't understand, not why they were changing nor what they were becoming but it soon became very evident.

The man felt his chest grow tight.

Almost frantically Hal looked around, as if there might have been a flaw, as if such a vision had a rip or a tear in the seams in which he could return to the gloom of the Sith. He wasn't a Jedi any longer, he didn't belong here and just the very sight of the Coruscant Jedi Temple made him feel sick. His right hand balled into a fist, thumb tucked underneath the fingers as he feverishly squeezed upon his digits.

It wasn't real, he had to remember that, it wasn't real, he wasn't there.

“What is this?” Hal hissed at the woman through gritted teeth, presuming of course, that she was still there.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

The Handmaiden said nothing for a time, she simply looked about herself. Her eyes wandered around the hall, curiosity perhaps. She peered at the architecture, the ornate stonework and the great statues that loomed over them. It was a reminder of the temple of the Sith back on Coruscant. Though the architecture was far less harsh and the building itself didn't seem to stare there was the same oppressive feeling, as if one was constantly being watched by their betters, constantly being expected to strive further, faster, harder. The Handmaiden shifted, her head turning back towards Hal as he demanded answers of her.

The hood upon her head slid back slightly further as she head tipped forward, her body moved in serpent like terms, her eyes settling on the crimson orbs burning with Hal's skull. Sharp, almost fang like teeth revealed themselves within the Handmaidens maw, a grotesque after image of a smile appearing on the woman's face.

"Why." She began, her lips moving out of sync once again. "It's home, Hal."

Her voice seemed to accent his name, causing it to resound within the air. "Don't you remember? Have you forgotten?"

This time the woman herself seemed to change and shift, her cloak turning color, her eyes changing color, a slow shift occurring as she stood before Hal. Black turned to beige, yellow turned to blue, hard features and cruel chesire grins turned to soft and patient smiles.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Illusion or not, his surroundings brought more than just discomfort. The slow agonising torment brought forth by Vrag's hand had left him broken, his Jedi ideals shattered and left upon a dungeon floor. Hal Terrano was no longer a Jedi, no, he was a disgrace and a coward. Nothing more.

He forced his eyes shut as her disjointed lips claimed that this place was his home, his right hand still squeezing upon his thumb.

The man could only wish that he had forgotten.

“It was my home.”

Unfortunately upon opening his eyes, it was still the Coruscant Jedi Temple that surrounded him, amplifying any sense of disgrace that coursed throughout his veins. It seemed that the longer he remained, the more real it all seemed. It wasn't, however. He had to remember that, lest this scene would drive him to the brink of insanity.

Even the woman before him was changing, adapting to the world around them, becoming softer, kinder, until before him was standing the very picture of the Jedi, something that only caused further strife.

“It is not my home any longer,” he replied, voice taut and on edge, “I am not a Jedi.”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

The Handmaiden stood before him, her face changed, her tattoos gone.

The hood had slipped from her head now, her hair spiraling down the back of her head in tightly curled locks, her horns sticking out from beneath it. Her eyes were a pristine blue, her lips a full red and her features much softer than before. By most, she would have been considered beautiful. Her robes had changed as well, no longer the color of the Sith but a drab beige that would remind one of those clothes worn by Jedi Masters. She stood tall, her shoulders fixed into place as she stood before him.

"Are you so sure, Hal?" Her voice matched her lips this time, softer, soothing almost.

"What makes you think that?" Suddenly something seemed to shift behind her, a wisp of a shadow that appeared for half a second, a face of malice and anger, of hatred and destruction, the Hand of the Dark Lord. "Because of what she did to you?"

The woman before Hal stood firm, her gentle eyes searching his features as though she were looking at a different man than most. Her smile was kind, waiting, patient.

 

[Hal Terrano]

If there were anything that Hal Terrano was sure about, it was this. Months and months of this self-destructive agonising, he knew what he was and it was not a Jedi, maybe once upon a time, but not now and likely never again.

“I am sure,” he replied aggressively, through his still-gritted teeth.

The Black Beast's image flickered for but a moment as the hooded woman continued her line of questioning. She was in his head, she had to be. Delving through and dredging up his memories but for what purpose? For fun? Another tormentor? Or for reasoning beyond his understanding.

“Because I am a coward, and I am weak,” he continued, squeezing his thumb now so hard that it was beginning to pain him. These facts were evident, Hal had stood idly by while Vrag had near tortured a man to death, he had been unable to help while that same woman snapped Lira's neck, he had fallen in…

Tea. Spoonful of honey.

“Therefore I am not suited to be a Jedi,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the soft, almost soothing visage of the hooded woman before him, “Why are you in my head?”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Am I in your head?" The woman asked, her voice short and terse. It was clear that she was playing a part now, the part of an advocate, though for what exactly was still on the table. The Handmaiden did not move from her place on the floor, did not even budge. Yet both she and Hal seemed to get close to one another, the hallways stretching and then slowly collapsing in on itself as the two figures suddenly stood right in front of one another. The Handmaiden peered up at Hal, her bright blue eyes staring at pale red.

"Lots of Jedi are cowards." Her hand moved once again, the willowy wisp appeared once more, this time with an image of a red haired woman. A blade crossed through her stomach, a lightsaber piercing her skull at the same time. Her image disappeared just as she did floating away. "They run.They stand for nothing."

The wisp appeared once again, the image of a dozen or so Jedi running the day that the One Sith had attacked, a dozen more turning to the darkside.

"Do you hate these men and women? Do you despise them as much as yourself?" Her lips pressed together, thinning as she questioned him.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Still no answers, leaving him further unsure of what all of this was and why.

As if he were exercising both his demons and his ghosts, the image of Diana Moridena flashed again for another moment of memory. The manner in which the woman died was tragic, but it also was true that her demise was one of cowardice. He could remember the last conversation he had had with her ghost, and if the man had a sense of humour he might have found it hysterical that she had been right.

“I did dislike them,” he conceded, staring into soft blue eyes, “I openly disliked them. However circumstance stands differently for many of those Jedi, most joined the Order later in life and by then could not deny their human emotions. It is only natural to be scared in the face of defeat."

He wasn't exactly sure why he was defending the Jedi that he had once admonished so, perhaps it was born from a better understanding.

“I was supposed to be better," he spat finally, after a small pause, real bile emerging upon that last word.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

With that, it was like the snake had it's prey. The Handmaiden did not react, at least not visibly, but something within the dream shifted, something within the temple around them seemed to squirm and shake, as though a trap had just been sprung. There would be a sudden twist of the walls, the floor would begin moving, and everything would slowly fall away. The hall around them bent and warped, the ceiling tearing away and the walls simply peeling to the side.

"Why?" she asked, her voice a soft soothing roll of honey.

"What makes you so much better than them?" There was a hint of a hiss at the end of her tone. "Because you were born to be Jedi? Raised to be one of them? Did your life somehow become different because you had purpose?"

She waited a moment, then spoke again. "No."

"You are no different then them." Her voice was still that same soft tone, that calm rolling tide. "You are no better. No worse. You are simply another failure."

There was no harshness in her voice, no bite in her tone. She was not insulting, she was simply stating fact. Her eyes had glazed slightly, her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks and the pale blue seeming to spread across the whites of her eyes. An echo formed around her, an odd ghost of a form. The walls that had collapsed around them had long since turned into sheer black, The Handmaiden and Hal standing upon a massive stone slab within the Abyss.

 

[Hal Terrano]

It was truth that he thought he was better than the other Jedi for that fact alone, or perhaps not better but worse.

He didn't hold that attachment and love of family that others did. He hadn't experienced life that others had, life that was often cruel and granted fears but in the same breath hopes, dreams and wants. All he had known, was not to be a human or a willing sentient being but rather a Jedi. His purpose was to be a Jedi. That was surely what made him superior…

...but it hadn't, and he was wrong.

The scene around them fell away, revealing complete nothingness around them, all except for the very ground they were standing on. Although he had a feeling that it was possible that the slab would fall away too, leaving nothingness to devour him. He almost wanted it.

Anger was beginning to subside, the red in his eyes draining away only to be filled in once more by a deep blue that almost seemed black.

“I am,” he conceded simply, almost sadly, already knowing such to be true.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Yet." Her voice returned to that rolling honey, the soothing sound that was not only pleasant to the ears, but almost addicting. "There's something else, isn't there? Something more?"

This time it was not their surroundings that changed, but the Handmaiden herself.

Her body seemed to warp and shift, moving like a snake. The beige robes seemed to fall away, leaflets peeling away from the fabric to reveal the black that still sat underneath. Her face quickly returned to it's old form as well, her horns becoming darker, the tattoos peering through her pink flesh, her lips becoming whiter, filed down teeth flashing for half a second as her eyes turned from a deep piercing blue to a bright yellow. She seemed to stretch slightly, reeling from the experience of what she had been. The black robe upon her shoulders seemed to melt into the abyss around them, becoming one with the darkness that hung within the air.

"Why do you think you failed?" This time her voice erupted from behind her, lips moving out of sync once more.

At the same time Hal would begin to feel his skin crawl, the darkness around them slowly encroaching upon him, leaning on him and wrapping him tightly to hold him in place. "Was it her? Did she start this? Did she do this to you?"

The wisp appeared again, but this time there was no face, only a sound that would ring in Hal's ears. click, click, click.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Her kindly, almost reassuring Jedi guise started to shed, as the hooded woman sought to probe further. Perhaps even beyond the realms of what Hal Terrano knew himself. He knew that he was weak, he knew that he was a coward but while he had spent all that time focusing upon the fact that he was a failure, he rarely asked the question of why he was a failure.

This, he was not entire sure of.

Then it began to creep in, a sense of dread, a weight that sat upon his chest and made it difficult to breathe, coming alongside a sound he had not heard in a very long time. Click, click, click. Memories that he had strived to push away and forget, hoping and praying that if he did not remember then it did not happen.

His first moment of failure, his first taste of fear.

Nemene Talith.

As quickly as they had changed from crimson to dark blue, yellow began to creep into his biots, a craven yellow that spoke of fear.

“I don't know,” he spoke, usually stoic voice quicker now, more frantic, “I don't want to do this. I want to go back.”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

She said nothing.

That faint wisp seemed to dance around Hal, move around him.

The resounding click, click, click seemed to carry through the empty blackness, sounding out over and over again.

It was the mark of something, the beginning of a path that none had traveled down. The Handmaiden cocked her head slightly, the hood having long since been replaced on her head. The Abyss around them seemed to have swallowed her up, nothing of her robes showing within the dark, nothing but her face and horns. It was as if she had become a part of their surroundings, as if she had simply seamlessly melted into the abyss. She did not smile, nor did she taunt or poke at him, she only stared, her yellow eyes meeting his own.

"She began it, didn't she?" Her voice resounded, this time coming from all around Hal, assaulting him. "She was the beginning of it all. Your fall, your failure, everything that happened after it. She was the beginning of it, the first press of the stone."

Her head cocked the other way, face moving within the darkness, slowly floating around Hal as she observed him. "Tell me, Hal. Say it."

 

[Hal Terrano]

It didn't stop.

That clicking of heels upon the ground. Forcing his eyes shut Hal could see flashes of it all in his mind, the harsh lighting, those clinical white walls. Click click click. How many days had he been left there? How many others before him? Left waiting. Hanging. Why didn't she kill him? Click click click.

She might as well have.

“...please, I don't….want...”

Frightened yellow irises were revealed to the abyss once more as the woman's accusatory bombardment begun, trying to prise open his mind to get to the root, the core and cause of why he was like this, of his catastrophic failure.

Click click click.

As it turned out, it was one woman. Click. A woman well-versed in the art of breaking down and destroying people. Click. She had sought the chink in his armour, the one that revealed an inexperienced boy at the heart of a man who seemed to be a stoic wall of muscle and icy blue eyes. Click. Nature had deemed that the opposite sex was important, for the act of procreation and the continuation of species, but he had tried to deny that.

Trying to deny nature is ultimately foolish.

So his first experience with the fairer sex was tainted, further altering the man's perception of what such intimacy wrought. Click. The chink in his armour became a gaping hole, a glaring weak spot despite the man striving to be perfect. Click. It became conflict. Tea. An inner-war of what he wanted as a man and what a Jedi should be. Honey. It made him vulnerable, and human. Click.

Then all Vrag had to do was exploit that.

Terrano writhed in the darkness of the abyss, afraid, tormented, remembering everything and all from the memory of a single sound. She demanded the truth, but could he even face such a thing? Or would the very notion destroy him completely, rendering him beyond repair. Weak, craven, broken.

“Yes!” the word finally erupted from his mouth, pained, panicked, wounded, “It was her! It was her! It was...it was...her...”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

Delightful. The first crack had been formed, the first split within the stone. It was pleasing to the eye, seeing that breaking, seeing someone truly grow to hate and despise. Of course there was no hate, not yet anyway. There was fear, there was anxiety, there was a tearing down of emotion, but The Handmaiden saw no hate, not yet. She shifted slightly, this time coming into being directly before Hal. The Abyss began to slowly fade away again, the blackness around them running into a thick fog.

The Fog itself twisted, becoming white and eventually shifting into bare walls.

Another room from Hal's memory would come into being, a room of sheer white and bright lights, a room filled with blood and nightmares.

"She was the start." The Handmaiden corrected him. "Yet it was not all her? Was it? No, Hal, you were touched by so much more. You were manipulated, beaten, broken, lead to failure on a leash by so many more than just her. Weren't you?"

Her tone was a hissing rasp, like snake.

The room around them finally came together, a ceiling falling into place, a flickering white light brightly glowing onto them, the floor turning into bright tile and everything else becoming the same stark white. It was almost painful to the eyes to look at anything, difficult to peer at and even more difficult to focus on. "Weren't you?"

She offered emphasis on the words, demanding an answer from him.

 

[Hal Terrano]

It continued, accusation and interrogating running deeper.

The abyss around them shifted, the blackness becoming fog and the fog growing progressively lighter, for a moment that might have been seen as preferable to the nothingness prior but for Hal Terrano this wasn't the case. The shroud became solid.

White clinical walls. Harsh lights. He had been there in his mind only a second ago, or was this in his mind? It was far too late for the man to remember that this was not real.

He presumed that her words implicated Vrag, and it was more than plain to see that he had been broken by that monstrous woman but there was more, other people were within the notion and that made him uncomfortable, beyond that even. Honey.

A grimace came to his features, eyes squinting in the oppressive light as he was forced to come up with an answer. At this point it was an interrogation.

“Vrag,” he almost gasped, still caught in the crushing embrace of his surroundings, of the reminder and revelation of Nemene Talith's impact upon his life.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]