After the Parade

[Scherezade deWinter]

At last, it was over. The banquet had been long and dreadful for the girl, who had sat silently through out most of it, quietly sipping the quality liquor that had been served. She had entirely ignored the food that was served, her eyes most of the time kept down. No one really tried to make conversation with her, and she had not really tried to make conversation with others. But that was the norm in such events, wasn't it? She knew she wasn't well liked, she knew her recent drinking was not serving to fix that, and it didn't really matter anyway.

Memories of the past events continued to flood her mind during the evening. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps someone had tried to speak with her. Perhaps she had responded. But right now, she could not remember it. There were other things on her mind. After moving away the fog of pain for just enough to be able to see other things, Scherezade realized that she was still wearing the gray dress Darth Tacitus had given her through his droids. Her coat and cloths, as well as her weapons aside for those inside her boots, were gone. She wanted it all back, especially the coat. She didn't have much in the way of clothes and she certainly wasn't in a place where she could completely renew her arsenal of knives.

She'd been walking around the fort for a few minutes now, the chill threatening to seep through her skin. Her ancestral home planet had been a place of sunshine and warmth, and cold places were something she was sensitive to. Especially when people took her coat away.

The only reason Scherezade had paused in this chamber was because it had a hearth, and in the heart was a fire. She was standing close to it, trying to get warm, and took a long swig from the bottle she'd taken with her from the banquet.

Her conversation earlier with Josh had brought out too many raw emotions. She didn't understand how she still felt like her feelings were being rubbed with sandpaper while at the same time some form of apathy was also beginning to grow. She had walked into that banquet ready to start coming up with plans to just end it all for herself, but somewhere along the middle she had just given in to the drink. No doubt, Josh would berate her for it next time they met, if there even would be a next time. She doubted there would be. She did't have any friends, there was no reason for that to change now.

There was a mirror above the hearth. Scherezade looked at it, barely recognizing her own face. She'd been going through lengths to avoid looking at herself in general since that last time in the Darkness. She knew it wasn't a pretty sight. The girl with the youthful face and big bright eyes and that near constant smile was wiped, as though she'd never even existed. Bags under the eyes took their place on her face now, the lack of sleep all too evident in the thin skin and the look of sickness. She didn't look like herself. She didn't think she ever would again.

She'd just been about to renew her search for her clothes and weapons when she heard steps. Turning around, her ees fell on Whisper, Lord Wolfe's loth wolf. He had accompanied her earlier. The bi beast walked to her, its snout poking her face.

Scherezade closed her eyes and wrapped around arm around him, taking in the smell of his fur. It wasn't the fur she wanted to smell right now. But unlike with the other man she had tried to do things with, at least with the loth wolf, her body did not scream that the scent was all wrong. It didn't have the safety of smelling Gerwald, it would not serve as a shield against the darkness. But the wolf did give her some comfort, and for this little second in this little piece of time, as the tears renewed themselves of their own accord, she just wanted to hold on a little bit longer before she had to let go.


[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

The Sith Lord followed his beastly companion not long after. Tracking the girl down hadn't been hard, his Loth Wolf simply had to follow the smell of alcohol, which is what led him to this particular room. His unnatural eyes measured the girl, allowing her a few more moments of silence with the pet, before making his presence known.

Extending his mind into the Force in a manner that had become second nature to him, he seized upon the bottle with a telekinetic tendril, an invisible limb bound to the Sith Lord's immovable will and pulled it from the girl's hand, levitating the bottle all the way to the garbage disposal chute, into which he unceremoniously dropped it.

"That, Scherezade, is nothing more than a weighted ball chained to your ankle," he said, referring to the alcohol. "It will not help you deal with your pain, in fact it will do the exact opposite. Intoxicants only ever make you weaker and more susceptible to the things that gnaw at your heart," he spoke to her.

"Trust me, I've been there. I know what its like to lose things you care about," he said, his voice a little distant as his mind wandered off into the past. "You have been spending too much time trying to run from the pain. Trying to hide from it. That will never work, I'm afraid, because it is not something that you can run from."

"I do not know what caused you that pain. But you can turn it into a strength. Let that pain flow through you and turn it into hatred," he explained. "Hate is a source of strength. It will give you power, the power to make sure no one else ever harms you again, the power to destroy those who wronged you and make them pay a thousandfold."

"Do you feel anger, Scherezade?" he asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. "Good. Give in to it. Let it flow through your veins and purge your weakness away. Become stronger. Only foolish Jedi spend their lives in the pursuit of that nebulous illusion they call inner peace. Peace is a lie."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She'd allowed the hug with the loth wolf to distract her so much that she hadn't even noticed @Dart Tacitus walked into the room. She still didn't, not until her bottle moved out of her hands. In a state of pure panic she jumped towards it, trying to grab it out of the air, but it was already gone. What brief respite of her pain she had felt while hugging the wolf, it was all gone now. A face wet with tears, eyes red with liquor and lack of sleep, and anger at having her bottle taken from her for the second time that night, Scherezade spun around to glare at Tacitus.

"I'm not trying to run from the pain. I'm trying to make it stop. I don't want to feel it anymore," she scoffed at his speech. He's been talking for long enough. "And I already know how to keep people from hurting me like that again."

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was a plan. It was quite simple; she'd had two people in her life. Both had betrayed her, together. Both had shown her that she could never trust anyone again. She had given them both everything she had and in turn, they had not just broken her heart. They had broken her, entirely and completely. She had shattered, snapped. The pieces that had made her had torn and fallen, and she couldn't find them or even glue the few of them she had found back together.

Like she had told Josh earlier. She wasn't allowed to trust anyone anymore. It was a lesson well learned.

"I've always been weak, that's nothing new," she said, her voice just above a whisper. Even the Darkness had said it, again and again and again.

She coughed, wiping her face on the back of her hand. "I'd like my clothes and weapons back, and I'll be out of your hair before you can say Brokellia."

[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

Tacitus sighed, feeling perhaps like a parent trying to school an unruly teenager. "You will get your things back after the droids are finished scrubbing them of all the filth and stench of alcohol," he said to her, his tone making it clear that the subject was not up for discussion.

"You can not drown the pain in alcohol, Scherezade," he said to her. "It doesn't work like that. The only way to stop the pain, is to find those who caused it in the first place and return it to them a thousand fold. You will find that revenge is the best pain remedy in the galaxy. But for that, you have to become strong. You have to learn how to hate."

"No one is born strong. No one is a Lord of the Sith from the moment they draw their first breath. That kind of thing must be earned and it requires hard work and dedication. You must learn to feed your anger and hatred, draw from them to gain power," he said to her. "I have a better idea. Follow me."

Leading the way towards a turbolift, he left the room, the Loth Wolf padding after him at a brisk pace. He would lead her to a different section of the immense fortress, a hidden vault beneath the Warden Stronghold, where prisoners were kept for various alchemical experiments.

He selected several men and women from a file and had the guards move them to an interrogation room, restrained so that they could not try to escape. "These individuals are the lowest of the low. Slavers, terrorists and enemies of the state. But that is irrelevant. What I want you to do, is imagine that these are the people who hurt you, who tore out your heart and left it bleeding on the floor."

"Turn your pain into anger and use it. Let it flow through you and make them pay," he instructed the girl. "Take your time. These people deserve anything you will do to them."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

It had been at least an hour since the droids had taken her clothes and weapons away. If they were still not ready, Tacitus should consider taking them apart and getting better ones. Truthfully, she didn't care about their filth or stench. She just wanted her things back. She had so little as it was, she didn't want to part with them.

The only way to stop the pain, is to find those who caused it in the first place and return it to them a thousand fold.

Scherezade shook her head, the tears renewing. How could she tell him that revenge was the last thing she wanted to do to Katrine and Gerwald? She didn't want revenge. She wanted to take time back and change how things happened. She wanted to delete events that happened in the short history of her existence outside of the pebble. She wanted to be the girl with the big curious eyes again.

She remained silent as she followed the man. The fog of booze was already beginning to lift from her mind. She hated the fact her body insisted on being so strong that she couldn't break it down, couldn't do almost anything to it to make the outside match the in. She didn't want to be able to think fast. She didn't want to become overly aware of everything again. She just wanted her Shield of Darkness back, her sister back. But there was no way she could do that. Even if they wanted her back, which they didn't, as was evident over these last few weeks, it would only break her more to be around them, to see them so happy and in love, while she had nothing.

The thought that perhaps it wasn't a smart idea to go with this man who, despite her knowing who he was, was still a stranger, into the bowels of a fortress that she did not really know, never passed through her mind. What was the worst that could happen anyway? He'd kill her? He was more than welcome to put her out of her misery.

Emerald eyes stared as the prisoners were brought out.

"Whatever the CIS mandate states, there's nothing coherently wrong with slavers," she mumbled, looking at the prisoners. She was keeping to the CIS rules... Mostly. She'd had a slave for about ten minute during her last trip to Tatooine. He'd also been unwilling, and unaware of it until the last parts of it, but since it was outside of the Confederacy's jurisdiction, she never bothered to inform anyone about it.

"I don't want to imagine that they're the people who hurt me," she said, the vulnerability all to evident in her voice. Her eyes cast away, looking at the floor, "I killed him a thousand times when I was in the Darkness. When I came out of it, I loved him still. And he, together with her, broke me. I don't want either of them hurt. I want them to realize their mistakes and change things."

Walking to the first man in the pile then, Scherezade looked at him. She didn't need her weapons to cause pain. She had trained ruthlessly before the Darkness, and she had been forced to train inside of it as well. There were things she could do without ever touching a blade. Gingerly, her finger moved along his lower abdomen as she used the Force to tear the skin there apart, ripping it open as though she had one of her knives. His guts began to spill. There was no reaction from her about it, no joy, no salvation.

"I leave a trail of death wherever I go," she quoted Gerwald with a sigh. "It's pointless."


[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

The Sith Lord listened to her words, analyzing them as she spoke. "Ah. I see what the problem is," he responded to her. "That kind of wound is not easy to deal with. Betrayal is the worst of all crimes. But you have to understand that you can not turn back time and change the past. And even if you could, it would not change the nature of those who betrayed you. It would be a lie, perpetuated only until they betrayed you again," he said to her.

"Its in their nature, Scherezade. They just can't help themselves. Their kind only wants to claim what isn't theirs, then consume it and discard what is left like yesterday's trash. Those people do not deserve your love. They deserve your hate," the Sith Lord spoke.

"From what I've gathered out of your story, it seems to me like they just used you. Perhaps you were just a toy to him, a distraction, something to amuse him while he was bored. Will you just let that go? Will you live with this pain for the rest of your life when the people who caused it, couldn't care less, now that they've had their fun?"

"I can feel your anger, Scherezade. I know it is there, buried under all the pain and the broken things in your soul. Let that seed of hate sprout and grow. Feed it, draw from it and become stronger," he said, urging her ever so closer to giving in completely to the Darkside.

"The love that you feel for the man who betrayed you, is a diseased limb, one caught in a trap. Cut it away," the Sith Lord spoke even as the first prisoner fell to the floor, writhing in pain as he died. "Turn it into strength. Let your anger boil in your veins and take it out on these prisoners. What have you got to lose if you try?" he asked her.

Ever so subtly, he called the Darkside to him, letting it fill the interrogation chamber and surround the girl with its presence, building up pressure that waited for a violent release.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"How could it be their nature?" Scherezade asked, her voice broken, "she took me in as a sister. She tried to give me the family I didn't have. She trained me, protected me at first... And he... He gave me half the prey's heart, he was the one I was with every time I was not on a mission..." she was crying again, "How could I have spend so much time with either of them and not know that it was all a lie?"

She broke again, turning around to keep her face veiled away from Tacitus. Her left hand came up as she punched against her heart. She wanted the stone to grow over her heart, she wanted it to harden. She never wanted to feel that pain again, never. She had already taken measures to ensure it, made the decision to never trust anyone for as long as she lived.

"A Jedi almost killed me," she continued every few breaths, "I was out for a week. They found my body, they healed me. And while I fought for my life, they... They chose each other, loved each other, claimed each other. And when I woke up he said... It had always been her. Always. And she tried to tell me she brought me back to life because I was her sister and she loved me..."

Her voice cracked with every few words. "They didn't even wait for me to heal after being in the Darkness... I thought I'd been there for years... And in under ten minutes he said... it had always been her..."

She looked at the next prisoner. The former one was screaming in pain as his guts continued to spill. She didn't care. Her fingers moved in the air as the chest of the second one split wide open, ribs cracking as they moved aside. She gabbed the still beating heart within it and ripped it out, her fit closing around it harder and harder until it exploded. The blood was now coating her face, the dress... Everything.

"We were almost always covered in the blood when we were together," she said quietly, throwing the heart on the ground and stomping on it with her boot. The prey's blood, the Trandoshian's blood, various cuts and bruises from their games both on Ryloth and Coruscant, the fights on Dathomir... She still remembered it. All of it. Every moment of it.

"I should have let the Darkness keep me," she finally said, using the Force to slam the third prisoner into the wall again and again and again, aiming for the parts that would hurt the most, "the Darkness was right. It told me... That I had two people when I entered it, and I would have no one when I left. And it was right. I didn't believe it most of the time that I was in there, but it was right... And now I am no longer part of my adoptive family, my real family is still gone, the man that I still love has betrayed me, I have no friends, I am no longer part of the Mandragora, I'm no... Nothing."

But she wasn't angry. She still wasn't angry. She was hurt, and she kept on hurting, and even though it had been two weeks since that horrible night, the pain had not lessened by an inch.


[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

Tacitus listened as the girl went on, the hint of a satisfied smile flashing on his face as she reached the conclusion. "That is what they do. They lie. They cheat. They use people and destroy them for no other reason than that it amuses them. And they are good at what they do, very good, otherwise they wouldn't have as much success as they do," he said.

"You say that she, whoever that is, protected and trained you. And yet, she did not hesitate to discard you like yesterday's trash, when she found something else to keep her entertained. And whoever the man is, I'm sorry to say this, but sharing a meal with you is not proof of affection. Its just a simple gesture intended to make you let your guard down, so that he could get in your pants. Because he was bored. Because you were a momentary distraction, his next conquest. That is what people like that do. It is what they are, its in their nature. And they're very good at hiding their nature," he explained.

"They used you, treated you like their plaything, their toy and when they grew bored, they discarded you" the Sith Lord said to her. "But, you know what? Good riddance," he continued. "You don't need them. You just need to discover yourself, to grow, to become stronger and make your place in the galaxy. Because nothing is ever truly given. It is earned."

"You need to stop being naive. Stop putting your faith into fickle people and stop waiting for other people to give you purpose or a place to belong. Find your own path. Choose your own purpose. Build your own place to belong to," he spoke. "I'm not going to sugarcoat things. It will be hard. It will take time and effort, it will require dedication and discipline and hard work. Because nothing worthwhile in life is ever easy."

"You say you are nothing? Good," the Sith Lord spoke, his tone firm. "That means you can become anything you want."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"She did not discard me," Scherezade said quietly. She wasn't crying anymore. Her hands were still working, the insides of the prisoners flying about. It was easy to see that killing and torturing were not new territory to the girl, but there was no joy or rage on her face as she did so, "I think... I think she wanted to keep me around. To see her happiness and joy with him, among other things. I was the one who told them I was freeing myself of them. I was the one who left that night." And after that... "and then she sent me a message through the spirits. To tell me that I am loved and that I would always have a place to come back to. So I banged my head against the sidewalk until my head cracked open and the message stopped."

Why?! Why was there so much that she could remember?! Memories were not supposed to be this clear, this perfect. But she remembered everything, including the memories that weren't even hers. Sure, the ones that were hers popped up sometimes randomly, and usually uncomfortably, but the things that she had said, that had been said to her... Why would she never forget them?! Forgetting would have been so easy...

You were a momentary distraction, his next conquest

She shook her head again. She couldn't in all honest say that the thought had not popped into her mind on multiple occasions. She had out right asked him about it but... But it had always been Katrine, hadn't it?

"He said I was his first kiss too..." she broke, "and his first..."

Had it been a lie? Could it have been? It had all seemed so right, so natural, their movements and flow as though they were made to be with each other. Ever part of their bodies fitting together. They could dance together, something he and Katrine evidently could not. She had seen how horribly they moved together. But she couldn't take joy from it, not really.

Stop being naive. Stop putting faith in people. Scherezade nodded miserably. She'd already done that. She had stopped trusting people. Josh had torn into her over it while they were getting ready for the banquet. He couldn't understand it, couldn't accept it. He tried to claim that he did, but really, he had not.

That means you can become anything you want.

Scherezade turned around to face Darth Tacitus. Her face was still wet, but now the anger could be seen on it as well. Her eyes gleamed in the dim light of the cellar.

"I want to be the person who kills that woman I talked to before the parade," she said, and as she spoke, the bodies of the prisoners combusted one by one, "she's the one I want to tear limb from limb. She's the one I want to suffer. And then I want to send the pieces of her body to the Nightmother. A different body part once a week for thirteen weeks, to unite abandoning mother with betraying daughter."

As soon as the words were out, Scherezade jumped back, covering her mouth, her face betraying the shock at having heard her own words. She looked at Tacitus in horror and shook her head, unable to scream now that she didn't really mean it, that she hadn't really said it.


[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

The Sith Lord listened and nodded. "So, she wanted to keep you around like a pet," he said to her. "To rub it in your face and mock you. It is a good thing that you left. You made the right decision," the Sith Lord spoke, content with the direction things were going.

He could see the girl's beliefs breaking down as she tried to deny his words and made a feeble attempt at talking about some first kiss or something. "And do you still believe all that?" he asked. "It was all a lie, my dear girl. The kind of lie which is easy to tell to a naive young woman like yourself."

"In truth, you were just a momentary distraction, as proven by how quickly he moved on to another when you could no longer satisfy him. You weren't the first and won't be the last. Whoever your other so-called friend is, he will do the same thing to her that he did to you. Its only a matter of time."

Ah, there it was. Anger. Buried deep within, but definitely there. As the girl turned to face him, the Overlord's visage lit up with a cold smile.

"Unfortunately for that plan, that woman is my apprentice," he said, once she finished her tirade. "And unlike your friends, I do not betray my people. You shall not touch her," the Overlord spoke, his tone firm and final, carrying with it a hint of warning. "Whatever happened between you and your friend, Curupira had nothing to do with it. Besides, she can't be her mother. She is far too young," he said.

He regarded her horrified expression with analytical eyes before nodding, as if he had reached some sort of conclusion. "It feels good, doesn't it? Letting the anger burn through your veins," he said. "I believe these prisoners are no longer needed," he said, raising a clawed hand in the air. Immediately, a smell of ozone could be felt in the air, a moment before bolts of midnight-black lightning arched from the Sith Lord's fingers and slammed into each of the remaining prisoners, the casual display of power killing them in an instant.

"Instead of harming a woman who had nothing to do with any of the things that happened to you, why not go after the real thing? Why not destroy those who have caused you all that pain? You will find that revenge is a very powerful motivator," the Sith Lord spoke.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Like a pet? She said nothing. Was that the right way to phrase it? She wasn't sure. It sounded so right when he said it, but something inside her stirred wrongfully at it. That hadn't been what she'd meant, but... But it wasn't really far from it. Had Katrine and Gerwald truly expected her to stick around after what they'd done? They... They had. Scherezade wasn't drunk now, not anymore. She was thinking clearly, too clearly, the blood smeared across her body, face, and dress merely serving to sharpen it further. She was... She'd been a predator, hadn't she? Before they broke her? What of the predator remained now? Almost nothing. But Lord Wolfe knew how to approach the dying predator inside her, and it was... Almost terrifying.

Had she made the right decision? She didn't know. Ever since the day after her mind had jumped back and forth, knowing one moment that she had, and then believing the next second that she had not. But lies... She had told Gerwald, hadn't she? That he lied to the three of them. At the moment she had thought it was about it always being Katrine but... But perhaps while her words had been right, they were referring to the wrong thing. What if he had lied, but about the things that were happening between them? She had swallowed it all, given him nearly everything she had with the exception of a single blueprint that still lay in her ship, a blueprint she had not been able to throw into the pyre when she burned... When she burned the bed sheets that smelled like him, when she burned that pink dress Katrine had given her. Not everything, no. Despite her will, she had saved a single pillowcase and a strap of cloth. She had placed them in her room aboard the Giggledust, and she had locked the door, never stepping into that room again. She'd burned the bed in the guest room as well, the one Gerwald had slept in the first night he was on her ship. She'd replaced it with an old mattress she'd found and that had become her next bedroom. Bare.

Was she? Not able to satify him? Was that why he'd disappeared after Melida/Daan? Scherezade closed her eyes. She didn't want to think about it anymore. She didn't want to keep going over and over the same thing again and again in he head. Not when it was constantly accompanied by Gerwald's words. How he wouldn't change her, ever. Was that part of the lie?

Scherezade bit her lower lip until blood was drawn. Katrine's mother was the next topic of conversation. She was... She as Tacitus' apprentice? She blinked at that. She'd taken him for someone with better taste. But the, she was meant to be used by now to always being wrong, wasn't she? And now she had a name too, a name Katrine had never mentioned. Curupira. In other circumstances, she would have find the name beautiful. Now it just filled her with more anger, with more disgust.

"You are wrong," she finally said, "Curupira is Katrine's mother. Time does not move in a linear fashion for everyone. I have heaps of family members that can testify to that, and so do they. Curupira knows she's Katrine's mother and thinks has said she's unworthy of being it. Don't let anyone's appearance or age fool you. I'm over five hundred years old myself."

Another thing she had not meant to say. But it was out now. Whatever. She had bigger concerns than people knowing her true age, even if it didn't match up with her abilities.

The bolts of midnight black seemed to have no effect on her. She knew what they were, she'd seen it done before. Anything relating to the prisoners now was met with general apathy.

"There is no forgiveness for abandoning mothers," she continued, relaying some of the words she'd said earlier, "I offered to take her to Ryloth for a few hours to see her daughter and then bring her back immediately. She resisted." And the had fought over it. Not physically, but with words, and Scherezade had begged to no avail.

She wiped her bleeding lip on her arm.

"To destroy a person is not to kill them," she found herself saying, surprising herself, "if you want to destroy someone, you take bit by bit of what they love, what they care about, what they want. You don't kill them, you killed their loved ones, and let them rot with the pain, because why end the suffering of the dead when you can prolong the suffering of the living."

That had not been her speech. Maybe the earlier parts of it, realizations, something. But that last sentence... She knew where it had come from. That was her grandmother's motto to life. And even then...

"And that's what they did to me, isn't it?" she asked, her voice breaking again, her head shaking. She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to accept that a third of her life had been nothing but a lie, but a way to build her just to break her. She couldn't.




[member="Darth Tacitus"]

 

[Kainan Wolfe]

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Attn: [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

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• Fortress of Solitude
  Nelvaan, Confederacy of Independent Systems

The wheels kept turning inside the bestial man's alien mind and he could clearly see that his approach was working, slowly feeding her own doubts and eroding away at her convictions, subtly leading her towards the conclusion that he desired. He could see it in the expression on her face, read it in the way she bit her lip, in her posture and in the small gestures that everyone made unconsciously when reacting in certain ways to certain things. Tacitus was very good at this way of reading people, always had been, which was what allowed him to accumulate the vast resources and power that he had.

Her words about destroying people and how this had been done to her, reinforced his belief that this girl could be molded into a powerful weapon and a proper Sith.

There was also a stubborn streak, as exemplified by her clinging to her foolish desire to hurt his apprentice, for perceived crimes that she had not committed. This would not be allowed to stand, as Tacitus was not the kind of man who turned his back on his people.

"Even if what you say is true," the Sith Lord spoke, feigning skepticism regarding her claims about the nature of time, "You can not hold someone responsible for actions they have not yet committed. Also, regardless of what perceived future injustices you hold her responsible for, my apprentice had no part in what was done to you and she is under my protection, which means she will not be touched, by you, or anyone," he said, his tone firm, matching the warning in his posture, which conveyed that his patience should not be tested on this matter, else the consequences would be extremely dire.

He let his words sink in for a few moments, silently staring her down before continuing, steering the discussion back to the original topic. "Know this. It is better to take vengeance than to languish in pain and seek the path of self-destruction. It is better to turn that pain into hatred and thus, strength, than to let yourself consumed by it. There is no crime worse than betrayal and those who betrayed you, should rightly suffer for this. But it will not involve my apprentice and there will naturally be a price for my assistance in the matter."

"I can give you resources. Access to ancient Sith knowledge. Weapons and the funds to maintain them, as well as advice such as I gave today, when I am able to take time away from my work to do so. You will be able to come and go as you please, as long as you respect the law and maintain proper conduct, for I will not tolerate inebriated outbursts under my roof. In return, you will act as my agent, whenever I call upon you to do so," the Sith Lord explained.

"The tasks I will have you perform, are varied and will require preparation, training and resources, all of which shall be made available to you. You will learn the arts of intrigue, interrogation, navigating politics and subtly extracting information from a target. You will learn how to use every asset at your disposal in order to accomplish your objectives. You will learn how to weaponize every part of your mind and body and how to use it to manipulate and kill. You will move amongst high society, working in secrecy as my spy and, if need be, my assassin. These are the terms I am offering you. They are better terms than what I have been given when I was in your place," he said to her.

"What I am offering you is honesty and loyalty. I expect the same things in return. I will never throw you to the wolves, or turn my back on you, just as I do not turn my back on the rest of my people. But if you ever betray me, I will destroy you so completely and utterly, that what this Katrine and her lover did to you, will seem like a child's prank in comparison."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Throw her to the wolves. It didn't matter that it was just an expression; it struck another painful chord in the young Sithling. Lupines were wolves, sort of. The only two people she'd had in her life, both had been Lupines, both had betrayed her, destroyed her, ruined her. And now she was surrounded again; a Lord Wolfe, a Loth wolf, wolves everywhere she looked.

And he wanted her to leave Curupira alone. Scherezade shook her head. She didn't care if the woman was under his protection. She was an enemy, she was someone that had to be taken care of. An abandoning mother. There was no remorse for her, whatever Tacitus said. The only thing she could offer as a middle ground.

"I will not harm her at present," she said carefully, "but I will not be with her in the same room. I will not share space with her. I will not have her in my presence. If she comes too close, I will kill her. But I will also not actively seek her out, will not provoke her, and if I do happen to accidentally get near her, I will remove myself on my own."

That was the most she could give regrading that vile woman. She hoped it would be enough.

Then there was the rest of it. Resources. Access to ancient Sith knowledge. Weapons, funds, advice. And in return... Tasks. Scherezade knew where this was going. He was offering her to make her his creature. A weapon. That was exactly what Josh had talked about. He was also the second to make such an offer, and little did she know that soon there would be a third. Apparently, if you were big eyed and curious, no one had anything they wanted to with you. When yo were hurt, suddenly everyone felt the need to open bloody doors that you never knew existed.

"Look at me," she said, and stared at herself as well. She was in a dress, covered in blood. Her face looked like the crap she felt, whatever skin visible to the eyes bearing scars. "I'm not... I'm not high society material. I don't know how to do all that intrigue stuff. I'm not... I'm not a sophisticated kind of weapon," she sighed, "I'm just somewhere between being a knife and being a pin cushion."


[member="Darth Tacitus"]