Private And So These Tombs Fell

[Ishani Dinn]

“A ‘little cut’ with your lightsaber? The big blade made from pure, burning plasma? Alina, would you even be able to survive a ‘little cut’ from such a weapon? Perhaps you should not dish it out, if you yourself cannot take it?”

Ugh, what was she even doing? Trying to appeal to a Sith’s empathy?...

“Being dead has its advantages. And yes, I have a way to not be dead.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It involves trials. The Force, or the Netherworld, or whatever has been dragging me across time and space, seems to want me to confront my mistakes before I can return to life. It brought me to you, which means you must be some sort of trial I have to overcome.”

The question was, what exactly was the nature of this trial? Had she already failed by not killing Alina?

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"We already established I couldn't punch you. What the hell do you want from me? And yeah, I know how it feels to get cut by a lightsaber. Like when I lost my fucking arms. You're talkin' a lot of shit when you don't even have the whole story. I just wanted to make sure your kids were okay and chew you out for dying on them, and now you're acting like you're some big bad Sith Lord."

Alina shot Ishani a glare for a moment, then huffed in annoyance.

"Fuck the Force and make your own path. Unless you ended up being a Jedi when you died."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“You’re a hypocrite,” Ishani said with a shake of her head. “You were pissed off and trying to punch me the moment you saw my ghost, even though for all you knew, I could’ve been killed in an accident, or murdered. You’re violent towards me, why—because you supposedly care about my children? They’re not yours, and if you ever come anywhere near them, I’ll make sure you skip the ghost phase and melt straight back into the Force you loathe so much.” She jabbed a finger toward Alina. “And don’t try to say that words are just another form of violence. What you did was uncalled for. You made it physical.”

Alina simply wouldn’t let up. Ishani was beginning to really, really wish that she had killed her while she still had the chance. The possession trick probably wouldn’t work again—Alina may have been dense, but she wasn’t stupid enough to get fooled twice.

“Go ahead and try to end me again. I know you want to. It’s all you’re good for. You’re as stupid and blunt as a nerf in a china shop. But please, tell me more about how you’re going to kill all the Sith Lords and the Force after serving them for a few years.” She snorted, unable to take any of this seriously anymore. “You’re a joke.”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Fine! Fucking fine! You're right. You're right about everything! Clearly you know sooo much now that you're dead. Why don't you tell me how you'd kill them? What you'd do when the only place you can exist is the Sith and not go home to play senator and house wife to keep your parents from kicking you out? Where in this Galaxy can I fucking go without things like you showing up to tell me the Force wants me dead? Cause you sure as shit aren't the first."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“I knew all this before, I just didn’t care enough to say it then.” Well, that and she had been afraid to speak her mind. Being dead had done away with that anxiety.

“What exactly is stopping you from doing anything else? Isn’t your family super wealthy? Don’t you have friends who can help you? I mean, hell—you’re a vampire, you could probably build a new life for yourself just with that skillset alone. After the Sith collapsed, you could’ve reinvented yourself however you saw fit. But you keep coming back to the Sith, like a battered housewife who keeps returning to an abusive husband. You spout off all these crazy ambitions, talking about how you’re going to single-handedly kill off some of the most powerful people in the galaxy, and then you’re going to murder spirituality itself, as if that were even possible—are you delusional, or are you just spinning your wheels?”

Alina seemed convinced that the Force was out to get her. While Ishani had entertained the possibility of that, it wasn’t necessarily true that she was there to kill Alina. For all she knew, she might just need to give this vamp a tough pep talk.

Which, okay, fine. Have it your way.

“I may not need you dead. It can go a lot of different ways. I have options.” She shrugged. “If you want people to stop trying to kill you, I suggest you be a lot nicer. No more punching people or cutting them with your lightsaber, for one. Mind your own business and don't pry into things that don't concern you. Oh, and maybe don't eat people, that would probably help a lot.”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Oh you mean the family of Sith Alchemists of which I'm the only survivor? Yes, let me go back to the burned down ruins of my families estate that have been smoldering since Dromund Kaas's fall. I coupd go back to my ex, be her pet some more. All while fucking bounty hunters kick down the front door trying to find and kill me. Even better! I could go find an old, fucking completely abandoned building and get attacked by yet another stranger claiming to be sent by the Force before I even had a chance to look at the fucking place for more than five minutes. I guess I could stop eating people and just loose my mind to the hunger to rhe point I become a mindless beast. What the fuck did you think I was doing on Coruscant, of all places? I lived my life in hiding, not even daring to take more than a fucking sip of blood so I don't loose my goddamn mind and go on a full on murder binge. I tried to punch you because I fucking hate you! You just went and fucking died despite having the option for a life, with a family that actually loves you. And you show up here looking all mangled as shit? Who wouldn't try and punch your sorry ass."

Alina finally stood up, dusting off the jeans she was in. Only an idiot would come to Korriban with the Ashlan occupation dressed as a damn Sith. "I'm done. I don't know what else I can do. My power hurts them, these Sith who call themselves gods. I can hurt them. I can kill them. Do you even know what happened to the other acolytes? They didn't have places to run away to. They had to stay. Fight, die while these fucks who call themselves Lords ran off to a planet not even here. I was arrested while trying to help the acolytes. That's the only reason I was even on Coruscant to begin with! And they still died! Jedi, Imperial, Mandalorians. They were left to the wolves so those fucking 'powerful people' could go hide. I'll kill them. I'll kiss whatever boot I have to to buy the time I need so I can. And yeah! I'll kill the Force. I don't give a fuck if it's spirituality, or an actual being, or something else all together. If I can't kill it, fine. I'll just find a way to free people from it's influence so people like me don't rot from the inside out. Think it's impossible? You're a fucking ghost zipping out of a literal hell."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Aaaaaand Alina was back to shrieking. It was plain that she felt helpless, or next to it, and she was relying on the only thing she had left—her weird Force nullifying ability—to keep from unraveling completely.

Ishani could have killed her. Could have started a fire and burned the whole Academy to the ground with Alina inside. She could’ve done it with a smile and a sigh of relief.

But something about it just didn’t sit right. Maybe it was how pathetic Alina seemed. There would be little satisfaction in ending her here and now, while she was already so weak and beaten down.

“It sounds like your beef is really just with the Sith Lords who abandoned you, not the Force itself, so…” Ishani rested a hand on her hip. “Look, Mal tried to convince me to join his little club too. He knew I was never properly trained as a Sith, so he offered me full access to his archives in exchange for carrying on his ‘legacy’. I told him to either hand over his knowledge, or get out of my way, because I wasn’t going to join his idiotic crusade against the Force. Then I walked away, and he didn’t do shit about it.”

She sighed. “It’s apathy, Alina. Apathy drove him to abandon his acolytes. Apathy made Mal not bother chasing after me. He wasted Arcturus’ potential as his apprentice because of apathy. The man simply does not care. He’s a lazy, pleasure-seeking fethboy with a passing interest in philosophy. It’s not even a particularly well-thought-out philosophy. But you’ve bought into it, and now that you have, he’s going to use you as a tool so he doesn’t have to get up and fulfill his evil plans himself.

“If you don’t care about being used, and you just want a chance to try and cut his throat while he’s not looking—be my guest. I’ll even help you do it, once I get out of this mess I’m in. But it seems like a huge waste of time. You’d probably be better off waging war against these Sith ‘fucks’ as a Jedi yourself.”

She paused, thinking. “Or maybe House Io. I hear they hate everyone equally.”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"I don't believe in any of his shit. So let's stop there, before you assume anything more than you already have about me." Alina hooked her saber back on her hip, turned her gaze to the room around them. Another unfamiliar room, but it wasn't the one she'd been looking for. "The Jedi won't have me. What my mother did to me marked me as Sithspawn. The Light will kill me, like any other. And I have no desire to start over, again. Here I have allies. Family, that I can actually trust. And I don't even mean in the Sith way, actual trust. People who were harmed far more than you or I by the betrayal of the Sith Lords. People who I will fight for. If the Force is just some unkillable thing, sure. Fine.

But if I can kill it. If I can kill that which makes the Light kill me and change the balance, change reality, why not. You're a ghost, I'm a Vampire, and Maliphant's a fuckboy with rocks for eyes. Who cares what makes sense at this point. You wanna help? Great. You don't? Fine. Just don't get in my way."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“What do you actually want, then? What is your endgame? Besides killing the Force, because that’s what the fethboy with rocks for eyes wants you to do.”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"I've said it like three times now, progressively less cultish each time, too. Kill the current Sith Lords so a new generation can take over and kill the Force. The fact Maliphant wants the same thing is why I'm even bothering with him in the first place. He hasn't sent me to do shit for him yet, and I've got access to all his archives and his knowledge. I'm not so prideful as to turn that down, especially when I'm hunted all the fucking time by people of all walks of life."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Just making sure,” Ishani muttered. “It got kinda confusing there for a bit. Anyway, uh… well. I am happy to see you rising up against the Sith Lords, but I’m not too keen on the whole ‘kill the Force’ thing, as I’m sure you can tell. There’s also the fact that I, too, have some plans which may conflict with yours in the future… so that brings us to a crossroads.”

She suddenly snapped her fingers, and the shards of wood on the floor burst into flames. Then she took hold of Alina and attempted to throw her directly onto the fire like a sack of potatoes.

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

And everything devolved again. Alina turned her gaze to the fire, but didn't move any further. The dead zone returned around her the moment the sparks were ignited. She let out a heavy sigh as she turned her gaze back to the ghost before her. "Fine, we may become enemies. That's fine. That's how the Sith are. But they at least know to work together while their goals align."

Then she slipped forward. Closing the distance as fast as she could to put Ishani into that same void she'd run from before.

"But that's the second time you've tried to kill me after insulting me. So run, or I'll erase you."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani had expected this, but figured it was worth a shot. As Alina headed toward her, the ghost moved out of her range—by floating upward and disappearing into the ceiling.

In the meantime, a piano came hurtling toward Alina’s back. Just before it entered the dead zone, Ishani let go, letting momentum do the rest.

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina cussed under her breath as she watched the ghost float up. Then, piano? She blinked as she heard the rush of air before spinning on a foot to send the other crashing into the instrument. Sending it to the ground with a drop of her heel. Monstrous strength, monstrous reflexes. And fire. Her gaze shifted to the spreading flame before she turned and ran for the exit.

No, she wasn't about to fight a ghost in a burning building, especially a ghost that knew the only way Alina could hurt her was getting close.

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Various other musical instruments followed Alina on her way out, flung about by the Force. A guitar was swung down toward her head, a clarinet attempted to impale her, and an entire drum set was dropped on top of her, one drum at a time.

Ishani had no reason to fear the spreading flames, but something in her couldn’t take the burning of knowledge. After Alina had left, a fire suppression system kicked in to fight the blaze, quenching the fire before it could spread any further. Perhaps Alina hadn’t been her target at all… perhaps it had been the knowledge contained within these archives.

Either way, Ishani’s ghost soon disappeared, swept away by the same currents that had brought her to Korriban.

Alina Tremiru​