Private Bloodbath

[Talin Treicolt]

“Weird?” She huffed. Playing up the offense, she put a hand to her chest in outrage. “Just because you don’t know much about it don’t make it weird.”

There was that hesitation again. She leaned over, placed her hand on his shoulder palm up, her chin nestling inside it to look at him with the biggest pleading eyes she could muster up.

“I promise it won’t hurt, or nothin’. And if you want to stop at any point, I will.”

Voice droppin’ an octave, she summoned that sultriness again, channeling it into the smallest of pouts.

“Pleeeeease.”

 

[Morrow]

"Wait, hurt? I thought you said you were gonna show me something?"

It went without saying that he wasn't convinced, especially with how vague she was about it. It was already nearing the point of irritating.

Didn't take long, did it?

"You need to explain. What exactly are you trying to show me?"

 

[Talin Treicolt]

“Hurt was a joke, Morrow.”

Dim light displayed disappointment. She pulled away again to sit up. How did she even put this into words that didn’t freak him out further? Between finger and thumb, she undid the clasp at her wrist that held a thin beskar chain of links. It had been with her since her 13th birthday, when mama put pa to work craftin’ it by hand.

“Those dreams I had - and I know you didn’t understand, BUT-“ Talin held a finger up, signaling she was not about to be interrupted before she could sell the pitch. “There’s something called psychometry. It’s, like… think of it as a memory of objects. It’s how was I was able to get us through that door back at the warehouse. You see the memories, experience ‘em how the person did. I could show you what I was talkin’ about.”

Her hand extended, palm up, offering the bracelet.

“I need you to know I’m not crazy. That I did not track you halfway cross the galaxy and this-“ She gestured to the both of them, the room, the door. “Was all just ‘cause.”

Desperation colored her voice, almost begging. She did feel crazy. She could recognize the hallmark of a lunatic in her actions if she looked at the facts - but what she dreamt of every night convinced her it was not madness, but destiny. She just needed him to understand that, too.

 

[Morrow]

So it was more Jedi stuff. Even understanding that, though, not a lot of what she said made sense to him. The Force to him was still hokey, esoteric religious stuff. By now, he'd seen more than enough evidence to know what she was saying wasn't the gonk-brained ramblings of a madwoman. Yet, he couldn't help but feel somewhat trepidatious about it. Deflecting blasterfire, opening that keypad with a vision of the code, and the dreams she kept mentioning. Unusual was an understatement.

Morrow sat up, stared aimlessly into the holovision slop. "I still don't understand how you would show me," he said uneasily.

Slowly, he turned back to Talin. "You're gonna... beam it into my head?" A grimace accompanied his conclusion.

 

[Talin Treicolt]

“Uhm… somethin’ like that, I guess? It’s kinda hard to describe.”

She pivoted to face him directly, legs crossin’ beneath her. Finding his fingers, she uncurled them, and placed the bracelet delicately into his palm. Hers formed a cusp around it. There was progress, at least - only a bit more nudging…

“You’d have to hold this. I wear this thing all the time, and it’s important to me, so it holds a lotta the stuff I’ve seen in it.”

That had gotten her into trouble as a teenager. She had learned the technique through that experience. Tryin’ to lie through her teeth, insistent she had been in her bed all night, despite the smeared eyeliner at breakfast. Ma had taken the bracelet, projected the memories onto pa. She was shovelin’ stalls for a week. Didn’t wear the thing for a long while, ‘till she realized mama could probably manage with any object, strong as she was in the force.

“It’s somethin’ you’re born able to do. You got it or you don’t. So, I go lookin’ for the memory of the dream, and… share it with you?”

Still hard to explain. Force theory hadn’t been a subject the enclave or Pryce taught her much about.

 

[Morrow]

"That sounds awful," Morrow asserted bluntly. 'Somethin' like that' was confirmation enough.

Inspecting the links that dangled out of their combined grasp, he dwelled on her assertion that the bracelet was holding memories. He was starting to grasp her explanations well enough that he knew she didn't just mean sentimental. Which still didn't make sense, go figure. The expression he wore telegraphed that he was making some attempt to wrap his head around it.

Clearly, he wasn't born with it.

"Fine," he conceded flatly, a hint of impatience bleeding through. His other hand came up and covered the rest of the bracelet. "But I have a bad feeling about this," he continued, mumbling.

 

[Talin Treicolt]

Giddiness gave root to the grin that blossomed across Talin’s whole face, ear to ear. He may not have been happy, but he was going with it. Just maybe, this would give way to belief in her insistence he had something more going on than just luck, too.

“Okayyy,” She tried to temper the word, and not release the squeal that was dyin’ to escape. “Close your eyes. Just think about me.”

They had to rifle through her memories to find what she was looking for. Every one came with all the emotion those moments carried for her. First came the most memorable recent event; tonight, limbs intertwined, that hungry need again, falling away in a quick flash. Then the next one, Morrow standing amongst fading smoke, amber where there should have been ocean. His pull on her was like gravity. Fear, concern, understanding… the beginning of desire. Back again. Morrow holding her a blaster point. Again. Realizing he had abandoned her on Nar Shaddaa. The night they met, the way mystery hung around him, begging to be investigated. An uncertainty of being able to mark him exactly the person she had been dreaming of.

One more time and she found what she was searching for: the recurrent vision that had sent her racin’ to Corellia to begin with. The blonde had traded in her standard jacket and jeans for an ensemble of black and crimson. There was no trace of blue in her gaze. Morrow stood in front of her, back turned. The pair were alone in an industrial alleyway. Smoke in the sky reflected the orange glow of fires, laying an apocalyptic blanket over the city.

It was more than love she felt as she studied him. It was… holy, devout. If he'd asked, she'd have fallen at her feet in worship, marched into the line of fire, killed, all to bask in his presence. And for his love in return? She'd burn entire worlds to ground, raise an army in his name, remold the entire galaxy in his image.

When he beckoned, profile recognizable as he turned to glance at her, there was no question in following. She went where he did. They followed one cement corridor into another, and paused where the line of buildings ended, opening up into the street. Star destroyers and TIEs broke the atmosphere. With a hiss, a crimson blade came to life in his hand.

That was where it usually stopped. This time, it didn't. Talin grabbed him by the hand, spinning him around to face her. She took him by the face face, frenzied, to capture a passionate kiss. Only then was she satisfied and ready to proceed. When the two broke their mold, she activated her saber in turn. It was not cerulean. They stepped out into a parade of atrocities together.

Then she returned to the present, gasping as if she had come back to life.

 

[Morrow]

Morrow's eyes shot open, gasping likewise. His hands retreated quickly from the bracelet, his right hand pushing the two of them apart. Nearly stupefied, he tried to make sense of the images that flashed in his head. In her head? Those eyes... their eyes? Him? Me? Us? It felt simultaneously like his memory and not. It felt wrong. Even his own dreams, which he'd refuse to elaborate on, terrifying as they were, didn't have that feeling.

Worse still, those eyes again. The image of them was burned into his brain. The same eyes as the people in his dreams. The same eyes that man he was in them had as well.

Getting up from the couch, he walked across the room, back turned. He continued to say nothing, pulling his pants up from the floor. Fingers rubbed over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I never wanna do that again," he droned distantly. Bad feeling affirmed.

Bare feet lightly tapped against the paneling, carrying him to disappear into the safehouse bathroom. He splashed cold water over his face from the rusting faucet. A low, insidious seething began to simmer distantly. Chagrin, almost.

 

[Talin Treicolt]

Distress emanated from him in waves, but she thought better than to follow. She had her own chit to deal with. It hadn’t been wholly like that, before. An objective truth, rather than whatever her slumbering brain made of it. And the end… she hadn’t seen that before. Some part of her had twisted it around, made her believe it was different than it was. Maybe she was there tryin’ to save him. She did love him, after all- that was apparent. The thought of destiny, which had enthralled her earlier, now felt more like a noose around her neck.

Her gaze followed him as he went. Once he had disappeared, she rose, too. The holo was left playin’ as she made her way to the dark bedroom. It stank of dust. The safe house must not have been used in this decade. She threw herself face first across the scratchy blankets and sank into the mattress hopelessly. How stupid she had been, to seek out the future. Managin’ to freak the both of them out in one go.