Private Dark Connection

[Meya Liefi]

Tag Brandyn Sal-Soren
​

Save for the humming of her hilts crimson blade, the forest seemed to grow quieter as Meya moved through it. She did not need to see him to know he was drawing closer to her location. His presence had begun as the faintest disturbance at the edge of her awareness, like a ripple moving through still water, but with every step they both took it strengthened.

A dark cloak and its hood covered part of her void-black armour. The layered plates followed the shape of her body, a design that gave her the freedom to move with little restriction. What light spilled through the canopy above her was swallowed by the armour’s matte, non-reflective surface.

The hilt of the ignited blade was gripped tightly in her right hand. Within the Force, the weapon hungered, a hunger that deepened with every step she took toward Brandyn.

Her other hilt remained unignited and hidden up her left sleeve, close enough to summon if she decided the first would not be sufficient. He could push pain and thoughts through their link, but that did not mean she was going to avoid experimenting with it. Maybe she could use it against him, or inflict enough pain that he would be unable to focus well enough to weaponize the connection against her.

She could have waited for him to simply come to her. She chose not to. Perhaps he did not understand Sith when he made the choice to use their link while he was wounded, or maybe he did and knew what was coming for him now.

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Meya Liefi
Attire: Link​

Heavy, hurried steps were accompanied by a persistent struggle for air. He ran at first to escape the compound he had just investigated. But now Brandyn ran to evade her.

He had slipped within his light bending shell, but he knew that she could still track him through their connection. A connection he had abused, and wilfully so. A connection that he would likely be willing to do so again. But there was something that began to slow his trek through forest and vale. She could heal him again.

He had been wrestling with the thought for some time, as she stalked him. Mercy was not something that a Sith offered, especially when you rammed mental and physical pain waves down your psychic link with them.

But the truth was clear. He would not escape her.

Coming to stand atop a small outcropping, with clear sky above him, Brandyn looked down upon the small clearing that she may soon enter. He fought for control of his breathing. And he let light unfold around him.

"I am here you witch...come and find me."

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag Brandyn Sal-Soren
​

Meya sensed him stop. There were only a few more footfalls before she emerged into the clearing, her awareness immediately catching his presence somewhere to her right. Her golden eyes shifted toward him beneath the dark visor without her head fully following. She did not give herself enough time to turn completely before her free hand swept downward through the air.

The motion carried through her entire body. Her shoulder dipped with the movement, her torso twisting as her arm carved sharply toward the ground, almost as though she were physically dragging something down with her. The Force answered in an instant. It gathered under Brandyn's feet before crashing downward into the rocky outcropping, a concentrated burst of power meant to tear his footing away and send him tumbling from the ledge.

But that was not all she did.

For the first time, Meya used their connection for more than just locating him. She forced her thoughts, her emotions through it like he had done many times. Her rage directed at him surged through the link like a flood breaking through a dam, carrying the weight of every frustration the link had brought, every violation, and every moment she had felt his pain that day.

“DO YOU THINK I’M SOME SORT OF PUSHOVER?!” The words ripped from her throat, raw enough to hurt and loud enough to echo through the clearing.

The air seemed to grow heavier around her. The Dark Side gathered in the space like a suffocating presence.

“THAT YOU COULD ABUSE WHAT WE HAVE WITHOUT OPENING THE DOOR TO SOMETHING MUCH WORSE FOR YOURSELF?!”

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Meya Liefi
Attire: Link​

The impact against the rocks was nothing compared to the mental assault. Such was the torment unleashed on his mind that he could not even think to brace himself when he fell. He could not think to fight back. He could not find a single thought of his own. All he could feel...was her. The pain, the loss, the loneliness of a Sith wandering the galaxy, trapped in a prison of their own making.

Brandyn rag-dolled down the slope of the rock, body connecting with no fewer than two more jagged outcroppings. When he landed, almost limp on the ground, he did so with contusions so numerous it would take days to find them all. The gash on his right thigh hurt the most, but the amount of blood pouring from his forehead probably looked worse
The pain. He began to feel it. It was his. Not hers. And for that pain he reached, finding it a centring presence. Fingers curled into the dirt beneath his splayed palms, as he found himself...laughing.

He had been a fool. Pushing his pain into Meya had been the wrong call, the instinctual call of a Jedi losing his way and trying desperately to cling to the light. But now. On the dirt, with the witch howling her outrage into his skull...he finally understood.

Pain was power.

His lost daughter. A wife suffering from spiralling manic episodes. Sisters on the brink of emotional collapse. His parents' death. Ralia's death. His own feeling of inevitable failure. All the pain that he had carried, funnelled into a single point of focus. A single thought. You did this to me witch. And you get what you deserve.

Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed against the pain — hers and his alike — as he pushed off the dirt. "You chose this for yourself...witch," he said through blood and spittle. His body was taut, muscles coiled.

Face contorting, Brandyn focused himself on the nearest weapon he could sense. The twenty metre tree, standing some ten yards behind the witch, strained as it rose from the ground. Roots clung to the earth, but Brandyn fought against their will — screaming ripping through his throat.

"YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

And then it was free. Brandyn wrenched it sideways, the entire tree sweeping toward the witch in one vicious, clean strike.