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.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag Brandyn Sal-Soren
​

Meya sensed the shift in him. Something had changed within Brandyn.

Then the tree came.

Meya's free hand shot outward, fingers splaying as luminous green lightning erupted from their tips. Dathomir’s ichor given form crackled through the air and struck the massive trunk with enough force to split bark apart in an instant. Yet she felt it immediately through the Force: Brandyn was stronger. The tree was moving too quickly.

The lightning tore into the trunk, but it could not entirely stop it. Wood erupted in a burning explosion as the tremendous force behind the tree collided with her attack, splintered branches and blazing fragments bursting outward in every direction. Meya was caught in the blast before she could move.

Her armour turned aside most of the burning wood, but it could do little against the impact itself. Her body was hurled back and slammed hard into another tree, the force knocking the breath from her lungs. Her lightsaber flew from her hand and disappeared somewhere among the undergrowth, its crimson blade extinguishing as it struck the ground.

For several seconds, Meya could do nothing but gasp.

One hand braced against the tree beside her as she forced herself upright, her breathing ragged. Pain radiated through her body, but her attention never left Brandyn.

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO CHOSE TO DRAW ON OUR CONNECTION AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!” Her voice cracked through the clearing, raw with fury.

Suddenly, then, something switched, the anger within her voice grew colder, sharper. “You could have allowed our connection to remain nothing but a distant thread between us. Resisted the pull. The temptation.”

Growling against the pain, Meya took a single, defiant step toward him as she regained her balance.

“You are not powerless. You are choosing this. I know you were at the Ashblood Feast.”

Her voice rose again.

“I may have accidentally created this wretched link, but don’t blame me for the path you’ve chosen. GROW UP!”

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Meya Liefi
Attire: Link​

The sight of his attack having an affect on her, filled Brandyn with a sense of pride and accomplish that had been sorely lacking for some time. It fed that need for more. To see what else he could do, when the barriers to the darkness were dropped. The more he used the connection, the more he found his taste for the dark side growing.

Brandyn laughed. But not like he had ever laughed before. There was no joy. No happiness. Only cruelty. A mocking, deriding laugh that did not fill the space with noise, but rather it echoed through their connection.

"I was there to kill you..." He confessed. "...but I was a fool."

He waved off her accusation. "I need to grow up and you are an incompetent witch. We all have things to work on."

He held his ground, feeling the pain of his wounds — truly feeling it. The need for more was there, so he pushed down his thumb upon a cut on his thigh. A spike of pain flared, along with his nostrils.

"You did this to us. You should never have taken my pain from me...you selfish...incompetent...idiot..."

The smile faded. His face growing unnaturally calm and resolute. Even the blood on his head seemed to pause on its journey down his cheek.

"You wanted to take it. Bind me to you. Make me need you. Well. If you want my pain...you can have it..."

His eyes narrowed. And he pushed. Mentally, pushed. Against every measure she could conjure. Into any breach he could find, he would pour his grief. The betrayal of his father. The loss of both parents, even as his father sought redemption. The accusations of Briana that he had caused their passing. The attempts to right his wrongs that lead to him murdering a non-innocent man. The loss of the happiness of his marriage. Gianna...gone...his little girl, lost to a galaxy that had no care for her.

Brandyn stepped forward, as if fighting the tied. Face contorted he pushed through.

Meya would understand now. Understand his guilt. Understand his shame. Understand the marriage that was slipping through his fingers. Understand that all of it had felt preordained. That he was doomed to fail.

And she would feel the rage of a man, that it was all...truly...pathetic. He. He had failed.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag Brandyn Sal-Soren
​

His accusation was born from ignorance. Brandyn did not understand how fleshcraft worked, but to Meya, that was the least important part of the entire exchange. Her muscles stiffened as a simple truth settled into her mind. He truly did not fear her. He did not respect her. In the world of Sith, that was dangerous. Not because of him, but because of others who might hear of it.

More words spewed from him, accusations built upon accusations, and they were met with Meya's own vitriol.

“I wanted a Jedi.” Her voice was low, a growl almost. “A real Jedi!” She nearly spat the words.

“Not you.” The last word dripped from her lips like venom. But before she could say more, his mind crashed into hers.

Meya staggered. Her hands flew to the sides of her helmet, fingers digging against it pointlessly as the torrent poured through their connection. Grief. Guilt. Shame. Loss. His father's betrayal. His parents. Briana. Ralia. His marriage slipping through his fingers. Gianna. His daughter. Every failure he had carried, every regret he had turned over until they had become inseparable from the man himself.

Him. She understood him. Completely. And that was what made her hate him more. Not his pain. The weakness woven into it. The weakness she had been taught to gut, destroy, bury.

When it finally ended, Meya remained motionless for several moments, her head lowered and her hands still resting against her helmet. She could still feel the remnants of him clinging to the edges of her mind, and beneath them, something far more unsettling.

Recognition. She hated herself the most from that.

Then she straightened. It was almost mechanical. Her shoulders rolled back. Her spine settled into alignment. Her feet shifted, one sliding forward while the other angled outward, giving her a stable base. Her weight lowered slightly, knees bending as her center of gravity settled. The saber hidden up her left sleeve was summoned to her hand, held low and angled forward before her.

One more pause. One more breath in as she tried to settle whatever remained hidden under the surface.

“I am Meya.” Her voice was no longer ragged. It was steady. Loud. Hopefully loud enough to drown out all the doubt that clawed at every part of her mind, daily and endlessly and more strongly than ever now, because she could not afford to let it show. “A Nightsister of Dathomir. A blood witch. An alchemist. A fleshcrafter.”

Her chin lifted.

“I survived what should have killed me. I built what others could only dream of building. I have faced enemies stronger than myself and walked away from them.”

Her thumb pressed against the activation switch of her second hilt.

“One mistake does not make me incompetent. It does not erase what I have achieved.”

The crimson blade erupted with a violent snap-hiss. Bathing her armour, the ruin ground around her in crimson light.

“You will not succeed in tearing me down.”

Meya raised her saber, bringing the blade level until its tip pointed directly at Brandyn.

“So either draw your lightsaber and face me one more time, Lord Brandyn Sal-Soren... or return to my ship.”

The tip of her saber lifted slightly.

“You will be treated for your injuries. You will remain my prisoner until I decide otherwise.”

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Meya Liefi
Attire: Link​

The crimson glow of her newly ignited blade washed over the blood pooling in his vision. He heard her words. Every single one of them. Each title she claimed...Alchemist, Fleshcrafter, Nightsister....sounded like a desperate shield. A shield constructed to hide the exact same doubt he carried.

A ragged, breathless laugh tore from his throat, mixing with the metallic taste of blood. He didn't back down. He couldn't. Not when he had already crossed the threshold.

"A real Jedi..." Her words stung more than he would admit, but his reaction followed that of the dark mockery that had been laid out before him. He took an unstable step forward, his taut muscles protesting the movement. "Is that what you wanted, witch? A paragon of light to validate your pathetic existence? To prove you can break something pure?"

He gestured vaguely at the ruined ground between them, his face contorting into a mask of pure derision.

"Look at you. Reciting your lineage like a frightened child in the dark. A Nightsister. An alchemist. You use so many fancy words, Meya... but stripped of your titles, you are nothing. And you are absolutely nothing to me." He lied. About what, he refused to accept. But the connection didn't allow for lies.

Even as he tried to project an aura of supreme, unbothered cruelty, his mind remained jammed open into hers. The torrent of his grief was still pooling in the breach, but the feedback loop was instantaneous. He didn't just feel the barrier of her mental defense. He felt her. The raw, unfiltered essence of Meya Liefi. The heat of her defiance. The quiet, suffocating gravity of her darkness.

And Brandyn did not turn away.

He didn't recoil in Jedi disgust. Instead, a deeply buried, wretched part of his soul reached out and clung to it. He was drowning in his own failures, yet he was actively seeking warmth in the pitch-black heart of a Sith.

A realisation rocked him. He wanted this. It sowed a sudden, rotting seed of weakness beneath his anger. He was attracted to it. He wanted the pull of her. The profound shame of that unspoken desire, that sheer, disgusting hypocrisy of a Jedi losing his mind because he craved the very darkness he claimed to despise...poisoned his resolve. Where the light could not pull him back, Brandyn found his self-loathing taking over.

He had wanted to be a terror. Instead, he was just a fraud. Her accusation cut deeper now, because it was true. He wasn't a Jedi. He wasn't even a proper monster. He was just pathetic.

His fingers twitched against his side. The momentum of his dark side surge faltered, the raw power draining from his limbs, leaving only the crushing weight of his physical injuries and his own hypocrisy. Yet, pride was a stubborn thing.

Brandyn didn't reach for his saber, but he didn't submit either. He stared at her through the veil of blood dripping down his forehead, his eyes hollowed out by a sudden, terrifying emptiness.

"You want your prisoner?" he whispered, the mockery entirely gone, replaced by a cold, defeated exhaustion. "Take me then. Let's see which of us destroys the other first."

His hand twitched, igniting his blade. The green light of his blade washed over his face with a sickly hue.