[Echoes of Eternity] The Bones of Zakuul [PM to join]

[Scherezade deWinter]

As Karlie moved aside to accept her call, Scherezade’s knees came up to just below her chin and she wrapped her arms around them, pausing occasionally only to take another sip from her bottle. Her body was working the liquor out much faster than she wanted it to; part of the reason she sipped every so often was to make sure the effect wouldn’t evaporate. Under no normal circumstances should a human body have been able to take so much. She never wanted to spend time thinking on why hers could.

She didn’t really listen to Karlie’s conversation with her father. What was there to listen to, anyway? But Karlie’s happiness when it was over had not gone unnoticed. Scherezade stared at her, wishing she’d had her father as well. But she hadn’t seen either him or her mother for centuries, and the last time she’d seen them, she’d still been an unweaned baby. There was that little… Moment, a little after she’d come out of the pebble, when she thought a man who looked uncannily like her father was actually her father but… It was just someone who looked like him.

“No,” came the very direct answer when Karlie made her offer, “I didn’t find them. You found them. I couldn’t even get the suit on without panicking. The droids and whatever they’re worth are yours.”

To their appearance she could just shrug. She had a droid though it looked nothing humanly proportioned like. And she wasn’t sure where the work ethic had come from; usually people tended to undervalue what she did, not… Exceedingly overvalue. There was nothing she had done this day that should have earned her credits or even a bottle of liquor. For the Force knew how many times, Scherezade had failed.

With a sigh, she managed to rise from the bed, her stance just a little bit wobbly.

“I should go,” she said, “congratulations on the droids.”


[member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Location: Inside her ship Castan-LCX-L3
Objective: Seek out any evidence of bio/chem weapons
Dressed: Casual
Interacting: A rather odd, but peculiar younger girl. Interesting subject to say the least... Hope she stays the course.
Post: 16





"Oh?.." There was that disappointing tone in her voice...like someone getting ditched again.

"I see...sure...yea...I know...."Karlie nodded, before quickly stepping back to switch off the holo projection of the Centurion droid.

There was that moment of silence when that moment a guest whom had been invited is about to leave, where one can't seem to find the words to say 'stay a little longer'
And Karlie did wish for just a bit more company. Ok, so it would maybe come out like she were desperate...desperate fro some kind of friend. But the girl obviously wasn't game. Still, there was so much that Karlie picked up as similarities despite the poor girl's depressive and somewhat destructive demeanor. And yes, that little bump on her head. Karlie still felt awful about it, despite it were an accident and the girl nearly weighed as much as her, making it difficult for Karlie to carry Scherezade like she were nothing but a rag doll. Ok, so Karlie wasn't like all muscle..just toned enough.

"I've got to get back to Castagne myself...you know...get some transports or barge thingy, vessel or other to haul these droids away..." Yes, she were stalling for time. Time to maybe peak some interest in the girl to maybe stay a bit longer.

"..yea..." She looked around her cockpit/cabin to come up with something, as the girl took to head toward the exit.

"Uhm, Scherezade.... I can cook you something!" No she couldn't. Karlie was not to keen on cooking. Not that she couldn't, but why spend time cooking when others could cook for you. And besides, MRE weren't too bad once the frequency oven did its magic.

"I mean... I've got some ready to eat rations...some are edible by some standards I guess. Don't like cooking really. But thought maybe you shouldn't leave on an empty stomach.." Ok, so the girl's stomach wasn't so empty as she had already nearly finished the bottle of Whyrens. There was in fact quite a few carbs besides alcohol in that liquor.

Ok, damn it..to the point then... "Could you maybe not leave so soon? I really don't mind you staying....just for a little bit more. You had said you don't have any particular place to be. I'm in no hurry to get home either..."





[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She wasn't drunk enough to miss the disappointment in Karlie's voice when she voiced her oh. Scherezade stared at her feet, unsure of what to do. They'd just met today. She didn't want another friend that would just betray her when the time was comfortable again. And no, she really didn't have somewhere else go to. But what would so do if she stayed? Continue to go around in the same circles?

And then food was offered.

Scherezade shrank inside herself again. She didn't want to tell Karlie, she didn't want to tell anyone, that the food she ate had been so limited before she'd been broken, and that now she couldn't even touch that because of the memories it stirred every time. She'd tried. She'd truly tried, several times. It had ended in violent vomiting. She'd tried to eat new things too, with similar results.

"I can not leave so soon," she finally said, defeated, taking her place back on the edge of the bed. "But no food. I'm not hungry."


[member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Location: Inside her ship Castan-LCX-L3
Objective: Seek out any evidence of bio/chem weapons
Dressed: Casual
Interacting: A rather odd, but peculiar younger girl. Interesting subject to say the least... Hope she stays the course.
Post: 17


"Uhm...Ok.." She nodded.
"...sure, no food."
Yea, but she herself were starving. What had she gone....7-8 hours?...more since she had a bite before she left her ship?

And come to think of it...the girl hadn't brought any provisions on her excursion either. well, what little attempt and effort Scherazade had made in going inside the station. Karlie had tried helping her into a bio suit with little success. Still, of what she noticed of the girl's provisions it were just alcohol and a cache of weapons of sort. Oh yes, and an awesome purple fur coat.

Was the girl alright though? Should she ask her again...maybe insist? These were questions going through Karlie's mind as to how to respond to her guest's declining her offer. She knew that sometimes it were courteous of guests to decline upon first offerings. But then again, Scherazade was quite a peculiar girl...maybe she meant what she said about 'no food'.
Karlie decided not to push it, as she herself had quite a limited tolerance for foreign foods not prepared to her taste. Well, more like palatable foods to her system. Ever since she were free of her midi, she also developed acute allergies to most foods that were common throughout the galaxy. Seemed that midi's in one system also made it possible to consume just about any foreign foods. The midi's seemed to make everything compatible in the galaxy. No midis, no across the board food compatibility. Karlie had to watch, sample, what she consumed or she herself would become violently ill, if not go comatose do to an allergic reaction.
So yes, maybe Scherazade had some kind of similar problems with foods.
Best not to push it, Karlie figured and leave it at that for now.

She got up off her bed and was about to push back the girl's hair to check on that bump she gave her, but instead...
"You need another cold compress? I'm going to pop something in the oven for me to put in my stomach. I can get you another cold compress.." She said, retrieving her hand.
Ok, so maybe she didn't know how to be a host. Not on this tiny ship anyway. But give Karlie a party and audience to cater to, and 'YES' she were an awesome host. But a host to VIP and delegates, not friends. There were never any friends at her father's politically driven parties.as thus, Karlie lacked friend's skills. But she did know not to be so pushy and needy too. Friendship suicide, she were once instructed. Just be yourself, despite your excitement.
Well she kind of had to take that like a grain of salt, as that advice had come from a Jedi. A master Jedi. A unique Jedi whom had helped her through her transition and eventual disconnection with her sith mother's spirit.
But Karlie's true freedom came when she initiated her Sebrix-9 project which severed all connection with her mother's haunting spirit and that of the force altogether. It was Karlie's true escape into freedom. No more voices..no more ghosts...no more mother whom wanted to posses her body.

Well, maybe she should just go and get something quick to prepare and consume.
"Right..." She uttered to herself and made a quick trip to the small galley outside the cockpit. She were grabbing some ready made food containers to pass them through the frequency generated oven as she continued to speak with Scherazade.

"Don't mean to be nosy...just that I don't think i understood you quite clearly.
You had said that you could be a hundred...a few hundred years old or just delivered?..born, rather?...is that right?" Yes, she had thought that had not sounded right before, but she didn't want to be rude and had just accepted what Scherazade had told her.
Karlie put the containers she had retrieved in the oven and pressed the warm feature. They were after all prepared already and just needed to be thawed and warmed...which of course took like a few seconds.

"I mean...if it's something you don't want to talk about...you know, sure. We don't need to talk about it... " Karlie kept talking as she prepared her food. Actually had prepared two containers and she retrieved both out of the oven. She grabbed two sets of utensils and brought the containers back to her bed, placing the one that Scherazade may want on the ledge between them. She didn't ask her if she wanted it, Karlie just made it available for her guest just in case she changed her mind. Still, it was there for her, without her being pushy.

"Neat ship though....your ship. Looks sweet from the outside. I like the classic look. They don't seem to ever go out of style..." Shoot, did she just start talking about style and stuff...oi.... better change the direction.

"I mean.... it kind of fits you."
Of course, as she talked, Scherazade held on to the Whyrens and Karlie took some bites between lines.
"You know...ominous... mysterious....deadly..hehe." yes, she knew the class and it should be quite armed. or at least they had been designed to be. Still, she couldn't be too far off on that.




[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

“No,” she said sharply. She didn’t need another cold compress. She didn’t need any compressed. Despite her best attempts, her body remained strong. The bump would be gone by tomorrow, or the day after that at most. It was another one of those ironic things. She’d inherited the knowledge, the looks, the general grasp of the Force. And it was all wasted in her. On someone who could barely string a few sentences together in new company. On someone who was a joke in the Confederacy yet had no other place to go to.

Karlie started fidgeting around, preparing food. Scherezade couldn’t really hold it against her. Most people couldn’t not eat the way she was not eating, and even when she ate normally, her palate had been so limited that it was hard to find food to share anyway. The only one… Well. How much could she keep making her writer detail about that again and again and again? The silence reigned on as Kalie used the oven, Scherezade having nothing to contribute or even the attention to initiate some sort of small talk or other conversation.

And when she blinked, there was a tray of food next to her. She ignored its presence.

“Born,” she said when Karlie initiated a new conversation on her own, “before the Gulag, before the rest of the crap that’s happened since.” Not that she’d gotten to live through any of it. “They put me in sort of a stasis when I was a baby and I got out about seven months ago. The presence sucks.”

Yes. It did suck. She would have traded all of it, every spec, to have lived as a child on Endelaan. To grow up in the sunshine and the warmth, surrounded by her parents and her twin brother, and the people of her ancestral home planet. The same home planet that she would never see now that she was supposedly ‘free’

“The ship’s only slighter older than me,” she shrugged, “used to belong to my aunt, who turned it into a floating space station for spice making and trading. And farm animal poodoo hoarding. Don’t ask me about that one. It took a forever to get it cleaned.”

And then Scherezade had dirtied it up in new and worse ways. But there was no reason to speak about that.


[member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Location: Inside her ship Castan-LCX-L3
Objective: Seek out any evidence of bio/chem weapons
Dressed: Casual
Interacting: A rather odd, but peculiar younger girl. Interesting subject to say the least... Hope she stays the course.
Post: 18




She stopped midway of forking a mouthful of food upon hearing Sherazade's story of her age. Karlie remained fixed on the girl's features. Was she toying with her? The Gulag plague? The girl lived during those dark times?..for real?

She put her fork down on her plate.
"Whoa...back up a minute.." She finally got a word in, or in truth had been able to swallow what the girl claimed before she moved on to the mundane small talk Karlie was trying to initiate on the girl's ship. Sure, it was of interests..kind of. But Karlie had only mentioned it so as to avoid those little empty moments of silence.

"The Gulag?...you were born and lived during that era?" Karlie remained transfixed on Scherazade's features pushing her plate further back to the side of her. Her appetite at this point was now focused on this incredible, however unbelievable claim that the girl was indeed hundreds of years old...or had been in statis for that long.

"Do you remember much of it... your life during that time?..." Well for one reason or other the girl claimed it were better times. But what of the plague? How was life with the plague taking so many lives throught the galaxy like?

It weren't that Karlie didn't believe what Sherazade was saying were true, no. It were quite possible. Many people throughout the galaxy had been found to have escaped the plague and times of that era through various methods of suspended animation. Many failed as many had succeeded. Even those in carbonite hadn't been 100% successful. Then again, success or failures all stemmed from proper prep and storage of said individuals. A few caches of people were found in perfect hibernation on some remote stations while many were found dead to have expired shortly after they were frozen...or whatever method of stasis they had been put in to escape the plague. Some historians even commented that dying in hibernation like that spared them the horrid death if they had succumbed to the plague.

"...I...I mean if you don't mind talking about it.." Karlie then realized all that the girl had as far as family and friends were lost. Scherazade's entire life had existed in the past. Only a few months old here in the present time, and she thought the galaxy was much better off in the past? maybe she were right. The galaxy wasn't so fractured and in the Chaos that it existed today.

Karlie had an understanding as to why the girl seemed so distant and very hard to connect with despite her efforts at making friends with her. Sherazade had lost everyone.
"I couldn't imagine the magnitude of your lost... " She then said, lowering her gaze from her. Sure, Karlie had lost-
No, she had been betrayed... used by the woman who gave birth to her, going under the pretense of a mother's love to manipulate her in readying to one day inhabit her body. Yes, that were quite devastating, but she still had her father, her home and now a position in the Castan executive branch of the IBI. She still had something, while Scherazade had for the most part nothing.

Karlie believed her. She had seen the pain in her eyes as she spoke of her past...her galaxy which existed so long ago. Still, if somehow Scherazade could open up to her...give her a shot, maybe they could be friends. Seemed both were lacking in that respect.




[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

“Born,” Scherezade corrected Karlie. No, she hadn’t lived through those old times. She wished she had though. Living during the Gulag might have meant getting to grow up with her mother and father, might have meant growing up with her twin brother. It might have meant actually living and having a chance to grow up like a normal person who did normal things and not… Whatever this was.

“I was about a year old when my grandmother imprisoned me inside a pebble because she and my mom were at war,” she explained. It was… A much more complicated story than that, but she wasn’t going to detail much about the centuries of darkness, “she released me a few months ago, imprinted a bunch of info and memories into my brain, and set me loose. It’s sucked ever since.”

Where other people flourished, Scherezade had just sunk. No one liked her, even before she was broken. The Confederacy tolerated at best and she had to work thrice as hard as others for a mere half of the recognition. Only the woman who adopted her as a sister and the man she had grown to love seemed to want to be around her, but the moment she’d turned her back they became an item, claimed each other while she was in few days’ worth of a coma to recover from being almost murdered by a Jedi, and then told her that within minutes of her still being mad because of the nightmares and tortures she suffered in what for her were years, not days.

So yeah. She had a lot of reasons to wish she had lived through the Gulag and not now.

“And no, you can’t,” she said, hugging her knees again.


[member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Location: Inside her ship Castan-LCX-L3
Objective: Seek out any evidence of bio/chem weapons
Dressed: Casual
Interacting: A rather odd, but peculiar younger girl. Interesting subject to say the least... Hope she stays the course.
Post: 19



A pebble?... the girl was entrapped in a pebble, by her grandmother?
Had to be some kind of metaphor, she thought as she listened to Scherazade recount her past.

Karlie let that go for now, deciding not to have the girl clear up what she meant by it. Karlie had no concept as to how far one could tap the force. Yes, she had unwittingly been manipulated by the woman who gave her birth with the sole intention of claiming her body when she were of age. And this woman were of sith in nature, ancient and as old as time itself. Not all had yet to be discovered of who had been Karlie's mom. All that had been revealed in Karlie's genome was that she had been born of what indicated from her sister in a way. But it was how that sith lived on through the millennia, giving birth to a daughter, then possessing her body. So in essence, by DNA mapping, Karlie had been given birth by her sister/mother. And that her grandmother and great grandmother and so on down her lineage were all sisters giving birth to replacement bodies.

"So then you posses some of her memories...your mother's memories..." Karlie muttered in a low tone, as it could almost sound as to what her own mother had been in the process of doing...teaching her, to make ready for her to posses Karlie when she was of age or when the time for her to jump bodies was ripe.

Unbeknownst to Karlie, her sister/mother had always a few back up daughter/sisters in the event that one of her host daughters would not take. And Karlie did not take. Only that her mother's identity had been discovered by Tarssin Destat and consequently lead to the destruction of that sith. But that had only destroyed the host body, not the spirit. And that spirit had haunted Karlie as a child until she had the means of purging, become free of midicloreans, as they were the doorway..the avenue of the spirit's means of possession.

So no, Karlie hadn't fully realized the extent and ability of what it meant to be force powerful, as she had been detached from her mother before the woman had the chance to make her daughter ready.
"No, probably not...
I can't imagine loosing your entire family like you have... no." She replied, to Scherazade's remark on her not being able to phantom her loss.

It were apparent that Karlie had yet to discover that she had a sister out there...maybe two...maybe more in total whom had been born for the sole purpose of providing everlasting life to the sith creature that had been her mother. But without a physical body to accomplish the transferal, that sith spirit could only try and influence it's daughters through dreams.
But since the Sebrix initiative, Karlie had been midi free and therefore her connection to her mother's spirit through dreams had been severed. Along with that, so had she lost her force connection altogether, and abilities.
But that she had been more than happy to discard as it meant no more nightmares and haunts by a spirit which wanted to posses her body and mind.

"Hmm...well, I'm not one in favor of getting plastered, but if there's anything left in that bottle, I wouldn't mind a swig... or two right about now..."She wasn't sure as to what remained of the Whyren's, for the girl had it last. and was currently of sight.

They seemed to be quite a pair, nevertheless. What would come out of their chance meeting, only Sherazade's side of the force could know, as Karlie was pretty much floating oblivious in it's wake. Her connection having been short circuited, she were running on just intuition...a former human trait, before midis ever came about.



[member="Scherezade deWinter"]