CONCEITED
[member="Vanessa Vantai"]
Ella tore her gaze away. Lowering her brow to the ground, the memories of the Sith Lord that she had been- Darth Ayra- swam across her mind. Circe Savan- Darth Pandeima- the Sith Master who had taken her during her adolescence on Chandrila and taught her in the ways of the Force was still... alive. The fact that Pandeima was still alive was evidence that not all the Sith Masters and Jedi who had fought in the One Sith Wars had died. That there were some who still lived.
Gathering dirt into her already blackened hands, Ella pushed herself up to her feet. Mere minutes ago, she had approached this woman as a stranger, as a possible hostile she had not accounted for when she had set up camp here. But now, as she approached Pandeima, Ella did so with new vision. Dirt falling out of her palm and through her fingers, she stopped just a meter from the woman with an unreadable expression. For a long time, Ella looked at her under her newest disguise, the latest of bodies that she had taken over, presumably under the same ritual that had granted Darth Ayra a second chance.
It was true what they said when it came to matters relating to the Force. There was no such thing as co-incidence. Was this was the will of the dark side that the two of them should reunite? It appeared that Pandeima had regathered herself, setting about the resurrection of a new corporation... But to what end? At first, Ayra had been intrigued and fascinated with the prospect of using a corporation such as Emeritus Industries to her advantage. Being the co-owner of such a business had allowed her to hang with the likes of the Techno Union, a conglomerate that had risen in place of the Confederacy in the 840s.
But had it benefited her at all? As she moved about the galaxy as Alicia Drey, Ayra had been working to forward the agenda of her secret life as a Sith Lord. For all the contacts she had made, very little sway had been put into effect. She had become wealthy, powerful in her own right, as a respected figure in both the corporate and criminal underworld as one of the Black Tie Syndicate, but all of it was immaterial next to the power of the Force. For all the things she had held, did it stop Rave Merrill from interfering in her work? Or Taeli Raaf besting her on Coruscant? Had she got any closer to completing her aspirations?
"No," Ella murmured to her own questions. Since entering her self imposed exile from the Jedi Order, she had contemplated hard on her seminal work... and found it wanting. It was only through strength, that she would gain power- not through the political and secretive maneuvers that she had once tried to play with this woman before her. Whilst her face and voice were now difference, Pandeima was still the same. Subach-Innes, Emeritus, the Horde- even the Empire. Not of it had made her realize that it was all insignificant to the power that could be wielded by the individual.
That had been the problem between her and Pandeima. Whilst Pandeima had claimed to be her Master, and had taught her much in the Force, Ayra had never struggled to learn the knowledge that she had learned at her feet. Pandeima shared her knowledge freely, violating the basic principles of Rule of Two that Darth Bane had created several millennia ago. Whilst she possessed the knowledge of Bane's teachings, she hadn't come to realize the fundamental truths that Ella had come to learn. Destroyed and broken through a mixture of her own weaknesses, and the failures of others, Darth Ayra had fallen, succumbed by the ancient orbalisk parasites that had infested her.
But she had endured, to be reborn again as something new, as was the nature of the dark side.
"You owe me nothing Pandeima. And I owe you nothing neither. For all our work with Emeritus, and our dealings across the galaxy, we affected no substantial change. We stood at the epicenter of seismic changes, and we convinced ourselves that we were partly responsible. But we were ultimately failures. Nothing was ever truly accomplished. Your immaterial wealth, your technology and inventions are meaningless unless they serve a higher purpose."
"The commodity that was our apprenticeship, the relationship that we shared, was destroyed a long time ago. The girl you found on Chandrila all those years ago is gone. Right now, I am weak, and vulnerable. But I will not take help from others. Through passion, I gain strength."
Lowering her eyes to the corner for a moment, when she looked back to Vanessa, her voice carried the weight of her words: "I don't love you anymore." Turning her back, Ella opened herself to be struck down.
[flash]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DecvlL8tug[/flash]
Ella tore her gaze away. Lowering her brow to the ground, the memories of the Sith Lord that she had been- Darth Ayra- swam across her mind. Circe Savan- Darth Pandeima- the Sith Master who had taken her during her adolescence on Chandrila and taught her in the ways of the Force was still... alive. The fact that Pandeima was still alive was evidence that not all the Sith Masters and Jedi who had fought in the One Sith Wars had died. That there were some who still lived.
Gathering dirt into her already blackened hands, Ella pushed herself up to her feet. Mere minutes ago, she had approached this woman as a stranger, as a possible hostile she had not accounted for when she had set up camp here. But now, as she approached Pandeima, Ella did so with new vision. Dirt falling out of her palm and through her fingers, she stopped just a meter from the woman with an unreadable expression. For a long time, Ella looked at her under her newest disguise, the latest of bodies that she had taken over, presumably under the same ritual that had granted Darth Ayra a second chance.
It was true what they said when it came to matters relating to the Force. There was no such thing as co-incidence. Was this was the will of the dark side that the two of them should reunite? It appeared that Pandeima had regathered herself, setting about the resurrection of a new corporation... But to what end? At first, Ayra had been intrigued and fascinated with the prospect of using a corporation such as Emeritus Industries to her advantage. Being the co-owner of such a business had allowed her to hang with the likes of the Techno Union, a conglomerate that had risen in place of the Confederacy in the 840s.
But had it benefited her at all? As she moved about the galaxy as Alicia Drey, Ayra had been working to forward the agenda of her secret life as a Sith Lord. For all the contacts she had made, very little sway had been put into effect. She had become wealthy, powerful in her own right, as a respected figure in both the corporate and criminal underworld as one of the Black Tie Syndicate, but all of it was immaterial next to the power of the Force. For all the things she had held, did it stop Rave Merrill from interfering in her work? Or Taeli Raaf besting her on Coruscant? Had she got any closer to completing her aspirations?
"No," Ella murmured to her own questions. Since entering her self imposed exile from the Jedi Order, she had contemplated hard on her seminal work... and found it wanting. It was only through strength, that she would gain power- not through the political and secretive maneuvers that she had once tried to play with this woman before her. Whilst her face and voice were now difference, Pandeima was still the same. Subach-Innes, Emeritus, the Horde- even the Empire. Not of it had made her realize that it was all insignificant to the power that could be wielded by the individual.
That had been the problem between her and Pandeima. Whilst Pandeima had claimed to be her Master, and had taught her much in the Force, Ayra had never struggled to learn the knowledge that she had learned at her feet. Pandeima shared her knowledge freely, violating the basic principles of Rule of Two that Darth Bane had created several millennia ago. Whilst she possessed the knowledge of Bane's teachings, she hadn't come to realize the fundamental truths that Ella had come to learn. Destroyed and broken through a mixture of her own weaknesses, and the failures of others, Darth Ayra had fallen, succumbed by the ancient orbalisk parasites that had infested her.
But she had endured, to be reborn again as something new, as was the nature of the dark side.
"You owe me nothing Pandeima. And I owe you nothing neither. For all our work with Emeritus, and our dealings across the galaxy, we affected no substantial change. We stood at the epicenter of seismic changes, and we convinced ourselves that we were partly responsible. But we were ultimately failures. Nothing was ever truly accomplished. Your immaterial wealth, your technology and inventions are meaningless unless they serve a higher purpose."
"The commodity that was our apprenticeship, the relationship that we shared, was destroyed a long time ago. The girl you found on Chandrila all those years ago is gone. Right now, I am weak, and vulnerable. But I will not take help from others. Through passion, I gain strength."
Lowering her eyes to the corner for a moment, when she looked back to Vanessa, her voice carried the weight of her words: "I don't love you anymore." Turning her back, Ella opened herself to be struck down.
