Family Reunion

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn"]


Something pressed at the back of his mind.

He scowled, his lips turning down as his boots made an odd squishing noise. This planet was horrid, it was terrible, in fact it was probably one of the most worlds he had ever visited. The outer rim had been bad, but this place...this place was nothing but swamp and men waiting to die. A scowl crossed his features, but Cedric kept on dredging through the muck.

Truthfully he had no idea why he was here.

Three days ago he had awoken, and his mind had felt a push, a prod, a calling.

It had been an oddity, though he had felt such a feeling before. It was the force. It was the force pressing him to go somewhere. It had happened when Thule called to him, when his mothers holocron had called to him. He remembered the feeling well, it was exactly the same. His hand shifted slightly, raking some of the mud off the feathered jacket.

“Disgusting.” He said to himself, trudging further through the swamps.

Then he came upon a clearing, a large section of solid ground. He pulled his boot free of the mud and stepped onto solid earth, his lips thinning slightly as he tested the ground. With help from a nearby, Cedric pulled himself into the clearing.

The Darkside was feint here, feint, but present.

Slowly the pressure in his mind began to fade.

He was here.

 

[Louise]

A skeletal hand clawed through the sludge, decrepit and mottled flesh pushing through thick, unyielding sludge.

...h...e...lp…….m….e...

Breathing was hard.

In Chaos you don't need to breathe. It was an act of function long since forgotten, after all, why would dead lungs need to draw breath? This set of lungs however, were no longer deceased. Anaemic shrivelled little organs but nonetheless still barely functioning. Being used to death, she had forgotten, finding a growing tightness for as long as she didn't draw breath.

Evelynn had returned.

Her corpse-like form was found to be half buried in a bog, and for every inch of crawling progress she made to get out, the muck claimed her back, leaving her stuck.

Confused.

Alone.

With only a single name in her mind, the name of a woman that she had once loved and who had apparently felt the same for her even if she was strictly completely incapable of showing it.

N…...e…..m…..e……..ne….

Her thoughts were in dissaray, much resembling her fetid flesh in style and substance. The woman called out, of course, not physically but through the Force, sending a message out into the galaxy of hatred tinged with fear, melded with sorrow. But who would hear it? Who could hear it? Her purpose was not to seek relations and yet…

Days went by, and the same cycle continued, the frail creature trying to crawl out of the ground and being held in place, voiceless voice croaking with what little ability they had.

Off in the deepest recesses of her mine, she heard a bark.

[member="Cedric Dorn"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

Cedric moved forward.

He heard an echo within his mind, a voice. He had never heard it before, had never heard the sound, yet it was familiar to him, it was a calling. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, tried to locate where it came from, tried to find it within the abyss that was the force.

It was difficult.

It was like searching through a haystack for a single needle painted light brown.

He called. He tried to reach out for the voice, he tried to speak to it, to call back so that he could find it. He didn't know why, but Cedric knew that it was important, he knew that the voice was here for him, that he needed to find it.

Hello?

Cedric Dorn reached out with the force, a single pulsing echo into the swamp.

 

[Louise]

With each moment that went by the world seemed just that inch colder.

Like Chaos. Everybody thought that Chaos was hot, that it was hell fire and torment until the end of time itself, but that wasn't the case. There certainly was torment, mind you. Or was Chaos what you made of it? An experience for each individual? That wouldn't have been too bad of a theory.

Her own personal hell held no warmth, no comfort, no companionship. Stripped bare and naked for the cold to consume.

Then it came.

Like the heartbeat to save a life.

Hello?

Somebody came.

She wasn't alone.

Another decaying hand clawed through the dirt, the telepathic voice somewhat bolstering her attempts to escape the bog. It didn't actually help, but it was simply reinvigorating to find that no, she wasn't alone. Not any more.

….he...lp…..me!

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

It was stronger now.

He could feel it, it was close. It was crying out and for some odd reason Cedric found himself responding to it. It was as if he himself were making the cry, as if part of him was invested in that voice. He began to search, almost frantically.

His head swiveled back and forth, his steps increased, he rushed forward.

At the end of the clearing, there within the swamps he called.

Where are you?

Was he looking for a person? Was someone there? He knew that he was not going mad, he knew that there was something there. There had to be. The force had lead him here, and brought him upon this path. It would not lie to him or decieve him. He knew that somewhere within this muck...there was someone.

 

[Louise]

[member="Cedric Dorn"]

Now that she had found the roaming presence she latched onto it, desperately clinging on to the notion of somebody else. No longer alone.

But who was this presence?

There was a familiarity about it, that in the very same breath seemed oh-so-unknown. Who was it? Memories lost in the harsh void of Chaos, Evelynn tried to think, to recall faces and names that might have filled this familiar gap in her mind. However, there came nothing. She could only recall one single name and the woman would have known if that monstrosity was approaching.

I...n….the….bog…

It was vague, perhaps too vague. There was a lot of swamp to go about, the whole land around them being dominated by hazy greens and mucky browns. The deathly creature, instead of trying to claw forward once again rose her arm, decrepit blueish flesh raising as high into the air as it could.

Heeeeeerrrrrreeeeee….

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

The call resounded, and his head jerked to the side.

Where?

He said again, though he didn't wait for an answer. He knew. He didn't know how, but he knew. In the back of his head something pushed him, prodded him forward. The Sith Acolyte dashed through the swamps, stepping into the mud and wading the muck.

Cedric called out again.

WHERE!?

There voice in his head grew, casting out, trying to find whomever had been calling.

Tell me where to find you!

He was getting desperate. That familiarity was sinking it, pulling at it, calling to him. He could sense it, so close, yet so far.

 

[Louise]

A snarl erupted from the back of her shambling throat.

Was she being sought by a blind man? Would she have had to set her clawing limb ablaze as a beacon for him to see? A sense of anger stemming from impatience began to boil inside the pit of her stomach. Were there any beasts in the swamp beyond the buzzing of small flies she would have opted to request for their aid instead.

FOOL.

Her voice was loud that time, cracking like a thousand stinging lashes on the back. It was almost reminiscent of her mother had it not been for the wild passion. Insulting him had almost depleted the last of her energy reserves. Likely not worth it.

Once more her hand came clawing through the unforgiving sludge, sinking back in and providing no purchase or grip for her to pull herself out.

Cloooooose yooooouuur eeeeeyeeessss…

Her own eyes shuddered into the back of her head, the mere act of telepathy draining enough, he had to find her soon or it would have all been for naught.

….aaaannnnd LOOK!

[member="Cedric Dorn"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

His eyes snapped closed.

The force crashed in on him like a mountain top. It fell on him, crashing down and rushing through his entire being in an instant. It welled within him, pushing out and forward. It pinged throughout the forest, the swamp, echoing through the lands

There was nothing.

Then...then there was something.

The pang of something, the feel of it, the press. The force rushed through him, pushed out through him. The sense of the swamp pushed in him, and he found her. It was not a voice that pushed him, it was a familiar sense, it was something that called to him, something that felt...felt like home.

He didn't understand, but he rushed forward.

Cedric dashed, splashing through the swamp. At first he thought it was a gnarled branch, a broken skeletal appendage of a tree or a swamp. Then he got closer, a hand, fingers sprawling up from the deep. He fell to his knees, grasping the hand in a tight embrace.

 

[Louise]

Finally.

Flesh upon flesh, or what might have once constituted as flesh at least. It was a shock to the system, the heat of his skin was almost overwhelming to the deathly woman, who for so long had felt nothing but the cold and the dead.

A gasp from a voiceless throat.

The bones gripped back, clutching his hand with such an intensity it might have broken his flesh. He pulled, finally freeing her fragile body from unrelenting grip of the muck. The humid air hit her mud-caked flesh as a great shuddering breath filled her dilapidated lungs.

Do you…

Out of the bog, Evelynn clung further to her savour, collapsing into his much stronger frame. Her hand still gripping his, her other almost tearing his clothes.

...see now?

[member="Cedric Dorn"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

Did he see?

No.

He was still blind to who she was, what she was. Yet that sense of familiarity was still there, the feeling that he knew her, that she was someone to be held close, someone to cherish and care for, someone that he should have liked to know. He frowned slightly, looking into her eyes.

There was no recognition there.

“Who...” He trailed off, still searching. “Who are you?”

There were many answers to that question of course, and he knew one of them already. She was a Sith Lord. He could sense it, feel it. The power that radiated off of her was almost overwhelming.

 

[Louise]

The mud that caked her flesh thankfully managed to disguise any obvious notion of rot, mottled flesh hidden by nature's disguise. Less a human being, more a creature, more a monster. Not that such a statement would have been inaccurate.

Despite her veil of muck, all shades of death could still be seen within that gaze.

That state of her stare, eyeballs cloudy, the once strong typical green of her lineage faded away to perfect lucidity. They were dead eyes, dead eyes that contrastingly managed to hold shades of emotion, of life, of rage.

Hatred.

Not for him but for the world.

She could barely stand, still clinging to his clothes her already frail legs having atrophied beyond belief. He had asked her a question. Who was she? Mind was still cloudy, still dominated by the most base of emotions. So confused, so alone, so full of rancour that she could barely collect a solid thought. His words a quiet echo in the back of his mind.

Who are you?

Who am I?

WHO AM I?

EVELYNN.

---
[member="Cedric Dorn"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

Evelynn?

That name.

So familiar.

Why? Where had he?

Mother.

For a moment Cedric was compeltely and totally stunned. For a moment he could not move, speak, or even hear. The word echoed within his mind. Evelynn. Evelynn Dorn. His sister. Panic crawled over him. Was this his sister? Was this a trick? A trap. His arms began to shake, his whole body followed.

“What?” He said to himself more than to her. “Evelynn?”

There was recognition in his eyes.

 

[Louise]

He was just standing there!

She had clawed her way out of Chaos, through the Netherworld and back onto the plane of existence and he was just standing there, dumbfounded, dumbstruck, just dumb in general. Perhaps he wasn't one to look dead women in the eyes very often.

Barely clinging to the realm she needed help, not questions. Interrogation could come later, but first she needed vitality.

Her own mind was too clouded to perceive her own flesh and blood standing a heartbeat away from her. Everything was swirling and screeching, her own name had come to her but identity was still lost, how was she to know that it was her brother that held her there in the bog, who had come calling to her siren sound of pain and desolation.

With a final burst of intensity her bony fingers actively tore through his clothing with a trembling grip. She looked up to him, eye-to-eye, teeth bared and rotten from natural decay and released a horrifying rattle that only her lack of vocal chords could provide.

HELP. ME.

Then her world faded to black.

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

Cedric didn't wait to be told twice.

It took him seconds, half a heartbeat, and he rose from within the swamps.

He knew who this was now, he knew who he was holding. He knew what she was, who she was to him. This was Evelynn Dorn, his sister. She had not said her last name, and his mothers holocron had only told him once, but he knew. The force imprinted upon him, the press of her consciousness pushed on him. He knew.

This was his sister.

Cedric rushed back to his ship, ignoring the dangers of the swamp, moving faster and faster, pushing himself to the very edge. His body was worn, smaller and smaller cuts carved themselves into his flesh from stray branches and smaller pieces of old crashed ships.

Finally, he reached his shuttle. There he placed her upon the bed. His lips thinning as he watched his sister fade from life. His hands twitched, the force grew within him, a darkness fading in and around him.

He reached out, and with a gentle infusing palm touched her forehead.

 

[Louise]

In her dreams there was naught but Chaos.

It was cold again.

Empty.

It reeked of abandonment that followed around her like a plague. It wasn't pain that haunted Evelynn Dorn, no, in her misfortunes she had adapted, twisted they had called it. Oh, she's twisted and broken, there's nothing we can do for her now! But she had survived and she had taken that pain and turned it into pleasure! No no, it was always too late for our precious Evelynn. How many people could take such suffering and still live beyond a state of weeping comatose?

It was never seen that way.

No, Evelynn Dorn had fallen into pits so deep and dark that there was no choice but to leave her there, alone, frightened.

W H Y W O N T Y O U H E L P M E ?

Karin. Soliael. Chomp. Jared. Kaine. Sopher. Merisi. Nemene.

W H E R E A R E Y O U N O W ?

Slowly the woman awoke, that cold still clutching to her sickly and decaying flesh. Clouded eyes opened slowly, responding to the touch of heat upon her forehead. Gaze fluttered towards his own emerald eyes but it was so hard to think.

Life...

 

[Cedric Dorn]

[member="Evelynn Dorn"]

Cedric slowly broke his sister from her slumber, pushing her to consciousness. He was quite sure about what she needed, she needed...life. It was simple as that. Of course he wasn't willing to give her his own. It was a precious thing after all, and he would not surrender it so easily, not to anyone.

Yet he wanted her to live.

“I'll return.” He pulled a small thermal blanket from beneath the bench that she lay upon, unfolding it and laying it over her. He had no idea if she was cold, if she even needed the blanket, but it was half sentimental. Older brothers were supposed to care for their little sisters after all. With a quick rise and a step he moved from the shuttle.

There was a village nearby.

He knew that because he had visited it earlier that day. There he would find what he would need, there he would find life.

 

[Louise]

I'll return.

The notion made throat rasp in weak protest, nobody ever returned. Not in her waking dreams, not in Chaos. He would leave her too and then there would be nobody once more.

Lost in the void.

Too weak to try and stop the man from leaving her side Evelynn was only half-aware of the blanket that draped her ghastly flesh. She was mildly aware of a physical warmth that it provided but in the same breathe was all too aware of that cold that clung to her.

It was death's cold hand that cradled her there upon the bench.

Would she keep decaying until she crumbled into naught but dust? Or was this to be her permanent form? A punishment for half a lifetime of sin, a physical reflection upon her very soul.

She lay there.

Waiting.

 

[Cedric Dorn]

He moved quickly.

His footsteps were quickened, his breaths were shallow. There was a sprint to the way he moved, heading towards the village. He didn't care who was there, he didn't care who these people were or what purpose they served.

Cedric cared only for one thing, and that was his sister. She was alive, she was dying, and he knew exactly what would revitalize her. He grabbed the first living being he saw. A small Rodian, no taller than Cedrics shoulder. The Alien didn't know what was happening, arms wrapped around his throat, a powerful push to his neck, and then suddenly a struggle.

Within minutes he was out.

He threw the Rodian back over his shoulder, holding the man in place and rushing back to his ship.