Futile?

[Cameron Centurion]

Darkness had token hold over the planet Exocron some time ago. Alone in his large, personal chambers, Cameron sat silently on the carpeted floor. This had been his routine for...too long. It was the reason he slept little and less.

At this point, the Sith Lord had merged his consciousness with the ethereal currents of the Force. Drifting along its currents and allowing it to take over all of his senses, Cameron maintained a clear mind as he stretched out his presence into the void. He wasn't attempt to specifically affect anything. In fact at this point it was what he did in an effort to reach out beyond the system of Exocron. However, the nature of the action simply meant that he left his mind...open to visitation by the many spirits long dead.

In these sessions, the Sith Lord had a tendency to see familiar faces he knew from his past. Relatives, mostly...always preaching their ridiculous prattle about destiny and heritage. In his younger years he might have been affected by such propaganda, but he had long since stopped caring. Cameron's tranquil meditation was disturbed ever so slightly by something...familiar. It was like a vague outline on a horizon...the shape of which he thought he recognized but tempered his reaction. It was funny how he clung to hope but rejected the first sign of potential success in locating any aspect of [member="Amorella Mae"].

The real question...why did he sense her here, amongst the void? Was she...dead?

 

[Ereza]

Heat was an intimate thing. Heat was a lover's thirst. Heat was a raging anger. Heat was an unrelenting need. Heat was an incessant demon.

Amorella burned with incredible noise and fury. Cries lost to the ethereal realm, the echos fading over eternity. Silence remained. A deadly quiet flame. She had become the husk, the cinders and soot. The colors gone to gray. Senses withered. There was nothing but this realm and the constant ache of the heat. Inescapable. Like an explosion, the flash is over fast but the fire catches hold inside of you and the noise never stops.

Cold was a strange sensation. Impossible to remember or describe until you actually feel it.

Where she was it was not warm nor cold. It was nothing and it was everything at once. The skies peeled blank, low and grey, as if they'd depleted all vestiges of weather. Here she lingered, no face, no body. She could have been anyone, and that came as some sort of comfort. Here and there were pockets of cold. Of familiar feelings. Intermittently faces would appear, memories would play, and for a time the heat would dull.

Where she was it was so quiet, and it was impossibly loud at once. As though all the noise of the universe had been directed by an unseen Maestro into one low, constant note. You could hear the sound of galactic winds blowing the sadness of the worlds around the spacial leylines.

Where she was, was everywhere and nowhere. Drawn by pockets of fading cold, seeking relief. Seeking comfort. She drifted without a waypoint, without an anchor, at the whim of the existential tides, taking her far from everything she knew. Adrift in a sea of uncertainty.



Another gust brought the sensation of cold and like the tiresome fish against the current she pressed onwards towards it, flames writhing in protest. Would there be a face? Would it hold within it the same memories and familiarity? Nearer she drew, fading, waning, reaching for that moment of escape, but the currents here were far stronger than anywhere else. So distant from the origin that pulled her back - a place she need return, her connection to the physical realm. But there the heat was overwhelming. Here maybe she could rest a while if only she could stop drifting.

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron didn't...really experience it the same way as [member="Amorella Mae"], but his spirit was floating around the void. He'd experienced the journey countless times in his past. For now, however, his thoughts remained focus, ignoring the chaos of the void that swirled around and through his mind. Pushing himself deeper, allowing more of the combined energies of those that had long since perished fuel his own presence, the Sith Lord caused a very palpable deep mist to expand from his body.

As the substance quickly filled his expansive quarters and spilled out onto the balcony, the strength of darkness began to contort and twist the living organisms around the Temple. It was all Cameron could do to whisper a single name across the expanse to the figure that grew more and more familiar in his mind's eye. "Amorella...?"

 

[Ereza]

Cold.

Sound?

She pressed on with added need. A figure appeared, hazey but baring that familiar sense. Which one was this? Another soul in the sea that she'd known in the distant physical plains?

Who are you?

Shadows played here and there as the flames diminished, the heat lessened. Upon reaching the source of the cold, Amorella's waning energy become flooded by those currently seething from the man. The figure began to take shape, and there before her the large shadow blinked down at her with leering green eyes.

"Cameron."

Memories flooded back in, unleashing the nightmare all over. The flames retook her and she wilted, recoiled from him.

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

As [member="Amorella Mae"]'s existence became clear to him, Cameron forced himself to remain calm, gently pressing more of himself deeper into the void - a dangerous notion were he to become trapped. Again, fortunately he had practiced this exercise countless times in his past. Just as the red-haired beauty became clear to him and spoke his name, she began to regress. In that instant, Cameron's irritation flared. Still? All of this time and she'd not been able to reconcile what he'd done to her? Perhaps he should have let her go, allowed her to drift throughout the void.

No. No he wouldn't do that. He would not allow either of them to take the easy way out. Forcing more of himself deeper into the tranquil recesses of the void, the Sith Lord reached forward and firmly grasped Amorella's metaphysical presence. "No. Not again. This time...I will stand in the darkness with you and help you understand." There was barely a whisper or a flinch before the Sith Lord did what he could to draw Amorella's consciousness towards him...slipping closer and closer to the chilling reality of his mind. She could struggle, but he would overpower her.

It appeared that love from Cameron Centurion was...quite dangerous.

 

[Ereza]

How does a flame survive the depths of oblivion?

Ensnared in the chill of his grasp, the haze of Amorella's metaphysical self took form.

By burning everything until there is nothing.

Pulled by his will, the spectral presence of the young woman flickered, face twisted in the agony of those memories. Five centuries of one man's dark and sinister life tore at her psyche anew, as though the efforts of those in the physical realm had been for naught.

"What must I do..." the voice faded in and out, "to endure what you've shown me...I am not strong like you are..."

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

The voice that emanated from the ethereal manifestation of Cameron's presence was much softer than what it was in the physical realm. Though these were just images, representations of themselves forced into the void from their combined strengths in manipulating the Force, they acted in accordance with the whims and wishes of the individual. The answer to [member="Amorella Mae"]'s question was simple. "There is nothing you can do."

Simple. Not comforting. That part came later, next, now.

"We, however, can do something, multiple things. That step cannot be taken without trust, commitment, and desire. Answer these questions, Amorella. Do you trust me? Do you actually want to live with the realities of my past...realities which have certainly shaped my personality, who I am, and who I will ultimately become? Do you want a life with me and every facet that makes up my presence, no matter how grotesque, harsh, or distasteful, in it?"

The Sith Lord had been plenty patient. The harsh nature of his current demeanor and ethereal speech was not indicative of the truth of his own desires.

Everything about the God of Shadows existed in layers.

 

[Ereza]

Fading little flicker flame, there's a chill wind on the eddies of oblivion.

Will you resist?

A sound of pain responded and Amorella's presence began slipping like sand through fingers. She was desperately exhausted of holding on and felt seconds from dissipating into the Force.

Brace yourself, here comes another storm.

"I trust ...you," the voice sounded far away, "with my life."

How had things gone this far? How had they progressed so quickly? This was not the slowly burning idea of growing want and desire, it had been a holocaust. As if by some mystical force, some intangible fate, their paths had abruptly convened and she had not been ready.

"As you have entrusted yours to me," was it worth this pain and torture? She'd been willing to brave the boundaries of life and death for her people, but there was not a single other for whom she would endure the darkness and risk everything to stay there if only to prove something, "I have never known anyone so completely...I would not want such a gift from any other. Please," her essence surged again in an effort to remain there, be present.

I will resist.

"I want to return...to stay with you."

I will not relent.

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron's spiritual presence registered no discernable facial expression. However, the entire environment around them seemed to shift as the Sith Lord allowed the strength of his mind and presence to flood the area. At first, it would perhaps seem to [member="Amorella Mae"] as if he were trying to overwhelm her, crush her soul.

"Then take my hand..."

Something happened. The Force around them seemed to change, to shift. The overpowering chill of darkness receeded slightly...inviting in the warmth of light. However, the chill did not retreat completely it instead allowed the warmth to create a moderate aura...an aura that was a shared existence. A level of harmony between light and dark, hot and cold. This would be the reality. A step that could not be undone...without death befalling one of them.

"...and allow my strength, my existence to be yours and yours mine."

A bond born of and sustained by the Force was not uncommon in the galaxy. However, one so completely steeped in the shared experiences of two powerful force users was impossibly strong and much more rare. It was almost as if the two were always meant to meet on this plain before they could ever take any action further in the physical realm.

The point Cameron wanted Amorella to finally understand and accept within the very core of her soul was this: she was not alone. He was with her anywhere she wandered now. In a way...she would have to accept his darkness just as he had accepted her light. No amount of time or distance would be able to diminish the strength they drew off of each other when necessary. More acutely...their entire lives had been impossibly linked.

 

[Ereza]

Amorella Mae Darke's metaphysical self reached forth and grasped at the presence of the one whom she had come to call her Shadow. In all senses of the name, it was truer now than it had ever been. Their energies folded upon one another, forming the most natural of equilibrium between. It was a soothing sensation upon the soul, but also one with a great deal of weight.

She felt the ethereal tug of connection between them, felt its pull upon her. Like gravity, almost, as they now revolved around one another - capable of swinging beyond the influence, but never quite breaking the tether. To some this might be daunting, this might be frightening.

To Amore, she had never felt more secure.

She had an anchor, now, and no longer would she ever be lost, adrift.

The little flame coiled inwards, allowing the currents of cold to envelop her, feeling them buffer the storm of the realm so that she might continue to burn on and grow strong once more.

It would soon be time to return to the realm of the tangible and living. But after enduring the storm for so long, a few moments respite she would gladly accept.

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

As the ebb and flow of the Force around them stabilized and grew stronger, Cameron steeled himself for what would have to occur next. Though he was quite happy to exist with [member="Amorella Mae"] in this manner, in this instant of time, he knew it could not last forever. Well...it could, but his physical body would wither and die if he kept his presence extracted from the physical realm for too long. It was the strength of his presence that kept the body he'd been using for so long in optimum condition. More than perhaps another ten or fifteen minutes drifting through the void, and it would take him quite a bit of time to recover.

It was already going to take time.

Softly, he spoke to Amorella. "You must go now, Amorella. I will help you, empower you to transfer your very essence back to your body. You, however, will have to lead the way." Though there was a necessity for urgency on his part, he did not rush the young woman. There would be time before she truly returned to Exocron for him to recover if necessary.

 

[Ereza]

"It is a long way," her voice answered back, stronger now, defined, much like her presence.

The journey across the void, across the galactic ether? One that had felt as though she'd wandered for an eternity now seemed, perhaps, a bit more bearable with him there to help. Taking hold, if for no other reason than a desire to now that they were interminably linked, Amore drew upon him and what seemed his endless supply of power. It was something she had admired in him - his ability to press on, no matter the circumstances, and it was something she hoped to learn from him as time went on.

At her will, now renewed, the tides of the ethereal realm suddenly shifted. Ossus was, indeed, a long way, but now she knew she could make it there. Her essence began to dissipate as her focus built, vestiges of flames carried off in an otherwordly wind.

"Cameron ... "

Whatever doubt remained filtered out in that singular word.

What if she couldn't make it back again?

She would try, Force knew she would do whatever it took.

"I will see you again soon," said with conviction, her parting promise before she released him and disappeared into the ether.

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron released his mental grip of the image, thought, and ethereal presence [member="Amorella Mae"] reluctantly. Slowly, he retreated back into his own mind, back to his body in the physical realm. Silver-green eyes were soon revealed and the Sith Lord realized that the sun was just beginning to crest the horizon. Remaining seated, he turned his gaze towards the open glass doors leading out to the large marble balcony. A thin smile tugged at his lips.

While his efforts had just ended much in the same way as they always did, the Sith Lord knew it was different. He could feel it. A part of Amorella remained within the very core of his being. It was...awkward, really. He'd never maintained such a connection with anyone in his life...not completely. Alia had come close, perhaps, but she'd perished.

Slowly and almost weakily, Cameron came to his feet. Reaching out a large arm to steady himself on the wall, the Sith Lord resolved himself to take some rest this morning, to regain his strength. He was no sorcerer...and sorely out of practice in just about everything he just did. Slowly, he made his way out onto the balcony. Grasping the railing, he gazed at the sprawling capital of Exocron. This would be his lot forever more...strongest when she was near but stronger in general so long as she drew breath.

The Aesir lingered for a few moments before retreating to his bed. Hopefully by the time he woke...his mind, body, and soul would be filled with a new presence, radiating from half a galaxy away.