Private Ghosts

[Darth Prazutis]

Pax Insul, Alu'an Village Ruins...

Time had passed.

Just how long since that day when he embarked on a ritual in support of his daughter Darth Mori who believed the impossible could be done. A decade passed since he lost her. Still no matter how many times he told his child she never stopped in bringing it up, each time it twisted the knife in a deep festering wound that had never healed. In that time the fabled Lord of Lies - the formidable Dark Lord of the Sith had never recovered from the loss. It fractured his psyche and he lost control over the union of identities that made up the giant. The psychic walls of his mind had deteriorated at times to the point that he shifted erratically between them. There were even times when his eyes could scarcely recognize his own child. If the wounds had been physical then infection would've left him long dead for the traumatic loss never healed, it never scarred over on this man of iron. Each sight he saw a memory that reminded him of his failure to keep the promises he made to his true love. To always stand with her and to protect her. In the end there was nothing he could do but look into her terrified eyes as she met the end she feared so greatly. The pain of her loss was greater than any weapon ever could've struck and it crippled him. In the moments of this dark rituals completion the trauma had grown so deep, the fissures had grown and he lost control. Even in its completion he still believed it all to be a malicious lie, a trick, another ghost. ​

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Then he blacked out.​

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In his state the mastermind had let loose of the reins and became a beast unbridled, a horrifying sight to see one so powerful throw restraint and control to the wind. It was only some time later that he regained consciousness and it was the one place on this world he dreaded seeing. Perhaps it had been his need for self punishment that brought him to the bones of the past. The ruins of the village that brought Braith Ma'at Achlys into this world. The earth was barren and buildings rose like old bones, ruins bearing silent memory of what once was long forgotten to the toiling of ages gone by. Battle scars from what had happened in ages past eroded away underneath the fury of mother nature. It was all that was left of a once great culture. How he had gotten here? He searched for the answers in his mind and could come up with no solution. Each step carried him deeper into the ruins and each was heavier than the last. No longer could he stave off the ghosts and everywhere he looked he could feel her. The closer he came to that cursed oubliette it grew worse. But his mind had twisted her visage between memory and nightmare.​

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"You failed her."​

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"You weren't strong enough."​

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"You let her die."​

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The different voices of his identities had come out all the while the beyond tempted him with the opportunity to take it all away.​

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"Why did you abandon me." It was her voice that drew him towards the oubliette.​

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"Never! I gave you everything." He bellowed in reply as he chased the ghost that was Braith Achlys as he had known her.​

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"When I called out for you, you weren't there." The ghost had passed through the blocked ruins into the former prison. But the Dark Lord had unleashed his fury and with a blast of pure energy he smashed through the rubble after the ghost. "Lies! I was there. I tried to hold on to you with all I had. I tried."​

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"I thought you loved me."​

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The words struck with the force of a warhead and it sent him down to his knees in these ruins. For all the power of a living god in that moment he was well and truly nothing. ​

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"I died with you that day."​

Hailyn ​

 

[Hailyn]

COSMIC LOVE​

An eternity of nothingness, a fumbling reaching out into an ever-expansive void that both contained her and didn't. To exist while not, to live while dead, the microseconds that followed her death and preceded her return were a paradox that her mind could not resolve, just as she could not comprehend the state she had found herself in upon coming to. The first of her senses to return to her was touch, the sensation of feeling the physical, and the ground she was laying on was hard, damp, and slick - a rock that jutted out from the ground that had been covered in water from the rain that still fell, though hardly so. Her hearing came next, the sound of waves, of droplets of water against her head as she tried to sit up and make sense of what had happened, of where she was. Sight, then, returned as she opened her eyes and realized she was on the beach of her island home, an archipelago on the planet of Pax Insul.

There, staring at her in disbelief, stood a man, one who she recognized as Darth Prazutis , and a woman, who she could not. The two were saying things, words she was having trouble understanding in her confused state, but whatever it was had appeared to be an argument, something of anger, of disagreement, and the two left - left her, despite the state she was waking to. He, Braxus, seemed distraught and the look he gave her as he fled deeper into the island, through the trees, was deeply unnerving, an expression that sent a chill down her spine - like she'd done something horrible to him.

There were more words but they weren't ones she could understand until she looked away from the space she watched him vanish to, her gaze turning towards the woman. She seemed rather familiar, though not in any meaningful way - like she was looking at herself, she supposed after a moment of thought, but also not. "I said, I am sorry for his behavior." The woman said, evidently having repeated herself, in a tone that sounded like she was growing impatient. Her lips parted, Braith's, and she swallowed hard as she tried to remember how it was that she made herself speak, feeling very much like a puppet with its strings cut. "I don't understand." She said, simply, and looked back towards the line of jungle-like overgrowth that hid her husband from her line of sight. "He doesn't believe that you're.. you." The stranger answered, seeming to understand what the confusion was - or at least part of it. "I do, though." The woman added in a strangely cheerful way, causing Braith to turn her head towards her and tilt her head to the side with a look that was partially searching and partially confused.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" She asked, which was made quite clear to be something she ought not to have asked by the sudden shift in expression on the woman's face from concern to confusion.

"I'm.. Vesta." The woman, Vesta, answered.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't quite say I am very good with the names of Sith, I'm sure my husband must've introduced us at some point." Braith said quickly, slowly rising to her feet, and realized immediately that she had said something to upset this Vesta. "Did I say something wrong?" She asked, rather uncomfortable. "What is your name?" Vesta asked in a small voice, concern filling her heart in a way that Braith could very much comprehend. "I am Braith Ma'at Achlys." She answered slowly, uncertain of what the woman was getting at. "Yes.. Braith. Not.. Alekto?" The woman asked, drawing a shake of the witch's head with visible confusion. "What is your last memory?" Vesta added with a furrowed brow.

"Confronting Darth Carnifex on Bastion, warning him about.. Aneshe."

Understanding crossed the woman's face and she stepped away, seeming much less composed now than before. "Is there something wrong?" Braith asked, concerned. "That.. was the first time you died." Vesta answered, her tone unsure, like she was questioning something internally. "F- first time?" She repeated, bewildered. "I am your daughter, Vesta Zambrano." The woman said meekly with a nod of her head. That shut the witch up immediately, the realization of the confusion, the hurt, and the rest reaching her all at once. "Oh." Braith said quietly, glancing away towards the trees again. "He.. he needs you." Vesta said lamely, understandably struggling with the ramifications of what she had just heard and the needs of her father.

There was a pause, then, torn between the two, Braith reached out for her - taking her into an admittedly awkward embrace. "I need to.. speak with your father, first. We can catch up afterwards, okay?" She asked, to which the woman nodded uncomfortably.

-

She found him there, in the ruins of what had once been her home in a time she had long since left behind. The structures had been of stone and straw, wood and clay, but not there only remained the skeletal bits of stone jutting out from their place in the ground like the ribs of some great beast, and the small cavern that overlooked the waves below which housed the oubliette that had been her prison was where he stood. She could tell he was distraught even without understanding the fight he was having with himself, without hearing the words spoken to him and spoken by him at the same time, and she remembered what she, her daughter, had told her - that he didn't believe that it had been her - and contemplated whether she could even speak to him now.

She didn't know, she surmised, but it was better to try than to do nothing.

"Braxus?" She asked, her voice small, quiet, and concerned.

She stepped towards him, peering at his figure illuminated by the moonlight.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The voices surrounded him.

When the call of his name came soft on the air from behind the kneeling giant he thought it only just another ghost of the past, specters unleashed by the fools errand that drew him to Pax Insul. "I gave you everything I had." Braxus replied as he turned his head to the side. The words conjured up by sorrow and guilt were almost too much to bear in the presence of such vivid sights of his late love. "You slipped through my fingers twice before and I swore it would never happen again. I knew your fears, your worries in what fate awaited you." Braxus turned back to look down at his own hands. In them he could still see her clinging so desperately to them. "I swore to you that I would never lose you again. That no force in this world could tear us apart. That I would stand by you, protect you so that you never would meet such a cruel end. Fate had tried so hard to rip you away from me and each time we conquered it." ​

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The giant rose to his feet and turned in the darkness of the moon lit chamber. The bright moon cast shadowy patterns over the walls of the ancient cave. "They still took you away..." Braxus finally turned towards the specter that called his name. It was the most vivid sight of his former love he had ever seen as his eyes passed over her form and up to her face. "I would've given everything just to be with you one more time. Just to see you one more time and tell you everything I never had a chance to say." Braxus took a step towards her and fell down to his knees once more. "Braith. You were the light of my life. I failed you my love. I failed you."​

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Hailyn ​

 

[Hailyn]

For a moment she was in shock, she thought, in the way he was talking, that he hadn't even realized she was there - only to find him looking straight at her and talking to her like she was a ghost, something she knew that she could not be. A borrowed life, a creation made from some strange desire to interact with a galaxy that knew time, that had meaning. She hadn't told him that, hadn't explained why she had been so distraught over her sickness, but it seemed that whatever it was that he and their daughter had done wound back the clock and prevented that illness in the first place. Daughter. That was something she was still struggling to wrap her head around - she was a mother, they were parents, and she didn't even remember it happening. Years must have been lost, and she supposed that perhaps it was what hurt him, then.

"I'm right here." She said, her voice soft.

She had started walking towards him when he turned towards her, eager to show him she wasn't the result of some delusion, but even as the two drew closer he still acted like he was talking to little more than an echo, a shade, as if she wasn't even there. Her brow was upturned, it hurt to see him in such a state, and when he went down to his knees she moved down with him. Smaller, slender, hands reached for his shoulders, a deceivingly great amount of strength was behind such a meager grip. "Look at me, Braxus, I am right here, I am here. If you have been living with this grief for as long as it seems, then I am the one who failed you, I never wanted you to be like this."

"You don't need to be alone anymore, I am with you now."

Darth Prazutis

 

[Darth Prazutis]

When she was killed he wanted to take it all away.

Life became a pain unbearable that he no longer wanted to tolerate, and it brought him very close to the edge of the abyss. It was only through the intervention of his daughter that he never took that final step. It greatly changed him from that day forward however. The giant became darker, colder and shunted off what remained of his own humanity to simply brute force his way through it all. Grief was pushed to the side in a way that was almost robotic as he focused on his duties as Dark Lord of the Sith, the needs of a galactic civil war. But it could only last so long before it cracked completely. Over the years he tried everything to push away the ghosts of their past together but grief and regret tortured him. So when her ghost endured before him the giant didn't find it odd. It was just a vivid reminder of the woman he failed to save, that was ripped out of his arms after a long life that led them both together. Every day he was tempted to lean into the beyond to just take away all of the pain, and each day it was only his nephew and his daughter that stopped him from taking those final steps. ​

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As he looked upon this ghost however his mind spun when softer words fell from her mouth instead of the truth of his failures. But he wouldn't fall for such lies. Braxus looked away when the petite woman came closer and her presence and even a familiar aroma washed over him it struck him like the twisting of a knife. He refused to believe anything she said as little more than lies until her hands gripped his shoulders. It was an act his mind struggled to grasp with the vivid memory of her death still burned into memory and in one fell swoop his world had been turned upside down once more. The way she spoke and the words that spilled were deeply sincere and open, all unmistakably Braith. The woman he lived and loved was different from the woman everyone else saw, she was completely open with him. No secrets were kept between them. He rose his head up and hesitantly gazed upon the soft features of her face, and the deep purple of her eyes looking back at his darkened orbs.​

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Ever so slowly he brought a hand up towards her face and hesitated before he pressed it down. In truth he'd expected it to fade right on through and this facade to fall. But when it didn't? When he was met with the touch of her silky smooth skin. This wasn't merely a loaned body or an illusion but this was his love. He moved the hand up to her forehead and ran it through her dark hair before stopping in the back of her head. The giant brought his other hand up wrapped around her arm and slowly moved it to feel her. "Braith?" Braxus whispered his voice grew soft. Faith was something he wasn't about to open himself up to lightly, only to see it dashed.​

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"You can't be here. I saw you depart his world-" He stopped then and slid his hand down to hers and took hold of one and held it tight. "Your hand slipped right through my-" Braxus stopped once more. Each passing moment it came harder and harder to deny what was right in front of him. He pressed his forehead against hers and felt the warmth of her skin against his own. ​

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"My love? Is it truly you?"​

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Hailyn ​

 

[Hailyn]

There would have been no use in trying to understand what it was that had happened, what great tragedy that Darth Prazutis must have been living through, or why it was that she had no comprehension for what had happened to her - like she had been an etching in a wall, torn from the confines of that imagined state and brought to life in another. There had been a time when she had walked the sands of many worlds through the night and struggled to survive through the daylight because of the deep depression she, herself, had been going through, and though, at the time, she hadn't realized how pitiful an existence she had been living it became all too clear that it had been what he was going through now.

All this speak of her and death seemed to imply a truth she refused to accept.

She was here, wasn't she?

"It's me, Braxus, it's Braith. I'm here, I am always here." She insisted, her tone almost a whine - the implication she was starting to grasp making it hard to say such when it was clear that hadn't always been the case. "I don't understand what has happened, but I am here now, we can do this together." Braith said, lifting one of her hands up to his chin, caressing it as she lowered his head to plant her lips against his forehead. In that moment she felt the ripples in the force that rolled off of him, that rebounded against the nature around them, and she peered through them - walking between the peaks and the lows, flow walking. She saw as he had, watched herself reborn in some other body, a firrerreo, to live a life that ended in a grotesque existence that was so alien to her that it might as well have been another person entirely - and then die.

That was who he had watched disappear, not her.

It was confusing, or perhaps a psychological trick of the mind that demanded she rejected this reality and substituted it with her own -

Whatever the case, she was here, now, and to her that was what mattered.

"The two of us."