Administrator
Tag: [[member="Darth Metus"]]
Status: "Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice.."
Her fury was pointed and visceral. It was an emotion of truth, of sin, and heat and finality. It was a line that that the young woman had no intention of returning from. It was real. Tangible. As solid as the table beneath her hands. Eyes tipped with the light of a dying sun followed the Vicelord while he made his way around the table. Dangerous. She had only ever looked upon him with affection. Respect. Even when she’d found him sacrificing wicked men for his alchemy beneath their beds on Ryloth. Even then. Nothing equated to this. Nothing.
“My child never had a name. She never took a breath. She was stolen. Taken. From me. From the world.”
While many women would have begun to weep at the prospect of losing something so precious she did not. Something so loved. She had carried a life, cherished it, though she had never held it. Her Master was correct in his words. Srina was not alone. They had an entire army, several of them, full of metal and organics that would fight to the last. When she spoke—They listened. Srina had seen it when the Confederacy had mobilized in the Retribution of Eshan.
Darth Metus knew the pain that lived in her, breathing, through her mouth. Seeing through her eyes. Briefly, her gaze softened. The tide of her rage was stymied by the light touch to her skin. It was as if he built dams, blocks, that sought to keep the rage contained while he drained away the runoff. It took her a moment to realize hat he was siphoning the darkside from her the same way she had drained it away from Aryn for so long. She breathed in sharply.
Didn’t Darth Metus realize?
She didn’t want him to take it away.
“I hear you. I see you.”, she repeated, firmly, while she stepped forward in a deliberate invasion of personal space. Srina had never noticed what boundaries should naturally lay between them out of respect to social conformity, because it had never mattered, not since one fateful day or Coruscant. The Force had twined themselves so deeply with one another that his hand had become her own. His voice was her voice. Her footsteps were his. Her actions—His. “I have followed you. Through every battle. Every fight. Every trial—Every hardship. I have broken your nightmares. I have lifted your nation. I have bled for you. I have followed you, Isley, as the tide obeys the moon.”
Srina reached up slowly, carefully, and let small palms fall against either side of his face. Her touch held the callouses of a lifetime of holding a variety of weapons. The Echani had not the soft, perfect skin, of a maiden that spent their time with embroidery and duties that were often reserved for the fairer sex. Instead, he would feel strength. He would not feel the same woman that he had once known. Her heart was sure. Her mind was settled and complete. “I have followed you as the day follows night. You are the center. The earth, the core, and I am the air. The sky…Your sky…”
“You must see it. You must know, why it is, that my mind is shut. Your sky is on fire.”
She was not trapped. She was certainly, not a slave, and she would never let herself become the Sith that had turned Coruscant into a graveyard. Yet, she would fight no longer. She would no longer push the lure of the Darkside away. It was absolute. Power—And it would serve her. “This galaxy is sick. Polluted, by those who think they rule, when all they do is corrupt and drain those beneath them. Inefficiency and idiocy are rampant, a plague, and I won’t stand idly by any longer.”
Her gaze held his and burnished orbs remained a pure, solid gold, that echoed with what she didn’t express. As angry as she was, as furious as she felt, she was still in control. The steady rumble that built up from beneath them was not a loss of it. It was a response. It was the leftover kinetic pressure that remained when she pressed down everything else. She could feel the darkside pulling on her being. She knew what it promised. Srina would not deny it any longer. She would hold it. Use it. She would bring it forth with the might of a hurricane and let it fall with the force of eternal gravity.
She would watch the spines of her enemies’ crack. She would watch, satisfied, while they shattered.
“What I want to do and what I will do are two different things. I will never be the fangless dog that Mirvaak became. What I will be—Is untouchable. I am the Dread Queen. Nothing will stand in my way. Only then, will we be free.”
Srina moved her fingers, softly, and drew a deliberate pattern on the edge of his cheekbone. Her expression was fierce, that of a hawk, or some other bird of prey. He asked that she trust him. She always had. Even, when he was nothing to her, but a Force vision that seemed intent on leading her to ruin. So often, they drew on one another for strength, for power, and it showed. More than once she had become a living avatar for his wraith. Soon—She would have her own. “…I know the truth, now. It is not enough to merely view the Darkside as a tool. It is not enough to play catch and release. It is something that… Can hardly be put to words. I must be of a single mind. United. I must pass into it, to receive it, to breathe of it and become part of it.”
“My wrath will bring me there.”
The iron gates of her mind opened. If he chose to traverse the hot coals that lined her psyche—It would be his decision. Such desire for violence, such hatred, could leave a lesser mind undone. “Gollo nin...” [*Teach me…]
“Gû kîbum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi. Avon dheñ sedho, Avon dheñ nuitho im'ruith.” [*There is no life in the cold, in the dark. I won’t be still. I won’t stay my fury.]
She would become it. It would balance the affection she held for a scant few and leave her with fewer vulnerabilities. To break from her emotionless state. Passion. Rage. It was the only way to become what was required. Enough, was enough.
He called her his Apprentice. In secret, Darth Omnia. The white-lady. To their people? The Dread Queen. She would give them all what they wanted. What they needed.
Long live the Queen.
