Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Her Ghost In the Fog

Thule

Eyes of obsidian looked up at the familiar sky above and her mind drifted to a time years past, a time when she had been another woman. A sneer graced her lips as she looked away from the stars above, her nearly sheer skirt trailing behind her as she moved toward the home of a man she hadn't seen in many years. Their first meeting had been an accident, but in the end it had proved harmless as he allowed her to leave his home unmolested. However, now she was back with only one purpose.

Her daughter, the only light she had left to give the galaxy, was trapped within his walls. Anger, barely restrained, boiled just beneath the surface as the souls within her cried out for release. They craved destruction the same as she and in time they would have it. She was a dark and twisted shadow of her former self, the bright Jedi she had been long dead. Anara Valnor was now Chaos.

~ ~ ~

In no time she was at his door, the massive ornately carved doors barring her way to his home. His guards had been easily dispatched at the gate and so she was left unhindered. With a single hand upon one of the massive doors it swung open with a tremendous groan, granting her easy access to his home. Once inside she allowed her aura to spill forth, her onyx orbs scanning the grand entrance to his castle with distaste.
"Kaine!"
Her voice was her own, with three others intertwined. The sound was both terrible and haunting all at once as it echoed across the cold walls of his home.

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
So she had come, exactly as he thought she would, and he would not disappoint her calling. One of the main reasons he had kidnapped Anwen Talith was to draw the elusive Anara Valnor back into his clutches once again, and then he would finally make that maiden of the voices his alone to enjoy. He appeared before her in the foyer dressed in a noble garb of ebony silk that clung to his form well as he slowly descended the grand staircase to stand before the statue of Karin Dorn, a exquisite goblet of wine in his right hand from which he slowly drank from as he eyed the enraged Anara in the entryway. "Well well well, I had wondered when you'd show up. She looks a lot like you, you know? A pretty little thing, but I can see why Moridin had created her." He regarded to his old ally coldly, having been one of the last people to see the Sith Lord alive as well as receiving one of his old artifacts, which he did not wear now. With what he had planned the gauntlet would be a liability, due to it's counter-productive poison that would be injected into his being when she showed compassion.

And he was about to get all sorts of compassionate up in here soon enough, so it wasn't needed. He was powerful enough without it, and for the worst case scenario he was confident he could handle himself. "I expect that you want her back, but she's safe.... for now. Locked away in the deepest pit I have, so she's quite out of your reach." He took another drink from his goblet as he awaited Anara's reaction to what he had just said.

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
"Moridin never intended for her to live..."

Eyes as black as night held his gaze, her voices soft and compelling. She didn't move toward him, instead she seemed to look past him as she reached out with her senses to caress the aura of her daughter. Anwen shone as bright as a sun, even when she was surrounded by Darkness she always shone like a star. Anwen was alive and safe, as Kaine said, but that didn't ease Anara's anger.

Her eyes shifted back to him once again, a sneer upon her lips. "You'll release her or I'll level all that you've built here Kaine. You had no right to take her. She was imprisoned long enough." Her voice growled and sounded as though it were tearing her throat apart, several of the souls within her petite frame echoing her words and drowning out her voice.

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
"Ah, but we are Sith. It's my birthright to take what I want, and that's what I did. The True Sith take what we want, when we want, and how we want." He downed the rest of his wine and tossed the goblet aside, letting it bounce across the elegant marble floor with a clang and a clatter before coming to a stop at the far wall. "I had rescued Anwen from her peril out there in the harsh, and darkened universe, and brought her here to stay under my protection. I had planned to let her live up here in the castle, but she insisted on behaving like a bad girl, and I had to sick my Sithspawn on her. Her punishment for being bad is not over with yet, and she'll remain down there until I say otherwise." He smiled and chuckled darkly, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he took three steps towards Anara, and continued in a mocking tone, "And not you, or those damned souls locked within you are gonna make her predicament any better. Unless you want to test me, and then I'll just have to give one little mental jab at my man down there watching her, and well... he has a penchant for cutting things, and I know you don't want that, now do you?"

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
Her eyes narrowed and a growl rumbled low in her chest, black veins slowly appearing beneath her pallid skin. She smirked and closed the distance between them, black eyes glittering. "You think you know me so well? You expect me to just kneel before you because you have my daughter?" Her smirk slipped away and she slapped him, harshly grabbing the front of his finely made tunic to pull his ear down to her lips.

He was a giant compared to her, but that mattered little as the veins beneath her skin became more numerous. "Her light will go out before I bend to another man." Her voice was a whispered hiss as she shoved him away from her, taking a step back. She stood ready for his reaction, wondering how he planned on trying to subdue her.

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
Kaine pulled himself away from her, patting down the front of his shirt as he gave her a sly smirk. "Just like that? You'd rather let her die than you bowing down? Fair enough then, I'll just tell my man to start torturing her to death if you don't want to save her life. He won't be nice or quick about it either, he'll peel the flesh from her bones before she's even dead. He'll violate her too, being down there alone with just a ripe piece of girl like that would make any man's loins burn with lust. So she'll die, bloodied and raped, knowing that in the end her mother was far too stubborn and proud to even save her. How she would think of you now, not that she had such good things to say of you anyways." He spread out his hands to his sides in an inviting gesture as his smirk only grew larger, and more maniacal. "That is unless, you'd bend the knee to save the life of Anwen Talith, daughter of Moridin, from being murdered and raped at the command of her beloved uncle, and captor, or would you rather fight me? It sounds reasonable, kill her dragon guarding the helpless Princess and the tale ends happily, but then again this isn't a fairy tale. Whatever choice you take that does not involve bending your knee before me will initiate Anwen's violent demise, so pick your poison Anara."

"Your own personal pride, or the life of your daughter. I won't give you a second chance."​
@[member="Anara Valnor"]​
 
Her eyes flickered and for a moment the black bled from her eyes, amber shinning through once more. It was like she was suddenly free and she stared wildly at the man before her, "Kaine..." Her voice was soft and all her own, but only for a moment before the color of her eyes vanished once more. Obsidian orbs stared at him, her face impassive as she took another step away from him.

"Why is my obedience so important?"

She knew Kaine had only taken Anwen to lure her out, she wasn't stupid. However, what could he want from her so badly that he would go to such lengths? Exhaling harshly she folded her arms beneath her chest, waiting.
 
"Because, my dear Anara." He began to take a few steps towards her, his arms slowly moving to clasp behind his back as he stared into her eyes, momentarily saddened that those glorious amber orbs were again devoured back into darkness. "I want you to be mine, Anara. I have enjoyed you from afar ever since that day you stumbled upon my estate and spent the night, you've invoked something in my black heart that I thought was long dead." He didn't go into detail saying what she had invoked, but it was a pretty good guess that she would figure it out quickly. "But I knew that you would never be mine on your own will, not with what I have observed, so I knew I had to find a way to bring you to me. Once I had discovered there was a clone of you, I had to find out if it was true. Anwen looks ever bit the way you do, but she is poisonous to me... I could not be near her for so long. Using her a replacement was out of the question, but then again she could be used to lure you here." He unclasped his hands and gesture to all around them, "And here you are, exactly as I had intended."

He smiled darkly at her again, but that smile faded into a frown the longer he stared at her. "But you look, so different... Those eyes... I miss the color, the vibrant amber... Oh Anara..." His voice trailed off while his arms slowly slide down to his sides as he became at a loss for words, and he seemed to just linger there and stared at something beyond this world.

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
She snorted then, a frown upon her lips. "Dying does that to a person..." Her eyes flitted about the entrance to his immense home, her frown never leaving her lips. For a time she simply stared up at his face, the voices within muttering and hissing in aggravation at his daring. Finally she spoke, her voice a myriad of three other voices once more.

"So you would have me be yours, in exchange for her life? You realize it would all be a farce...Do you want me so badly Lord Zambrano?"

Disdain dripped from her words like poison as she raised a sculpted brow in question. The black veins that had been pulsing beneath her skin were slowly fading as was her anger. "I am not the woman you met that night Kaine. She died when Moridin struck her down."
 
"I don't believe that at all. I saw her locked away behind those black eyes, so I have to believe the Anara I met with on the dark night still exists." He frowned heavily and moved to sit on the base of the statue, which rose a good three to four feet off of the ground, but Kaine had no trouble hauling himself up to sit. He left space in an offer for her to sit next to him if she wished, but he made no obvious move to ask her to. His eyes bore into hers, and he chuckled before breaking eye contact and look away to where he threw his goblet. "But perhaps that Anara is dead, maybe all my work has been for nothing now. But again, perhaps you are the same Anara I met that night, but you've been blinded by the blackness in your eyes." He said hopefully, a tone of voice that had previously been completely unknown to him, but then again nothing was certain in the turbulent winds of Kaine's black heart.

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
"You didn't answer my question."

Eying the would be Sith Emperor she shifted her weight from foot to foot, her mind momentarily shutting out the hissing voices of the souls within her. She could cast the voices aside anytime she chose and yet she allowed them to eat away at what she was, at what she had been. A self destructive punishment for all her failures. As the voices faded away so to did the black recede from her gaze. Bright amber orbs stared at the man before her, but her gaze was not the same as it had been on that night.

Anara Valnor would never be the same again.

After a moment she moved toward him, taking a seat beside him with a little less grace than Kaine. He was much taller than her and while the statues base was no feat for him to overcome, that was not the case with her. "Blinded by choice...I'm tired Kaine. You know nothing about me...Nothing about what I have seen, what I've done." She smiled darkly and looked down at her hands, her voice normal once more. "I was a champion of light...or I was meant to be and yet at every turn I aided the Darkness. I wove Chaos as easily as I sing...I choose to be blind. It is easier."

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
"Perhaps it was your destiny to aid the darkness, instead of acting against it. No matter how stronger, and brighter the light becomes, the shadows will always be bigger. It is better to be in the dark, and in the blinding light, or at least that's what I believe. I never had a choice in the matter, I was born in the darkness. I've never known the light..." His expression turned hard, and dark, "And I never will. The light is an abhorrent place to be, much like those Jedi who delude themselves with self-righteous crusades to eradicate something they cannot destroy." He extended his hand towards Anara, the right hand, the hand that remained organic while the left one had been removed during the Battle of Metalorn many months ago. "But you don't have to be alone, Anara. I will be there for you in the darkness."

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
A sad smile found its way to her lips as she looked at his outstretched hand, the black beginning to seep back into her gaze. "Had you known me over four hundred years ago you wouldn't have ever thought such a thing...I was...I was like Anwen then." With a sigh she closed her eyes and leaned back against a leg of the statue, fists clenched in her lap. "I burned as bright as her and I was always pushing the limits."

After a moment she reopened her eyes, her gaze falling upon Kaine once more. Black encircled the rich amber of her eyes, giving her eyes an otherworldly appearance. She stared at him for a long moment, her stomach twisting as she shut the souls out. Had she punished herself enough for her failings? Had the souls of Byss, the souls she had allowed Moridin to take all those years ago exacted their pound of flesh from her. Perhaps, perhaps not. Who was she to truly judge. Once any of the men that had known her, that had loved her, would have balked at the knowledge that she was choosing to let the souls of Byss eat away at her mind. However, wasn't it fair? She had let them die, every single one of them, for love. They deserved something, anything. Her mind was all she could offer, but it seemed their time had ended. Anwen was more important than her guilt and her sins. Anwen and Sven were all she had left, in more ways than one.

With a laugh she caught his gaze, her eyes shining as the black receded from her vision. "I was once such a Jedi. I would have died to end your reign...or I would have fallen at your feet, my soul torn asunder." Her eyes grew distant for a moment as she remembered another man, a Sith Lord she had dared face when she was just a Knight. He had destroyed her, remaking her as he saw fit. His touch upon her soul still haunted her dreams; no man had ever delved so deep into her being before and no man ever would again. Shaking herself free of the past she turned toward Kaine, her eyes glancing to his hand again.

"I have never known exactly where I belong...and it doesn't matter anymore. Release Anwen...and I'm yours, just let my daughter free. Please."

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
Kaine smiled as he hearkened to Anara telling Kaine how she was many centuries ago, himself having never lived that long. He had been born in this generation of Sith and Jedi, never known anything before the Gulag Plague except for what he had read in the archives and heard in stories from those who had lived in the before time. The time before the plague interested him, a time of heroes to both sides of this eternal conflict that he will only meet in stories and holocrons. He had already conversed in length with the guardian of Belia Darzu's holocron on the subjects of Sith Alchemy and Mechu-Deru, taking in everything he had learned and put it to use in his studies and projects. He had something big planned in the future, but it would take months and months of execution before it was even near completion, but that could wait now.

"Alright, Anara. I'll let Anwen go, she'll be free to leave whenever she wants to." Already he had sent a mental message to the guardian to release the prisoner and escort her to the hanger, where a shuttle would be given to her to use as she saw fit. It was in this moment that Kaine's face softened slightly, yet still retained his traditional harshness iconic to his visage as a Sith Lord, which is why he had forgone his gauntlet for this meeting. "I'm glad you've chosen this path, and I know that you will find your destiny in this galaxy with me."

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
She said nothing for many moments, her eyes distant as she listened to Anwen's Song. Eventually she felt her daughter's Song moving and before long she was traveling away from the planet. In truth Anara had wanted to see her, but perhaps it was better that Anwen had left. She doesn't need to know why he let her go... Sighing her eyes refocused and she leveled her amber gaze upon Kaine, sliding from the base of the statue.

She moved so that she was standing before him, her bangs falling into her face to obscure one eye as she studied him. "Perhaps..."

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
Kaine slid off of the base of the statue to stand at his full height before Anara, his head angling down to look at her face. It was rather humorous to see them standing like this with their height being so radically different, and Kaine's black hair dropped forward to momentarily cover his face. He quickly brushed his ebony hair out of the way with a dark chuckle, "I think you've gotten shorter since last we met, I just noticed it now." He extended his right hand out to Anara for her to take it, "Shall I escort you to your quarters, Lady Anara?"

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
"I have always been this short...You just never stood so close before."

Once she might have smiled at his light teasing, but that was before. Sighing she placed her hand into his own, the souls within screaming in dismay. They wanted her to fight, to tear him asunder with her bare hands, but she couldn't. Kaine would only take Anwen again if she fought against him and next time he would kill her daughter without hesitation.

"If you must."

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
Kaine lightly grasped Anara's hand as she slipped it into his, and gingerly led the woman up into the corridors of the expansive castle. The interior of the castle was not unlike the interior of Kaine's old estate on Thyferra, but far more sinister and dark. Much of if comprised of remnants of the previous castle foundations when the Cult of Seven had inhabited this place and practiced twisted magic that nearly destroyed them all. Residue of their experimentation lingered long after the Cult's disbanding, and further increased the Dark Side presence that permeated the castle from the highest balcony to the lower sub-basement. Finally they had arrived at a bedroom that was several times larger than the bedroom Anara stayed in that night in the estate, and Kaine gestured inwards as to let Anara go through first. "This will be your suite while you live within my realm, and all of my servants are yours to command. Before I leave you to become acquainted with your new home, is there anything I can do for you, my beloved?"

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 
Her hand slipped from Kaine's and she entered the room soundlessly, the souls within her petite form murmuring softly. The room was massive, likely large enough to house her ship with ease. For a moment golden eyes inspected the richly furnished room before she turned to Kaine once more. His little term of endearment made her heart flutter with uncertainty. She had always been such a fool when it came to men as music had always been her closest friend and lover, but somehow she felt as though she should have realized his feelings from the very beginning. What kind of a Sith Lord allows a Jedi to rest in his home unmolested? A Lord with ulterior motives befitting only himself.

Wordlessly she stared at him, her eyes cold despite their warm color. She wanted to lay into him with her hands and every power at her disposal, but she refrained. Finally she spoke, her body rigid. "Yes. Do not call me that again. A captive cannot love their captor Kaine. I do this for Anwen, but one day even she will not be enough to sway me..."

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"]
 
His face softened, displaying disappointment with many hints of sadness. "I hope that one day I won't need to harm your family to sway you, Anara. I hope that one day you will love me..." He turned away from Anara, lingering again on the threshold of the door in a similar fashion to how he had during their first ever encounter. This wasn't going as he had planned, and he didn't know how to exactly cope with this. So there he stood, his heart torn between his Sith nature and the yearning that had been hidden deep within for many years, that had previously been crushed underneath Anaya's boot, but had slowly been revived by Anara's very presence. "You may think me a villain for what I've done to you and your daughter." He glanced back at Anara, his emerald eyes hard as stone as they bore into her amber eyes. "But a true Sith takes what he wants, no matter the cost." He then closed the door behind him as he retreated from the room, signaling for two of the roaming guards to stand guard at Anara's room, and not let her leave until he had allowed her to.

@[member="Anara Valnor"]
 

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