I Hear You [In the Dead of Night]

[Srina Talon]

The hour was late. Srina stood within the confines of her chambers on Ryloth, staring out the window at simulated twilight, as she gathered wayward thoughts. Her wounds from Tatooine, physically, had mostly healed. Every now and then she was still besot with a burning sensation in her blood, a black fire, that left her every nerve ending feel and inflamed. As far as poisons went, the Devaronian variety would not kill her, no, but it had the capacity to make her long for it. Each day, with help from Katrine Van-Derveld and the Grand Master of the Silver Jedi, Valae Kitra, she felt a little bit stronger.

A little bit more like herself.

Only now—Darth Metus was fearful. For now, she was caged within the safety of Sinner’s Well, unable to leave, out of respect for the wishes of her Master. He knew her fury. He knew her mind. He did not want her running headlong into a mission, blinded by vengeance before she was at her best. Her gilded cage had everything she could ever want, or need, but it was not enough. The Echani needed to feel a blade in her hands. She needed to move, to train, and to study the Force and the Galaxy itself. There was so much that she didn’t know.

The slender woman, wrapped in a shimmersilk sleeping gown, with a robe of ivory tied around her waist felt as if she might lose her mind to the silence. It was deafening. All of the other Acolytes had been sent from the Well to allow her time to rest, to breathe, without feeling tempted to join in their activities. Srina was tired, and yet, more than anything, she felt bitter. For all of her training, for all that she had learned, in the end, she had still been bested by an Empire dog.

Just the thought of [member="Adron Malvern"] made her tense. She could remember the fluidity of his movements, the grace of his attacks, and the unstable presence beneath the guise of a High Moff. She did know him, but she had known men like him, while fighting against Thyrsians on Eshan. Small fingertips reached for the polycarbonate window, pressing against the pane so that she could open it. A cool breeze disturbed lengths of unbound moonlit hair. It was strange, considering they were located in the Bright Lands, but the habitation sphere served its purpose.

She could smell fresh air, flowers, and the after scent of a heavy rainfall. Outside, she could only see darkness, with celestial bodies lighting the sky. Her vision expanded without warning. Force Sight had always been a gift, and a curse, to the young woman. She could not control it. Often she found herself swept away by things that had already happened or things that had not yet come to pass, while others lingered in the present. This was not quite the same.

Srina felt as if she were somewhere far from Ryloth.

She could hear a voice that she knew. It had never left her, not since Tatooine, and she realized rather quickly that she was an observer of something she should not see.

---

"Adron, please, help me!" His eyes grew wide as he finally recognized the voice.​

​

"Mother!"​

​

"You are still weak."​

---

The Sith Apprentice watched a white blade burst from the chest of her enemy, feeling like a voyeur, but unable to look away. He woke up. She watched him move, watched his hand clutch his chest as he shook off the vestiges of his nightmare, and hated the fact that she could sympathize. She had not slept well. Not at all. The pale-skinned woman could not tell if what she saw was past, present, or future. It simply was.

Her Sight mercifully cut out when the Imperial disappeared into the refresher, and for the time being, the connection was severed. Srina couldn’t help it when it returned, however, and she found herself following the Dark Jedi in a place unknown. Everything seemed so clear. Real. She felt as if she could reach out, and her fingers would find him, versus empty air.

“Hello, Adron.”, she whispered gently, somehow knowing he would hear her, despite the oddness of the situation. The Force worked in mysterious ways. It felt like a very, very long-distance and vivid holo-call. “You look well. Better than I expected.”

Better than she’d hoped. For what he had done, for the Empire he served so blindly, she knew that it was her duty to wish him dead. Her own thoughts could not enter the scenario. He was the enemy. She had stabbed him with her lightsaber and in turn, he had sent a blade careening into her chest. War was bloody, long, and consuming. Even now it would not leave them be. At first, Adron Malven had haunted her night terrors, but now, he was stealing her waking hours as well.

He was still the enemy. ​

​

 

[Adron Malvern]

For the time being Adron was not clad in his Imperial uniform. Instead he was dressed in a black tunic and matching pair of trousers. Clipping his lightsaber to his waist he was content to pay the dream no mind. He had several of the hellish nightmares since arriving on Vjun. Studying to learn the Darker aspects of the Force, he was far removed from all he knew, even the Empire. Yet as he stood in his room, a soft shimmer in The Force put him on edge. It was an odd feeling, one that caused him to glance around his room for the briefest of moments.

​Hello, Adron. A voice called out to him, causing him to pause as he grabbed his cloak from it's place near his bed. The voice was vaguely familiar, yet not enough to where he could decipher it's origin. So rather than attempt, he would turn to the source of the greeting. Behind him, The Force had shifted his room into one that was not his. His shadowy room was replaced with one he was not familiar with, and standing in the center was the same Echani woman he fought on Tatooine. Pressing a hand to his still healing wound he could not help but glance around curiously.

​"So what type of sorcery is this?" He asked, an amused expression coming over him as he examined the detail of this apparition.

​The man would pull his cloak over his shadowy figure, his untended hair being pushed from his eyes as they fell on the women before him. As she spoke he could tell this was no manner of drug or hallucination. The way The Force shifted and twisted around her, this was the doing of something greater than she could muster, at least to his knowledge.

​"To be fair. You're not the first person to run me through with a lightsaber." He responded, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked to the woman. Outside of combat she was a fair vision. No one would deny that, yet he was understandably distracted considering this woman had nearly killed him. "I'd offer you some tea, though I'm pretty sure this doesn't work that way." Adron was calm, all things considered, yet there was a holding expression of amusement that he could not shake.

​"You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I do not know yours." He admitted, curious to the Echani's name and who she was.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

Had she startled him? Perhaps.

The strangeness of it was not lost on her, not in the slightest, and the shadows of his chambers seemed to lessen when it merged with her own. Darkness bled to softer pastels and deeply stained, cherry heartwoods, which made up the furniture of her living space. From bedframe, to vanity, to dresses and closet doors there was a theme that seemed to speak of nature. There were flowers, blood red, dotted with healthy-looking sprigs of baby’s breath in a vase on the table in the sitting area. Her Master made sure that they were freshly cut, replaced, and arranged to her liking as often as possible.

He knew her fondness for flora and fauna and had even begun adding small indoor fountains to the hanging gardens of the Well. Sheer white curtains rolled in an invisible wind as the apprentice stepped forward, curious, about the world that the Empire soldier belonged to. Where personal belongings edged the majority of her quarters it seemed to be the opposite for Adron Malvern. It was different, plain, functional, but not truly lived in.

Srina tilted her head, watching as he attached his lightsaber to his hip, and picked up a cloak. He had heard her. Could he see her the same way that she saw him?

His hand fell to the place where her lightsaber had found purchase in his abdomen. Silver eyes, filled with starlight, flickered. Unreadable. An expression crossed her features, lovely as the dawn, though it could only be described as sad. What sorcery was this? “I do not know.”, she responded slowly, unashamed, to admit her inefficiencies. Srina had nearly killed this man. Had nearly been killed by this man. He knew her better than some of the Dark Acolytes beneath her Master’s command and likely had no idea.

The Imperial affiliated force user had let her attack roll off his back in a way that Srina found herself doing, over and over, when someone came to fuss over her. “Previous experience does not negate present trauma. It prepares you, perhaps, but damage is still damage. You are only human.”

The Echani remained silent as Adron made light of the situation. She was still trying to wrap her mind around how, in any world, this was possible. She had spoken telepathically with Darth Metus and Aryn Teth from great distances but she had never been able to see them. Not like this. His amusement spread, and something that could have been a smile, though very small, pressed distantly at the kiss of her mouth. “No. Even if it did—I’m not sure it would be smart to accept.”

The young woman was both surprised and suspicious when he asked for her name. She laughed. The sound was light and airy, like silver bells, and not at all the fearsome warrior he had met on Tatooine. How could this be the same person that summoned a Smoke Demon from the ether? Who had forced herself to stand, with a fractured skull, in order to put her saber in his back? Her presence and inherent state of tranquility left most uneasy. She could be hard on the senses, a dichotomy of contraries, like snow falling on the hottest day of summer. A sun and moon in the same dark sky. “What kind of warrior would I be to give up my only defense so freely? There is power in a name, Adron Malvern.”

She paused, seeming to think it over. Her arms crossed, the ivory shimmersilk of her clothing shifting, glimmering in the residue left by the Force. “I would not be opposed to making a trade. You never answered my question from before…”

“Answer me and I shall tell you truly. Why do you fight?”

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​The floral theme that had taken over his room caused the man a moment of interest. Back on Serenno Adron had often taken an interest in the different colors and styles that were bred from the native flowers. With his arms firmly clasped behind his back he would move about the room, taking in what he could see. She had divulged that she had no knowledge of this connection, and while Adron was curious to find out how it had come to be, he also believed there may not be more to this than a connection bred from the Force, but why?

​"The past serves as two things. A lesson and a distraction. Once you've learned the lesson, everything else is merely a distraction." He explained to her, the reason he could speak with her so freely now. Her blow had been a lesson to the High Moff, one he would not soon forget. Of course there was anger and resentment, yet for the time being he would keep that to himself. It would have it's place of use in the future.

​As the young Echani let out a song-like laugh, Adron fell to his knees. Slowly and paced he would take up a meditative stance. He called on the Force, hoping to gain some insight on the events that were occurring. Like a cool breeze flowing over his skin, Adron could feel it, yet the answer was not there, not yet. "When I leave the battlefield. I try to leave the warrior there. He can be....problematic in my other dealings." Adron said, his tone was paced and considered, as if going over a proposal or some manner of dealing. The tone, the way he spoke, even the manner of composure showed he was of the nobility, the better bred.

​"And what power do you believe you have gained in mine?" He asked, the softest scoff erupting from him as he spoke.

​Why do you fight. The question was not a foreign one. In fact, it was the type of question that he had asked himself so many times before. What was the answer that he would give this woman? She had proven herself a true opponent, yet giving too much information to your enemy was considerably foolish.

​The amused smile that was on Adron's face had abandoned him now, causing him to look up to the vision of a woman with an intrigued arch of the brow. "I fight to free myself." He said, the words holding true as he spoke them.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

​

Srina wasn’t sure what to think about both seeing, and feeling, Adron Malvern take a leisurely stroll around her personal living space. It was an irrational reaction when she’d clearly just perused his, but, something about it made her slender shoulders tense. He knew her only as the woman that had run her lightsaber through his back. He shouldn’t see her this way, with an exceedingly rare book, made of well-worn and frail paper sitting on her nightstand. He shouldn’t see the collection of vibroswords mounted on the wall, nor the vanity cluttered with baubles. He shouldn’t see that she loved nature.

It was all too personal.

“That does not negate damage. A lesson does not erase memory. It is, what it is, no matter how accustomed you are.”, she responded slowly, taking his words into quiet consideration, before speaking again. It felt strange to be having what passed a a decent conversation with someone, who, by all rights should have loathed the sight of her. Srina, a veritable master of her emotions, felt unsettled in the pit of her stomach. Did her presence not bother him at all?

The small woman could feel a small well of pain beginning in her wounds. They were mostly healed, mostly, but the blood-poison had not entirely dissipated. Every few hours or so it would flare up and remind her that she was not free of it, and it proved to be the very reason, that her master kept her locked away. She was weaker than she wanted to accept. Lavender tinted eyelids closed over starlit silver eyes for a long moment as she waited, hoping, it would stop. As it stood, she would not move in any way, or give the High Moff before her any inkling, that she was anything but perfect.

Srina was lucky, because in that moment, Adron fell to his knees and began to meditate. She could feel him reaching, searching, trying to figure out what was happening…But it seemed that the answers were still just out of reach. She hadn’t been lying when she told him she didn’t know what sort of trick this was, or, why it was affecting them. “My warrior is always present.”

“We are the same in all things. I cannot lock part of myself away in a box and pretend that it does not exist. I am as I am.”, she spoke gently, noting, exactly what she was meant to. Echani were by nature, born to combat, and lived for the thrill of fighting someone they couldn’t beat. The challenge was breathtaking. He spoke as if he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, though, she should have guessed as much. “It is not the Echani way.”

No. Echani were every bit as violent and aggressive as a Mandalorian, a Thyrsian, or even a son of the Empire. They were simply better at finding their own truth by melding combat and aristocracy so seamlessly that it would be hard to tell where one trait began and the other ended. The man before her asked what power she thought she held, and a small smile returned to her features, as the pain finally finished ebbing away. “I know what you are.”

What. Not who. There was a vast difference.

When he finally answered her question, she paused, before slowly moving around the room to sit down on the edge of the bed. Her actions were fluid, graceful, and would make any formal dancer green with envy. The fabric of her robe fluttered as she settled, once again, reviewing his words before speaking. A dozen meanings could be drawn for that. Yet, he spoke true. “Srina.”

She had promised, after all.

“What chains you?”

​

​

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​Adron's eyes were nearly shut in a moment of focus. He could not help but chuckle at her declaration of the Echani way. The Echani, much like the Mandalorians, were a violent people who viewed combat as a part of life. Long ago, Adron had chosen the path of the soldier, in lieu of the title of warrior. Adron saw warriors as savage reflections of the wars that forged them. No matter how honorable, or how noble they appeared, they were still savages.

"Oh? What am I?" He asked, his tone laced with curiosity as his eyes opened up. Standing to his full height, Adron made his way to where the woman sat, maintaining a confident smirk as he spoke to her. "Am I a monster? Because of the people I sentence to death?" Like a soft tune, his voice continued to stretch through her room, aimed at the woman sitting before him. "Am I a traitor because of the people I turned on?"

​"Srina....I am many things. But what I am means nothing to me. It is what I shall be that concerns me." He told her, however her next question caused Adron to pause, his confident expression failing.

​"My chains..." He repeated, before turning from the woman. He offered her but one response to the question. "Through victory my chains shall be broken, it is of no matter." The Sith mantra had found a place in Adron, perhaps the reflection of him embracing his Sith training or perhaps something more.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

​

Silver eyes fixated on the High Moff bound to the Galactic Empire. They were mercurial, cold, and yet far from distant. She was focused. Analytical, pragmatic, and fierce in her beliefs. It seemed strange that such a strong persona emanated from a woman so small, wrapped in shimmersilk, and touched with the faint sting of recent injury. Nothing about her form now gave any indication that she could hold a sword, let alone, that she could have run the man before her through with one.

The dark-haired man came to his feet. Had he found the answers that he’d been looking for? Srina could not say, but what he spoke next caused her nigh-angelic head to tilt, as if his words caused some sort of confusion. It was interesting that he seemed to have such a clear acceptance of his sins. Yet, that had not been the path the Echani had sought to take. She did not need to inform him of his faults. What sense was there in telling him things he already knew? “You are no more a monster than I. Though, perhaps a little more misguided.”

Despite the fact that he towered over her, especially once she was seated, she seemed unmoved. He spoke her name as he continued to inform her of his place. Of his thoughts, and to an extent, he even revealed a touch of his feelings. She knew the mantra he spoke of chains. Srina was the apprentice of a Sith Lord—it would be foolish to assume she did not. What did it mean to him? She did not yet know. Her crystalline voice eventually broke the silence that followed when he turned away, gentle in all things, in direct opposition to his deep baritone. “…What you are is a precursor to what you will be.”

“It holds weight. As water turns to ice…As atomic elements become breathable air…What it was dictates, even in some small way, what it will be.”

Gray eyes flickered against the silhouette of this being. She had expected to feel something more brazen when encountering him once more. The sight of his wife had incensed her, initially, though that might have been the lingering effects of the Spirit Ichor used to revive her. Where she had expected to feel hate, to feel anger, she did not. His tone, body language, and actions all spelled out one thing, if it was believed to be genuine.

“I felt it on Tatooine. You are lost.”

The world around them shimmered, bending, but still the connection did not break. Briefly, she wondered what it was that connected them in such a way. It could have been the Spirits that spread through her veins on Ryloth. Yet, why would they seek out the source of her captivity? Why would they tie her to the source of her pain? Was there some sort of lesson to be gained? “Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength and through strength power. Through power, victory. Through victory my chains are broken…”

“Has the Force set you free Adron?”

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​Had Adron and Srina been in a physical meeting, the High Moff may have struck out at her. May have reached to end her life and the challenge that she had produced. It was a sneaking feeling, that scratched the surface of his mind. Yet, as his hand moved to the wound that he yet nursed on his side, he could not help but wish to indulge the feeling. His eyes, which had already been showing the soft signs of corruption, turned to gaze at the woman, attempting to discern more about her.

​"Lost." The word felt native to his tongue, a near perfect description for the man, yet in it's essence it was not correct. "Perhaps. But I won't be lost for much longer." Approaching the woman, he placed a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing it softly as he looked to Srina.

​"I enjoyed our battle." He offered, before turning back to his own side of the room, the Force offering a soft shimmer as he felt it flow erratically around the two. He could feel the connection between the two growing weak, and whatever had brought them together, while not severed, was fading. "I suppose that is the end of our little chat." When Adron turned back to the woman, he would see that the room had reverted back to it's natural state. The Echani and all trace of her lodgings had faded back across the galaxy where they belonged, yet still Adron could feel the woman, elusively.

​"Damn it." He muttered, before exhaling and making his way back to the Refresher.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

He answered some of her questions. Yet, not all of them. She could hardly blame him, if she was being honest, considering that they were enemies. Malvern kept reaching for his side, for the remnants of her attack, and she wasn’t sure how to feel. Part of her should have felt satisfaction. His difficulties should have pleased her. Yet, they did not. It was just the same as when the deed had been committed. She felt no joy, no sense of triumph, and no victory. It was only a display of cause and effect.

Sith corruption touched both of them, especially, after her recent actions on Haseria. Too often she found herself tapping into her Master’s strengths, into his knowledge, and too often did her eyes become fully burnished gold. On Tatooine she had been divided. One eye silver. One eye yellow. Now, they turned of their own accord, with, or without Darth Metus.

In the eyes of most it was only a matter of time before she placed both feet in the darkness. Srina held on to neutrality, to some sort of fading light, as hard as she could. She didn’t want to be like the other Apprentices, whom only vowed to get stronger, to see their Master dead. It was the way of the True Sith. Passion, was the way of the Sith. Srina didn’t want either of those things. “I hope you’re right. No one should be lost forever.”

Whether or not she was being honest would be hard to discern. Everything about her lay in shades of gray and unequivocal balance. Still, the soft words, touched with natural grace held a ring of truth.

A real smile, however brief, touched primrose lips when he admitted to enjoying their fight. Nothing had gone as expected on Tatooine, but, she had learned several valuable lessons. Some from her failures—but mostly from Adron Malvern himself. “Mmmhm…It was better than fighting hordes of clankers, I imagine.”

That was when the room began to move. Change. Adron picked up on it before she did and she caught the tail end of his words. The end? It didn’t feel like an ending. A delay, intermission, perhaps…But not an end. Nothing so final. The form of the High Moff had disappeared in the blink of an eye, his quarters, and his belongings all gone. There was nothing more than the sound of night creatures of Ryloth singing outside her open window. “…Until we meet again.”

---

Everything burned. The heat was palpable, making the air move, as if alive. Force Sight drew her down, swallowed her whole, before she could even think to try and stop it. What was once the peaceful sight of hanging gardens of Sinner’s Well became a hellscape that she often visited in her nightmares. At times she slept with the grace of a child, blissful, and unaware. Yet, more and more, her dreams were filled with disturbances. Experiences, which did not belong to her.

She was bound through the Force to both Darth Metus and Aryn Teth. A Sith Lord, and a Jedi, that was less and less acting like one who traveled in the light. It was polarizing. Their secret fears often lingered in her skull, their terror, their shame, all returned to haunt her. In this instance, she’d fallen asleep while resting against the smooth limestone of a fountain edge. She was seated on the ground, swathed in pale blue, with her head laying in cross her arms made. There were flowers of all colors and types filling the area, small trees, benches, and quiet areas that were perfect to mediate. It was one of her favorite places on Ryloth. It was a location that she retreated to when the stress of life threatened to overwhelm. There was too much training, too much work, and it exhausted her more than she was willing to admit.

It weakened her. And so, her Master’s memories rushed in. His first death. It scalded her just as badly now as it had the first time she’d seen it. Her visions, awake or asleep, were brutally unkind.

She found herself in a temperate, however nearly inhospitable planet, where life was often synonymous with a fight for survival. Mandalore. She saw desert. She saw the volcano. She saw Isley Verd burn. She could feel the flame, feel the anguish, and silver eyes filled with tears and horror. The dream seemed as if it would never end. It depicted a long and agonizingly painful death caused by being cooked alive in his own armor. His skin began to crack and peel as fatty tissue melted. The smell caused her breathing to come in sharp, quick breaths, the ash and smoke godlessly choking him.

Choking her.

When she returned to the land of the living she sat up straight, as if startled, and wiped at her eyes as she struggled to breathe. It really felt as if her throat had been scorched from the inside out. She did not notice the outline of a burned handprint on the stone. Instead, she was forced to let emotion run its course. She felt it, understood it, and then departed from it.

It was not real. It was a memory, nothing more.

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​Measured steps guided Adron through the halls of Castle Bast. The night had turned to day and back to night again, and yet the Dark Jedi had not yet seen the blissful removal of slumber. His bones and arms ached from the rigorous training regiment he had put himself on. Each hand was tightly bandaged with a set of olive shaded wraps. The minor burns and superficial blisters from practicing the technique of Sith Lightning had come to a culmination of pain and damage.

​Barring himself from the technique, in hopes of allowing his hands a bit of time to heal, he turned to other lessons that could better his knowledge of The Force.

​Shadowy halls met the High Moff with a swallowing embrace as he finally found the destination he had searched for. Deep in the castle, there was a small library which Ra'a'mah had given the man access to. Sith texts, Jedi doctrine, and all other manner of knowledge was held in the study.

​Eyeing the metallic door with a slight bit of interest, Adron tapped the console on the side of the wall, forcing the door into it's host as he passed through the threshold. The room was not large or glorious by any means, in fact many would see it as a rather minimal collection, were it not for the material it kept.

​Uncertain hands slid along the flush spines of the books that riddled the library, Finally finding one book in his hands, Adron's movements were paused as a hot pain was spurred into his temple. As if someone had pressed a hot piece of durasteel to his head, he reeled down, dropping the book on the ground in front of him. As soon as it had come, it was gone and the pain was barely a memory. Yet, the Force surrounded Adron in a familiar yet vague manner.

​Bending down to pick up his book, Adron muttered softly. "What was-" As he recovered from the bend, the book case in front of him had disappeared and instead was replaced with the contrasting beauty of a type of garden. Turning back to the center of the garden that had appeared behind him, the Moff exhaled softly as realization dawned upon him. "So, we're doing this again." He stated, as his expectant eyes turned to see Srina, standing beside a stone that seemed harshly burned.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

The small woman barely managed not to flinch at the sound of a slowly growing familiar voice breaking her reverie. She had felt the subtle shift in the Force but remained uncharacteristically distracted by the vision that still clung to the edges of her mind. She could still taste the ash in her throat. Still feel the heat. Still hear the screams. A thousand, thousand people, dying as the planet betrayed them in their most dire hour. At first she did not look at the High Moff. She could not.

He would appear as he always did. Strong. The death of Mandalore left her unsteady as she never was. She did not wish anyone to see her this way, to see reddened eyes, tear stained cheeks, or to sense her lingering dread. It didn’t help that she was determined not to appear fragile in front of someone that she may soon have to clash with once more. “It appears that we are.”

To her relief, her voice seemed steady, though strained. Pale light filtered through the hanging gardens of the Well, turning to fractals from the glass ceiling, leaving the area strangely surreal. It did not help that a man had literally appeared from nothing. Briefly, she wondered, if anyone else entered the area if they would be able to see him to. If they saw her talking to herself they would think her insane.

When she felt composed enough the Echani gathered the flowing fabric of her skirts and rose from her place beside fountain, form unfolding like a blooming rose, versus an ungainly biped. These meetings were unwanted, however, she had long ago resigned herself to make the best of what she could not control. At least, for now. The flaxen haired beauty followed the path of smooth limestone to approach Adron, wondering exactly just how much he had eavesdropped through, or if the Force had spared him her Sight. Silver eyes glimmered like polished mirrors inspecting him from head to toe. He held a book. A real one. Not just a holotext. His hands were bound. Wounded? “…You are injured?”

It was a strange question to ask someone she should have wanted dead. Yet, one thing the Imperial would notice to be a trend, was that the young apprentice was the curious sort. Almost always, when their minds seemed to collide, did she ask questions. Some could be personal, while others, were general things she simply wanted to know the answers to. It was practical.

More than that, the wrappings on his hands seemed familiar, though she knew not why. A slow smile spread over her snow-kissed features, though, it did not touch her eyes. The fiery hell she had just seen would not allow her forget it so easily. No. The Force never, ever, let her forget. “Don’t tell me…Is the great and powerful Adron Malvern a terrible cook?”

It would have been ironic, considering, Srina had yet to create a biscuit that didn’t have the consistency of beskar. There were even rumors that her pancakes were so dense that they held their own gravitational pull.

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​Clasping his arms behind his back, Adron would begin to stride around the gardens that surrounded them. As he looked over the array of flowers and plants that were displayed, he would offer the slightest of smiles. "You truly appreciate life, don't you?" Turning back to Srina, he had taken notice of her eyes which held a red hue. Her cheeks even had a soft twinkle as tears had slid down them.

​Closing the distance between the two of them, Adron would lean down to inspect the woman, the soft grin he had never fading. "Tears don't suit you." His hand would reach up, as he attempted to wipe the tears from her cheek. The action was distorted as his hand passed through her as if she were not there. It was not meant to be an act of kindness, the man merely hated the thought of a woman in tears, enemy or not.

​Turning from her, he glanced down to the palm of his wrapped hands. Srina's joke had brought out a genuine snort as he turned back to her, clasping his arms behind his back. "I just never could sear a proper bantha steak." He said, returning her bit of banter, Adron had enjoyed a few days of entertaining himself in the kitchen. The result was....not the best, yet it had grown to something the Dark Jedi would participate in when his busy schedule ever allowed. "What brings tears to your eyes? Have you missed me so?" He said, offering a slight smile as he looked to her.

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

What a wonder it was, to feel his being, to feel him move—As if he were truly there. What she saw was more than an apparition, but, not so much more that he actually had solid form. He was both present in her waking world and yet physically absent. Never would she get used to this. Never would she be able to wrap her mind around how it worked or why some twist of fate thought to keep pulling them back together after their last parting had been so vile.

The will of the Force was something she could not make sense of. Between the intensity of her Sight and the general mayhem that was brought down in the name of balance there was no part of her life that it had thrown into chaos. Adron wore a smile, small, but a smile nonetheless. Not for the first time she wondered how this man could be a son of the Empire. How, this could be the same person, she met on Tatooine.

“Should I not?”, she questioned softly, uncertain if she could trust herself to answer what was a likely a rhetorical question. Silver eyes averted from the vision of the High Moff, and in that moment she missed his approach, until his ghostly hand passed through her cheek. He claimed that tears didn’t suit her and a soft flush touched ever-pale cheeks. Of course, he noticed. “And yet…Here they are.”

Apparently, nothing would make sense this day. A man willing to kill her was the same man trying to brush away her tears? In what world did that happen?

Thankfully, he accepted her small attempt at a jest, and she thought the subject would be changed with the continued banter. Only, he circled right back around to her plight, expertly, as if there had never been anywhere else he would end up. Srina hesitated. Anything she spoke of was little more than ammunition. Once again, her eyes swept down, pale lashes dusting against rose tinted cheeks. “Oh yes. More than the stars, have I missed you. Perhaps it is my will this time that brought you here.”

It wasn’t. He knew it, she knew it, but, she played along. It delayed coming to grips with her eternal embarrassment.

She breathed in deeply through her nose, savoring the calming floral scents, before trying to think of a way to respond without painting herself as a feeble waif. It was frustrating, maddeningly so.

“Ever since I left my home I have had visions of past, present, and future. They come and go. They are…Powerful. Some I see over and over. The people of Mandalore burning, the first death of my Master, I see frequently because of our connection.”, her gaze flickered toward the burned limestone that made the fountain edge. “I feel it. All of it.”

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​Adron could not help but laugh as the flush that came to Srina's cheeks. No matter how strong she may be, she is still a woman. He mused, finding her reaction a bit amusing. Her reaction to their exchange was also amusing, perhaps even more so than her flushed cheeks.

​Srina then did something Adron did not expect, she delved into her past. Like Adron she has been plagued with visions of her people suffering, the death of someone close, and a planet lost. The Force, it seems, was not without a sense of irony. His demeanor changed a bit, going a bit...softer? As he sat down near the woman. His eyes took to the garden surrounding them while he spoke in a lower tone. "It doesn't go away." He said, before looking to her, passing a meaningful, almost empathetic look. "It will be there in your dreams, it will be there when you wake up, and every hour of the day you will remember it. For the longest time I kept waiting for the day it would end, then I realized it doesn't end because the reality has yet to change."

​Glancing down to his hands, Adron waved them absently as he gestured to the flowers surrounding them. "So you surround yourself with things you love, things you hope will block out the bad that's inside of your head. It helps for a while. Every once and a while you look up and get to pretend that your life is something else, something that it is not or something it could never be. But when the flowers die and the water stops flowing, you remember all the bad crap that's happened. That's when you get stronger." The words, spoken more for Adron than Srina, were cut when the man stood from his place beside the girl.

​"We can't change our past, but if we fight hard enough we can control our future."

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Srina Talon]

The more Adron laughed at her involuntary responses the more her cheeks reddened. Her tongue pressed to the front of her teeth to keep from saying something unkind, but, she very nearly slipped. She was not a fainting damsel that fell for the roguish flattery of an Imperial soldier, before getting swept off her feet, and taken for granted. Srina was angry. At herself, more than anything, for not being able to shut down as she should. It was preposterous.

‘I think. I do not feel.’, she mentally chastised herself, repeating childhood lessons, and that which had sustained her during her service to the Echani Command and the Queen. ‘I am one of many. I am fearless. I breathe in chaos I breathe out calm.’

Again, the High Moff surprised her. Not because of his proximity but because of the sudden shift in his mood. His softened demeanor caused her defenses to momentarily raise as he sat down at her side. His words slowly, carefully, eased her out of a state that seemed trapped in fight or flight. He spoke of things that she thought she had accepted long ago. Perhaps, her adaption to her current situation was not as flawless as she’d initially believed. “These visions are memories that are not my own. They are from my Master’s eyes. Of his being. The pain, the suffering, and the inevitable horrifying end belongs to people I have never met. Never loved. And yet, I grieve for them.”

“I am not in the habit of lying to myself. I see beyond the flame, though I do not wish to, I must. The Force is speaking. Loudly. Whether it is a warning or an omen I know not. I am not yet talented enough to decipher it.”

Visions of the past, of things she had never seen, of places she had never been. She didn’t know how to explain to anyone, not her Master, not her friends, and certainly not Adron Malvern—that it felt less like a fragment of a bygone era and more like a premonition of what was to come. “I surround myself with life, not to hide from the truth, but as a reminder. Life always finds a way.”

“Always.”

Srina hoped that he was right. That if she fought, that if Darth Metus was able to compel the Confederacy to fight, to stand, that they could circumvent the horror she felt lingering on the horizon. Things were not as they ought to be in the galaxy. Everything was uncertain. There was no balance, no good, no right, no wrong. She had met Sith who were kind and Jedi who were cruel.

“I do not want the future I fear. Not for anyone. Not even you.”

[member="Adron Malvern"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

​"Then your curse is even worse than mine." Adron said, after hearing of how Srina's visions had been a product of her master's history. Arching a brow, Adron realized he had learned something new of Srina. "You must be closely connected with your Master to host such a bond." He said, interlacing his fingers as he rested them in front of his waist.

​As Srina spoke, Adron could not help but chuckle. "You Echani, a fascinating lot." He said, before gesturing to the flowers surrounding them. "Death is a part of life. Life and death are two sides of the same coin, one The Force sees fit to flip, often."

​Shaking his head as Srina, there was a slight pause before Adron exhaled. "I suppose that's the difference between you and I. There is nothing I won't do, no one I will not damn, to have back what was taken from me." He stated, his eyes falling on the young Echani intently. "In the end, those who stand against me will die. Because if they don't, I will die." He explained.

[member="Srina Talon"]

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[Srina Talon]

An empty, cheerless smile, passed over her lips when Adron proclaimed that her curse was worse than his. Didn’t he realize he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know? There were thousands of Force-sensitives in the verse, yet, she was the one tortured with visceral visions of things that had never happened to her. She suffered from her attachments, from the Force Bonds that bound her, and for the most part she endured it in silence. The High Moff had unfortunately simply caught her in a moment where she had been incapable of hiding her pain. It was to her eternal regret, and now, he had proof and knowledge of her weakness.

“My Master and I are close-knit by what seems to have been design. From the day we met, I have never known it to be any other way.”

His laugh rolled through her ears and she offered a cheerless smile in response. Srina was intimately aware that this man was a danger, so much so, that Darth Metus had crafted her new armor in an effort to better protect her in the future. It was crimson and onyx, an accident of alchemy, he claimed, but Srina knew the path he wished her to walk. Though, he would never ask. “You Imperials…A fascinating lot.”, she repeated back softly, clearly, making an effort to tease him.

Her ability to tell a joke had long since been stunted by the vibrant warfare Eshan had to offer. Still, she tried, every now and again. Her younger sister Tellu used to swear her face would break if she so much as cracked a smile. She would be proud to see how far she had come. Not only did she smile, every once in a while, but she actually meant it.

She remained quiet while he explained his point of view. It made sense. He had been willing to pay the final price on Tatooine. Yet, so had she. “My life…It is small, compared to the millions that depend on the Confederacy. I see it as a matter of balance and mathematics. The loss of one life to care take a nation…The numbers do not lie. In that respect, I will do what I must.”

Srina strove to leave the smallest carbon footprint from the mayhem and darkness that occasionally swept out of her being. The flame that she constantly saw consuming everyone, everything, was enough of a warning that it left her with hesitations. The galaxy was made up of people. Not their material wealth, not their resources, not if there wasn’t anything left to see it. The pale woman wasn’t sure what bothered her most about these visions. The brutality, or the feeling of inevitability.

“I fear what I see. There is no fight. Rather, there is no point in fighting, not even for what we’ve lost. Not when everyone is already dead.”

[member="Adron Malvern"]