Private I Left for Ten, They Went for Forty

[Scherezade deWinter]

. : Kallidan : .​

Before the events of An Artificial Night

Finding fragments of a life once lived was never easy, especially so after forty years away. For Scherezade, it had only been ten, but the galaxy had marched forward in linear time, four times over, and the world she once knew was no longer the same. Not worse, not better, just different.

Her life in the Galaxy had been a chaotic mess from the moment she'd been taken out of her pebble on Ryloth and thrust into an adult body, her grandmother's thousands of years worth of memories forcibly pressed instantly into her mind even as she had remained an emotional teenager at best. The impact had shattered much of her, leaving the Sith's psyche in turmoil.

Yet amidst the pain and turmoil, a few faces stood clear in her memories. People who would remain unforgettable, no matter how many years passed. Ingrid was one of them. In a time when the Confederacy's disdain and cruelty left Scherezade isolated, Ingrid L'lerim had been a true friend and more. Their friendship blossomed into something deeper, and Ingrid became Scherezade's steadfast anchor when she chose to leave the Confederacy and follow her sister into the Agents of Chaos.

Since her return, Scherezade had deliberately avoided the holonet. A former spy, she knew too well how easily she could be tracked, and with the long list of enemies she'd made, she wasn't ready for that kind of exposure. Still, she wanted to know what had become of the people she once cared about; who had died, who had vanished, who was still standing.

Gathering information was a grueling game. Most refused to operate outside the vast communicational web of the 'verse. Printed news was all but extinct. Yet by sheer luck, buried between clues about the schematics she was chasing, she caught a faint glimmer: Ingrid's name. Still the Eternal Empress. Nothing more.

That was enough. Scherezade had acted on less before.

Nelvaan had yielded no results. Her old contacts were long gone, and the planet's culture discouraged forging new alliances. Several other worlds came and went on her list, until finally, she found herself on Kalidan.

The cold bit sharply as Scherezade tightened her fur coat around her. Her presence in the Force was open. Would Ingrid notice? She didn't know. Ten minutes, she decided. If nothing came of that, she'd let Chaos guide her.