Private Interlude: Nightmare & Glitter

[Mercy]

RUUSAN
MERCY'S LOCKER ROOM
BETWEEN ROUND THREE AND FOUR
Sael

She had found the little goblin in a bit of a trance. Mercy knew she was out of it when she spontaneously hugged her after Mercy tapped her on the shoulder. It had been an awkward moment, but she decided to just pat her on the head and guide her to the locker room. Some fresh water, fresh air, maybe forcing her to throw up once if need be, just to clear Sael's head for long enough to remember her own name.

"You did well." Mercy was leaning against the wall next to the sink. "I could hear them chant coward and dance on the tune of my heartbeat even while I was handling that Jedi."

Mercy stretched lightly and thought about it for a moment longer.

"Does it feel good? Having control over them? Making them do what you want?" It would probably be an euphoria for her apprentice. To go from being a slave in a cage, forced to do what others want, now able to be the one who decided. There was no judgement in Mercy's tone. In fact, the only way she would judge... is if Sael hadn't liked it. A conscience was not something for them.

It would only get in the way.

 

[Sael]

​

"Marvellous!" Sael exclaimed, unabashedly and uncharacteristically tossing her hands up.

Warmth pooled out from her brain and core at the praise, and she showed no meekness behind her smile. Was she smiling? She still couldn't quite feel her face.

Or anything else, for that matter. She felt as though she were floating around the locker room, a place for reprieve and recharging. It seemed well decorated for that, not lavish, purposeful.

"Yes." She answered, but without thinking (because she couldn't) continued: "Though it's more what you want, isn't it?"

It was a question born of backbone, but also, Sael didn't have wants just yet. She'd just unlocked that she could have desire; but for what?

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Mercy
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[Mercy]

Sael

Mercy smirked there.

"Someone's been listening to the trollop mercenary I see." She murmured warmly while gazing down at her apprentice. No, it wasn't just glitterstim that would turn meekness into preppy retort. You needed something to be poured into your ear for that. "I suppose that's true. It all served to increase my reputation, my image..."

Again patting her head gently or as gently as someone like Mercy could.

"But-" Smirk getting a bit pronounced there with sharp teeth. "What would you have wanted them to do? If you had free reign and could do whatever your black little worm heart desired?"

It had been two-fold really.

Yes, Mercy wanted her ego polished, she always did. But there was more to it though. If left at her own designs, Mercy wasn't sure what would happen to someone like Sael. She was still so soft, gentle even. Her mind was a weapon unparalleled, but her feelings could be manipulated and her body could be broken.

More than ever she realized she had to get more serious with her training.

Sael needed a master of her craft. The same way that Ashin Varanin had turned a brawler into a tank of nightmares. Her wife could perhaps help Sael to become someone that spun nightmares and made them alive.

 

[Sael]

​

Mercy was not the mentalist, she was not supposed to read her thoughts.

Sael bristled childishly but did not have an answer of her own. All of her wants were freedom. And she had more of it than ever before, but how could she turn that into more? Want more? Seek more?

"I would pay more attention to the bad thoughts." She answered slowly, thinking through the half-glimpsed dreamings she'd seen at the apex of her high.

"Expose them, trap them in it. Make them suffer for even considering such wickedness." Her eyes gleamed, mouth filling with saliva and she swallowed. "There's no shortage of evil here."

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Mercy
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[Mercy]

Sael

Mercy chuckled and the sound was one of indulgence. When your child had broken something but she had such fun doing it that it didn't matter.

You wanted your daughter to be unafraid of sharing their most inward thoughts.

Even if she was a little goblin.

"Mm, you are thinking like a goblin, little one." Tone not unkindly. "Feral, hungry, clawing at the fabric of the mind. Do you want to be more than a goblin? More than a little worm digging in the earth?"

There was no wrong answer here in truth, but it would determine the trajectory of Mercy's teachings.

A feral worm didn't need more than just the basics. She'd never be more than a weapon.

If she wanted more though, Mercy would not allow her to indulge in these things, she'd have to practice discipline.

Which was hilarious coming from someone like Mercy.

 

[Sael]

​

"Yes."

She looked up at the ceiling of the locker room, swaying a bit.

"I want to be bigger than planets."

Days ago, she daren't dream like this. She was just a worm. Just a goblin. Words used to keep her down, to feel small and gremlin-like. Make it feel impossible to feel any sort of worth. But the glitterstim and the Zeltron dreamwalker had shown her that she could be the universe. If someone as powerful as he in the mental sphere could find her impressive; why couldn't she glory in her own abilities?

She did not need to fear herself. Her own limitations.

"And I want to have fun."

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Mercy
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[Mercy]

Sael

"Mmm, both things I excel at." Mercy drawled lazily. "But if you want to be big, powerful, if you don't want to be a little gremlin..."

A shrug.

"We need to give you proper training. I can handle the physical part. The parts of what it means to be Sith. But the mentalism, well, I got no truck with that unless I got a metric feth ton of glitterstim inside of me."

She was still a bit bemused at how that had gone. Her mind cracked open like an egg, touching the minds of others without any control to slowly turn and transform them into the same ugly nightmare that Mercy was.

Maybe Sael had even felt it when it had happened.

"I have told you about my Master, Ashin Varanin. She has a similar skillset to me. Enhancement of the body, making it into both a weapon and a shield." She smiled then. "I haven't told you about her wife though, Spencer Jacobs, the most powerful mentalist this Galaxy has ever seen."

She already had permission from Ashin and had been tangentially in touch with Spencer Varanin , just to make sure she'd be open to it.

"If there is anyone who can unlock your mind and make it as large as a planet it will be her."

 

[Sael]

​

The physical part. Sael looked down at her slim self with a dubious air. She'd put some more meat on her bones since Mercy had taken her on, but she was nowhere near anything relatively imposing. She still looked brittle as a bird. If she wanted to strike fear into the hearts of others, it would not be on-sight, lest her reputation somehow eventually preceded her.

That was a good goal to have.

​

"Oh, yes," her ears perked up "—Glitterstim. I like that stuff."

the most powerful mentalist the galaxy had ever seen.

That would need to be the reputation of Sael. Hearing it said so precisely, so clearly gave her definition on how to want and covet. She wanted that mantle.

"Larger than a planet. I will be the whole universe." Sael corrected, mirroring Isar 's words. She had to believe that was the case if she were to be described as the most powerful mentalist the galaxy had ever seen — she needed to rewrite expectations and defy them again and again. In the crowds, she'd felt the raw admiration that individuals had for Mercy, their covetousness, their fear. Nobody looked twice at Sael, and for now, she was content with that, because now she knew how she wanted to be seen; and until that could be achieved, she was fine to build and be invisible.

For now, though, she remained meek and appreciative — a stark contrast to her whole universe comment only seconds before.

"Would she take me as a student?"

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Mercy
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[Mercy]

Sael

Every fiber in her body wanted to grab Sael by her stupid little chin and smash her into the wall. Then shake her, for as long as was necessary, until she got the stupidity out of her system.

There was one thing that stopped her.

She remembered the way she was as a young Sith Acolyte. A creature that ran on spite and did the exact opposite of whatever she was told. It didn't matter if it was good or bad advice. She'd do the opposite, not because it helped her, but because she didn't want to accept any criticism. True, it had eventually brought her here.

But Sael was not Mercy.

Even back then she had a large hard body that allowed her to smash through obstacles. Sael... she'd break first and Mercy might not be around to shield her from that... and as a Sith the very desire to do so filled her with confusion.

"Whose words are you speaking now?" Mercy said softly instead. Still her fingers went to her chin, but they were gentle rather than violent, tilting her head up a fraction. "Your words, Sael? My words?" Brows furrowed and there was no fury in her voice. It was a tone that she had never heard from this big mountain of a woman. And so the tone might be completely foreign, impossible to understand what it was in that moment.

"Or the words of a weak, spineless rat with a drug addiction whose greatest achievement I know of was to be smashed by a Gen'dai just to run away letting me hold the bag?"

She let go of her chin but still loomed over her.

"I will say this once and only once. Even as a small feral goblin, a worm out of a cage, you are already more than he will ever be. These cretins are nothing to us. They are fodder beneath our heels. Garbage we use and discard. You are Sith." Only then taking a step back to let her apprentice breathe, sighing softly.

"I did not think I'd have to remind you of this the very first time I let you out of my sight, Sael."

The last part Mercy didn't voice, it was just in her mind, but Sael was a mentalist... she could glimpse it anyway even if Mercy didn't want her to.

I am not angry, Sael. I am just disappointed.

 

[Sael]

​

It was subtle, barely there, a flinch of muscle at most, but Sael recognized the change in Mercy's posture for what it was. Restraint.

She could only assume that's what it was, because she'd never seen it from her Master before. She'd just watched her tear foe after foe apart, wring them out and tear them in half. Never once did she flinch the way she did now, looming over Sael with terrifying, simmering, threatening, calm.

Even though nothing violent came her way, she still flinched — but all that happened were giant fingertips cradling her chin. She sucked in a sharp breath, recognizing that Mercy was only one decision away from squeezing and crushing her face in. Sael could not impose fear faster than a reflexive squeeze. She could not protect herself.

Pressure came, but it remained gentle. Directive. Forcing eye contact while she listened to sickly-sweet words. A tone inappropriate from someone so menacing.

Sael winced as Mercy started to make her point, fighting every urge to tremble even as her Master released her. Dismay crept through her bones and drooped her shoulders. She'd liked the words of her fellow Zeltron, he'd filled her with hope, ambition, promise, a mind full of spectacle that Mercy had described but she hadn't been able to understand without the additional push. He'd given her delight of the mind, broadened her expanse and married her talents with his own. It had been the first time she'd had fun. True, glorious fun.

Loneliness broadened in her chest and she drew in a deep breath. The impulse to plea for forgiveness was powerful, but she withheld. Long enough for Mercy to continue.

"I will say this once and only once. Even as a small feral goblin, a worm out of a cage, you are already more than he will ever be. These cretins are nothing to us. They are fodder beneath our heels. Garbage we use and discard. You are Sith."

Sith.

Mercy had explained that she was Sith, explaining she how she drew her ferocious power from the Dark Side. But Sael? She'd always just been a worm. A gremlin. A slave. Something little and inconvenient, poisoned with a power she did not understand and could not fully control. Wretched thing that saw only the worst of people, and exploited their greatest fears for the merriment of Mercy.

But here, now, Mercy said she was a Sith and Sael heard nothing else.

"I am?" She blinked stupidly, embarrassed at her own words. She hurriedly pivoted, feeling sobriety come with this wonderful realization. If she were a Sith then truly she should feel more masterful over her own domain. Not so sheepishly reedy and wanting of help.

"I will use him. He does have a strange power, Master. An unconventional use of Pheremones that I hadn't considered yet." Sael nodded. "Nothing more. I owe him nothing. I won't disappoint you."

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Mercy
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[Mercy]

Sael

Usually Mercy felt smugness and accomplishment at her ability to scare people with just her presence. This was the first and perhaps only time that Mercy wished she was less inherently intimidating.

Just this once.

But they could not wishes come through solely through hope. And Mercy was not empathatic enough to try and change this, not when it served her so.

"There will be those who try and take advantage of you." She continued quietly, internally seething she had to have this conversation, that anyone ever dared to do so with her own acolyte.

Her fists ached to connect and relay understanding.

But she wouldn't. That would deprive Sael from an opportunity to learn and take a stand herself.

"They will try and use the fact that you are small to their advantage." Softer tone now. "Men are a sickness, Sael. They cannot help what they are, that is why we must never allow ourself to be be vulnerable in their presence."

If she had known, that while Sael was high and drugged up, that the man had been touching her so freely, gotten so close to her so freely... she might have forgone all caution anyway.

But perhaps her words would shine a different light in what had transpired earlier, give Sael a different perspective. Would she have let him touch her so, gotten so close, if she had been sound of mind and not taken in by the moment?

Then Mercy nodded and finally that grinned smile opened up again.

Brightening the room as it were.

"Sith." Mercy repeated with a pleased tone. "I am glad you understand. Use him, that's what he and those like him are therefore."

About to pet her head but then she dropped that gem.

"I am not disappointed why would-" And the. Mercy sighed. "You can read my mind so easily, child. Impressive... Gods you impress me so."

And now Sael would feel something else than disappointment from Mercy.

Regard, respect, happiness.

 

[Sael]

​

A deep-pitted embarrassment bloomed from her core, and Sael felt herself warm with shame. She had been vulnerable. She'd been entirely open, a broad span and boundlessly open — welcoming of interlacing and merriment. It had felt fun but now..it felt sinister. Like something beautiful and carelessly given had been abused.

She should have known better. She'd had her whole life's pattern to make her know better. It might have been fun, wild, reckless, heady and glorious, but it was brief and crashed into a potential for her to be less feared in the future. To be regarded as less of a Sith.

He'd kissed her, and she hadn't done anything about it. Had she enjoyed it?

In the moment, yes. Had she thought of it since?

Numbly, she touched her mouth and felt distaste burgeon on her tongue. She might have. But was that despicable too? Maybe not if she thought of it as using him, taking what she wanted and remain unaffected.

Instead she chose to linger on the gravitas of the word Sith. That's what she was. That's who she would become. And whether they were Isar's words, Mercy's words, or Sael's own: She would become more fearsome than anyone before her.

"Thank you, Master." Sael dipped her head politely, the heat of shame shifting slightly to a flash of pride.

It didn't last long however, the auditorium's broadcast system came to life with a mechanical warning, alerting all those in the vicinity of the countdown to the next round.

"Do well this round. Master. You will."

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Mercy
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