Private Into Your Arms

[Kirie]

Location: A yacht.

Kirie lay in the bed, her eyes boring holes into the textured ceiling panels above her, squinting at the pattern, trying to discern meaning where there was nothing. Dark thoughts swirled about her brain unbidden: Loneliness, helplessness, a despair so deep and dark it was all she could do not do drown in it.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. It was late, and the lights of the luxurious vessel had been turned out. Only a thin yellow glow from beyond the open door gave shape and form to the bedroom’s shadowy dim. Kirie wasn't tired at all, and despite the dark rings under her eyes and the haggardness of her features, she hardly slept at all these days. Kirie stretched and sat up, swinging her legs out so her feet sat flat on the cold metallic floor. The awful blackness inside her continued to swirl, churning up from her stomach, rising and tightening her chest, closing her throat. So alone. So useless. So bad.

Kirie grimaced and placed her hands on her head. Her eyes fluttered shut. She focused on the black feelings, swirling about her insides, concentrated all her willpower and coalesced them into a single mass within herself. Then, with a flick of her wrist, like removing a stubborn tick, Kirie dislodged them from herself.

Relief washed over her as she plucked the thoughts from her mind, letting them flow out her fingertips. In their place came emptiness, quietude, peace. The absence of thought and feeling. She let out an involuntary sigh of contentment.

Kirie stood up as if nothing had happened, padding out to the main space of the yacht in her pyjamas, to where a woman was working, perched over some project, the lamplight casting her in half-shadow and throwing her blue-tinged skin into sharp relief.

She approached the woman, enjoying the feeling of creeping up behind her, just outside her peripheral vision. Kirie laid a hand on her shoulder. More than a friendly hand. Had she seen her coming?

'Hey, Anet.'

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

Anet was quite busy, poring over the records from Lehon, Jedha, and Chandaar. All information pointed towards Tira, a seemingly mythical world adrift in darkness, without a star's light to illuminate it. But it was still incomplete.

The half-pantoran stood there, hunched over, dressed in her Sith robes. They hugged loosely, messy like her current bedhead, as if she had just carelessly thrown them on for a quick trip to the bathroom in the night. Without her mask - and far too locked into her task - Anet was woefully unaware of Kirie's approach. The woman's touch on her shoulder sent a shiver at first. She was still getting used to having her aboard. Her shoulder muscles tensed for a moment, before relaxing as Kirie's presence clicked a second or two later. That shiver replaced with a cohort of butterflies.

Her lips parted into a lazy grin as she turned her head just enough to see the edge of Kirie's signing.

"Hey," she murmured, turning her attention back to her work, head bent to pin the hand to her shoulder. "Talk inside my head. You know I'm defenseless to your intrusions without the mask." Was Anet daring her? Perhaps to see how willing the blooming Sith was to take advantage of her?

Or maybe Anet just really, really wanted to hear her voice.

"I think we've almost got it... I'll be heading to Kashyyyk soon with Efret," the fallen Jedi Master who now walked among the Covenant. "She believes there's something we'll find there to help us complete the picture."

Her lightsaber, Devotion, lingered somewhere among the disaster of her desk space. Junk at a glance. But the mask was nowhere to be seen. Anet had boldly left it by the vergence on Coruscant to feed.

 

[Kirie]

The ripple that went through her at Kirie's touch was exactly what she had expected. It pleased her to anticipate Anet's reaction. It was satisfying to know her in that way, especially when the rest of her was foreign, and spiky, and confusing. She let her hand drop as Anet spun round to face her.

Kirie didn't have to be prompted twice to speak inside Anet's head again. The feeling of doing so always made her giddy. Intimate, forbidden, and strange. She had always enjoyed the glimpses of each other that could be gleaned when a bridge was built between the vastly different worlds of consciousness they inhabited. Kirie's eyelids closed again, and she leaned forward until her brow rested on Anet's, and with the Force she reached out, feeling the borders of the woman's mind, probing by feel until she found the weakness that gave so easily, allowing their inner selves to meld in a way that their flesh could not manage. Anet would likely tense, recoil on instinct, but without her mask the reflexive defences of her mind did not worry Kirie.

Both of them would see flashes of the other. Colours, smells, fragments of memories and feelings, until the walls came up around the new breach and there would be only a channel for communication. Kirie sighed, and let her hands fall to her side as she straightened up to look Anet in the eye.

"There." The words would ring inside Anet's head like the cold clear chime of a bell. "How's that?" The syllables were low and gentle, tinged with the eccentric accent characteric of Weik's northernmost people. It was more her voice as she imagined it, remembered it, than how it had ever been. Perhaps more confident, more clear, more passionate? Whatever the case, Anet seemed to like it very much, and that made Kirie happy.

Kirie offered a measured smile of her own in response to Anet's easy grin.

"We're close." she agreed, closing her eyes again. "Kashyyyk feels right. I think you'll find what you're looking for." She paused a bit lost in visions of the icy jewel. Ever since Anet had shared her research, Kirie could not stop dreaming of Tira, wandering alone in the void, waiting for someone to find it. She swallowed, then went on. "I'd like to meet her, what do you think?"

The flicker out the viewport behind Anet caught Kirie's eye. The maddening visage of hyperspace, familiar now after over a month on the Raine's yacht, the Starwind Epiphany.

"Where to? Belazura?"

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

The feeling that washed over Anet, when Kirie's brow rested against her own, was perhaps the most functional joy she had felt since her days of becoming a Sith. The Dark Side had a way of twisting things - wants, fears, baser emotions - until they were unrecognizable, and hollow... Bitter unless used to fuel your power. A painful, yet beautiful, symbiosis between passion and the Force. Yet, even as Anet embraced it, she couldn't help but hold onto this single thread of normalcy and pretend for a fleeting moment, that what the two of them shared was intimate.

That moment Kirie's eyes had closed, Anet could already feel them staring from within.

Her body tensed, heart rushed, hands balled into a fist at the first intrusion - as if Kirie had reached a hand into her skull and molded her mind like putty. Then, the discomfort passed, giving way to a distinct euphoria and the clear, alien tones of the woman's accent. The half-pantoran imagined herself standing on a rocky shore, stones of basalt cast against inky black waves, opaque, no hints as to their depths, or what monsters lurk beneath. Across the horizon, against a starless sky, was a center of darkness pierced by fiery spears that erupted across the distance, stretching into infinity. The dark, violent, and certain center of Anet Raine.

Somewhere inside, however... In the glimpses... Were the threads that made her. Fragments of childhood memories. Aching whenever her mother departed for another year-long tour, resenting whenever her father meddled in her personal life, ending friendships and budding summer romances with all the expected slurs and bigotry. Lectures of duty and purpose, turning her identity into a reward if only she obeyed. Patriotism towards one Galactic Alliance and then the next. Constant, endless studies.

But as Kirie spoke, there was a breeze... A gentle, calming change to an otherwise intense core.

Her eyes finally opened to meet Kire's stare. Typically, they were icy, knowing, or maybe some flavor of defiant. But right now? They were sunken - needy. Anet reached out and gently clutched the fabric of Kirie's pyjamas. For a moment it looked as if she was ready to give into those baser passions again, that dance that always seemed to end before the final act.

But then Kirie asked a question, and suddenly Anet found herself.

She smiled, snickering dryly. But then there was a stab of jealousy. Why would Kirie need to meet her? Anet had everything under control. What possibly could a fallen Jedi have to teach that she couldn't?!

"Yes," she answered. Though her tone suggested resignation. "I can arrange it."

Thankfully, Kirie had a second question which seemed to steady the mood. Anet got up, the fabric of her robes, sliding a bit down one shoulder until she adjusted them and tightened the cloth belt.

"Belazura by way of Carida and Manaan... Direct, unless you'd like us to stop anywhere?"

Always, she had to obfuscate their trips between the Core and the Republic. The separation between Sith and Senator was a delicate lie.

She looked at Kirie with a hungry smile.

 

[Kirie]

Anet would see visions of her own as the pair's minds connected. Where Anet's consciousness conjured forth the image of a darkened landscape and an impenetrable umbral sphere, Kirie's was closer to a grey realm of undulating hills and sloping valleys, thick with drifting sheets of mist and the scent of wet grass. There were no discernible fragments of memory to grasp at, only snippets of sound and light and smell and taste and feeling, passing by so quickly they left only an afterimage, then the connection closed and they were gone. Kirie's mind had long defied interpretation, even to herself.

Kirie's did not miss the change in Anet's demeanour, the flex of her fingers twisting the soft material of Kirie's night clothes. It reminded her of other nights on Jutrand, but she pushed those thoughts away without examination. The look that had overtaken Anet quickened Kirie's heartbeat and she swallowed, her own eyes glinting with a vitality that had been lacking before. She leaned forward-

"Yes," she answered. Though her tone suggested resignation. "I can arrange it."

Kirie slumped slightly, disappointed, having not missed a beat of Anet's reaction. Her eyes took on the slightly glassy look again, her face otherwise remaining perfectly neutral. She resolved not to bring up Efret again unless Anet asked. She blinked a few times, and found she didn't much care anyway.

Instead, she busied herself by walking over to one of the holoscreens by Anet's desk, tapping a nail against the input until it flared to life and displayed a starmap with a track indicating their current route. She pretended to study it, fiddling with the display, waiting for Anet to come and stand beside her close enough that they could feel the other's warmth. When finally she did come close, Kirie spun round, wrapping her arms around Anet's waist and planting a soft, lingering kiss upon her lips. She opened up the mental connection between the two of them and let the feeling of satisfaction and want flow out for Anet to savour. Then she broke away.

"I don't mind if we stop." Kirie shrugged. "Can I come out with you on Belazura?"

Anet Raine​

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

When Kirie slumped, there was a shift of rejection, more palpable in the Force than readable in the half-pantoran's expression. Again, there was a small part of Anet who wished that this was a normal intimacy - it was easy to delude herself without the mask... a means to live two separate lives. Almost.

It had become harder to remove each time. The loss of that intoxicating rush became nearly unbearable, and memories of desire only made her bitter.

Anet took a step back, staring down and off to the side as that look departed Kirie's eyes.

Her stomach sank when her dubiously-labeled lover assumed her space at the desk, back turned towards her.

Sharp blue eyes followed the cascade of brunette hair down the woman's shoulders, drifting ever lower until a small, unintentional smile curled. It was something a touch nervous, and two parts more hopeful. Her next steps were a glide as she fell in beside Kirie. Her fingertips sought to tap and tease the groove of the spine on her lower back, only to have the woman spin around and claim her lips instead.

The feeling of Kirie's hands around her waist was a tonic for her anxiety, and made her feel a touch smaller. When the connection between their minds reopened, Anet pressed deeper, adding more weight to her kiss and threatening to bite Kirie's lip as if there was a danger to her loving.

But then...

And then...

Kirie broke away and left Anet gasping - fingers frozen in place.

Did Kirie just... Oh. Her needy pout became a salty grin, satisfied in that dumbfounded way when you realized that you were just played... and found it impressive.

If only to give her fingers something to do, Anet tucked loose stands of white and smoothed the messy flow of her hair into something more presentable.

The question of whether Kirie could join her was a touch unexpected, but wholly inevitable. As much as Anet lived separate lives, Kirie remained with her on the Starwind Epiphany.

She nodded and folded her hands behind her back. "Of course." There was no resignation in her tone this time. "Shower. Get dressed, and meet me in the galley when you've finished."

Anet turned to slip away, almost like a creature in her embarrassed retreat.

 

[Kirie]

After Anet slipped away, Kirie made her way back to her room. Like Anet suggested, she showered, scrubbing every inch of herself with the coarse soap until she had taken away any stubborn grime, along with a layer of her skin, leaving her pink and gleaming as she pulled on her underclothes.

Kirie liked dressing up, and this was one of the few chances she had to do so, so she took great care in selecting the clothes she pulled on over her base layer. First, a fine wine-coloured dress she had found forgotten in a cupboard aboard the yacht, its voluminous sleeves covering her shackle and the marking on her wrist. Then, a light scarf to cover her neck tattoos. She added a pair of fitted gloves, soft leather boots to make the ensemble more practical, and a belt to cinch her waist. Kirie completed the outfit with a black pendant and dangling black metal earrings, pinning her hair back in a style that she'd read was popular in the Republic of old.

Similar attention was paid to her makeup. In the light of the vanity Kirie transformed herself into a new person. More regal, more shallow, much more wealthy than she. By the time she was done Kirie no longer resembled a Sith Acolyte, nor the handmaiden of a high Lady. No, she was a true aristocrat herself. A suitor worthy to be on the arm of Senator Anet Raine.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." No doubt the words would he a shock ringing in Anet's mind before Kirie had even emerged from her room. The door hissed open and she stepped out into the galley. Stopping short deliberately for Anet to admire her transformation.

"You ready?"

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

For Anet's part, she wore a dark blue dress with silver trim. It was form-fitting and shoulderless, with an hourglass of fabric wrapped around her neck - sheer above the chest and along the mid-thigh until where the cut ended just past the knee. She paired it with a matching shoulder cloak, bracelets in gold and silver, and a pair of dark leather open-toed sandals that wrapped up around her ankles. Her makeup, on the other hand, was subtler than her outfit. A bit of foundation, highlighter, some lip gloss, and sharp black eyeliner.

Kirie's voice pierced her skull like a harpoon, pulling her attention immediately to the woman's presence. Anet's eyes went a little wide when she caught the dress Kirie wore.

"That was my mother's," she said. She didn't expect to ever see it again, and had no idea she or her father had stowed it away. "It looks good on you," she added softer, with a weak smile.

Anet slowly walked over to her. Eying the ensemble up and down, silently, and with the patience of a fitter. She ran the back of her forefinger along Kirie's side as she circled behind her, the signs of something leather clutched tightly in her other hand.

"I figured it would have slipped your mind," she began, "we're entering Republic space... Jedi space... and if we're not careful, they can sense people like you and me, and these days they aren't inclined to offer us mercy." The way she said it was more delighted than it should have been.

She stopped behind her, brushing brunette to the side. "Hold your hair." She asked quietly.

As Kirie complied, Anet reached up and carefully unclasped the black pendant, holding it in her teeth as she brought a dark choker around the woman's throat. As soon as the alchemized leather touched her skin, Kirie would feel an oppressive disruption in her connection to the Force. Dampened, but completely taken away - not like Anet and her mask. She clasped it behind her neck and pressed her chest to Kirie's back, reaching over her shoulder to dangle the pendant, offering it back. Up to Kirie if she could make it work or would set it aside for another time. Beautiful thing, Anet thought, about the pendant and woman both.

She whispered against her ear. "You will learn to enjoy the challenge of having your power taken from you. It strengthened me; it will strengthen you." Then, she took a step back, letting Kirie go.

"Now I am ready."

If heaven were a planet, they'd call it Belazura.

A perfect world. Perfect weather. Sculpted landscapes. From every mountain peak, down to single blades of grass. So perfect was Belazura that virtual tours alone outproduced the entire economies of other resort worlds. And it was painted in deep, vibrant colors, appearing more like a vibrant fantasy than someplace real.

Belazura was where Anet Raine was born. Her family had lived on Belazura for generations - a known name, an institution. And then, the government appointed her to the High Republic Senate. Perhaps surprisingly, Belazura was a direct democracy. Town halls carried more relevance than council chambers, let alone the Capitol government. Yes, many of the people who lived there were exceedingly rich, and the cost of living was concerningly high. So it wasn't some exemplar of people's justice. But... it was perhaps a strange world to have produced Anet Raine. A Sith Lord in training, whose very ideology denounced such things as designed perfection.

But that was the kicker, wasn't it? Because Anet Raine was designed perfection. Right down to every last cell. Suffice it to say, her father was a right creep to obsess over his children like living dolls and lab experiments. Even their life choices were influenced by his decisions. Or so he believed. Oh, how he would fume, break down, and rage if he knew who Anet really was, or that she was walking side-by-side with her.

Their shuttle touched down at the edge of a town surrounded by rolling hills and the distant mirage of mountains on the horizon. It was spacious, with gardens and squares to fill out the spaces between villas and estates. There was no production here - just generational wealth.

A senatorial procession greeted them, flanked by towering guard droids.

Anet turned and stretched her arm out, pointing towards the edge of a villa with her hand splayed, shoulder cloak and white hair billowing with the gentle breeze. "Welcome... To my home." She said it without conviction, as if sharing an inside joke.

 

[Kirie]

After Anet had enclosed the collar around her neck, Kirie had been left stewing. Its influence had closed around her like a steel trap, harshly severing her mental connection to Anet, and dulling her perception of the Force she had come to rely on. A flicker of pain flashed across her features as she was reminded of that other time a Sith had deemed it necessary to rob her of her senses. At least this time it was temporary.

Kirie's eyes closed. Darkened images crept to the forefront of her mind and this time, she was powerless to stop them. The cold metal surface of the operating table, the feeling of the bindings holding her down. A hulking figure, laboratory lights glinting off a metal carapace. It was a fractured jigsaw, but maybe if she could rearrange the pieces…

'Great. Let's go.' Kirie signed. At least she could still rely on her hands.

They stepped out into the sunshine, and Kirie couldn't help but gasp at the vista that awaited them. She found herself staring at the ground, because its perfection was sort of un-real. Dazzling, threatening to overwhelm her with its perfect symmetry, its carefully tailored sight-lines and sculpted terrain. Even the puffy white clouds looked like something out of a storybook. It was dreamlike, unable to be captured. She compared it to Weik, where every stunning scene was adjacent to something boring, and grey, and ugly. Here it was spectacle after carefully curated spectacle. It was awful.

"Welcome... To my home."

Kirie crossed her arms. Darkness still tinged the edges of her mind, a creeping suspicion begging for examination. She ignored it, dragging her eyes over to the woman who brought her to this paradise planet.

Anet was grounding, an aberration against the evenness of the backdrop, as Kirie must have been too. Discordant, but infinitely more substantial.

'It's gorgeous…' Kirie signed. 'Is it bad to say I kind of hate it?'

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

Her arm fell back to her side, and Anet stepped into stride, walking onto the villa's grounds proper.

"Of course not," she noted the woman's sign. "It's a tourist trap. Imagine finding something perfect and then learning it was made that way." She rolled her hand, eyes cast upward to collect the strings of her thoughts. "It's..." She looked back down at Kirie. "Not like you." There was a subtle smile to complement her words.

The villa, too, was perfect. Carefully curated architecture which sprouted from the gardens - buildings that appeared to belong as much as the trees and the ponds; surgically maintained populations of critters and fish to fill both.

With a wave of her hand, the senatorial procession kept back - far back - before pivoting away as soon as they were comfortably on the property.

But it wasn't just Kirie and Anet, nor the droid groundskeepers. A younger figure burst from around the bend of one of the houses. A girl. Pale with white hair, like Anet, but with other, more alien features. Half-arkanian, and half-something-else.

She threw her arms around the senator, exclaiming. "Anie!" There was a bit of heartache in the girl's voice, as if they hadn't seen each other for a long time.

Anet's arms gently wrapped around her, too. "Hello, Zu." She regarded her younger sibling softly, looking at Kirie. "Little sister." Zu was somewhere in her mid-teens.

And Zu looked at Kirie next, with a bit of uncertainty in her stare. "Who's this?" Immediately, the girl knew she wasn't a staffer.

The half-pantoran carefully pried herself out of Zu's grasp, gesturing between the two. "This is Kirie Corsell, my..." She gave Kirie a look. "Confidant." Then, looking back down at Zu. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to catch up later. Would you excuse us?"

Zu nodded and already backpedalled on her feet, but the signs of important news already showed on her face. "Oh! Shanli joined the Jedi Order. Her ceremony is tomorrow."

Anet blinked a few times, tilting her head as if she misheard something. "But father doesn't let people join the--" But already, Zu was off. "Jedi..." She whispered.

She grabbed Kirie's hand and squeezed it hard for a moment, before letting go and continuing on with their walk towards one of the main buildings. More and more people began to appear. Some regarded the two with stares, others with waves and polite smiles. All of them shared that same feature - familial likeness, but different. Half-arkanian, and... half-something-else.

They had probably seen six by now. Either alone, or with friends, or significant others of the different kind.

"Honestly. Did you want a tour... Or we can go shopping..." This part of her life sucked. What the fuck were you supposed to do? Be a person?

She was angry.

 

[Kirie]

Not like you.

Not like you.

Not like you.

Kirie smiled.

The sense of comfort that overtook her at Anet's dismissal of the estate was short-lived, overshadowed by the strange sense of dread that curdled in the pit of her stomach when the Sith Senator introduced her sisters.

'It's nice to meet you, Zu,' signed Kirie, extending a delicate hand. She cast Anet a hesitant look. 'I had no idea you had such a large family.' And it was large. Anet's sisters kept coming, running down the halls and across the wide lawns and peeking out of windows. Suddenly, Kirie felt terribly, awfully out of place. Envy and shame began to prick at her, a dark wash of grief spilling all around herself, a precariously balanced glass knocked over in her mind. Her breathing quickened. She tried to banish the thoughts from her mind, wash them away with the Force but of course found herself unable. Instead, the emotions sat and soured inside her.

"Oh! Shanli joined the Jedi Order. Her ceremony is tomorrow."

The comment shocked Kirie back into reality. She watched with fascination as a myriad of expressions flashed across Anet's face. Shock, betrayal, grief, placidity. There were some things, it seemed, that Anet could never have.

Kirie tugged on the woman's arm and they increased their pace towards the manor proper. She didn't need the Force to feel the roiling anger emanating from Anet.

'I'm tired.' Kirie lied. 'Why don't you show me where you grew up? You still have your room?'

On impulse, she reached out and threaded Anet's fingers between her own.

In her minds eye, an image materialised from the fuzzy-edged blackness. A metallic face in the gloom. A hand, holding something, dangling above her, a voice, harsh and grating. Did she know it?

Kirie gave Anet a careful and reassuring smile, her eyes empty.

'You know what’s so great about you, Anet?’ Kirie signed with her free hand. ‘You’re just like me.’

‘Damaged.’

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

There was no remark regarding the size of her family. That was a topic to be explored later; not at the center of it.

When Kirie said she was tired, Anet glanced her way and nodded at what followed. "Yes," she answered.

Her hand fingers gently curled around Kirie's, though there was a slight hesitation to it - a tension that only added truth to Anet's deep, unraveling sense of betrayal.

Anet led Kirie inside, up the grand stairs at the center, down one hall, then left down another, until they reached a door - second to the right - near the end. It slid open, revealing something that hadn't been touched in years. Not for posterity, but because it didn't need to be. It, much like her childhood, was as forgettable to the household as junk mail stuffed into a drawer.

There was a desk at one end, near a great window, beside an exit onto an upstairs balcony. Her bed sat opposite, headboard resting against a classic, cream-colored wall. Natural light entered softly, in enough volume that there wasn't any need for interior lighting, beyond an odd lamp or two to serve their purpose at night. A small bookshelf contained a personal collection. Not the scholarly works of Anet Raine, Resident-Researcher turned Sith inquisitor, but fiction, stories, and more than a few insightful non-fiction works that suggested a lonely girl once lived there.

But mostly, it was cleared out. Anything left behind was the excised ghost of her more abandoned self.

Then, she saw Kirie sign again in her periphery. Looking her way, Anet smiled when Kirie said how they were so alike. That it was grea--

Her lower jaw quivered.

Fingers, still interlocked, tightened almost uncomfortably before pulling Kirie's hand up to her cheek. Dead eyes joined by dead eyes. And the most bitter and empty smile to follow. A more honest mirror of the one Kirie tried to reassure her with.

Her voice quivered, too. "In-Incomplete."

She looked back to the room, dragging their hands back down to thigh level; a chainlink between them. If Kirie listened closely, she might just catch Anet's molars grinding.

"None of us have the same mother. I have at least seventy-two siblings. Mostly sisters, but also a few brothers," though a few in this case was dubious. It could have meant twenty as far as Kirie knew. "I am a genetic sample, perfected in a test tube, and birthed by a mother who wants nothing to do with me."

Her eyes drifted down, towards the dark space under the bed. A place she used to retreat, and hoped somehow that the liminal darkness would drag her away from existence forever.

Anet scowled at the thought. Cursed, in her mind, at the thought of how weak that girl was.

"I want to feel strong."

 

[Kirie]

Kirie nodded.

'Incomplete.'

She had thought about it for a long time, especially before she had discovered the trick of not thinking much at all. People like her and Anet, there was some part of them that was missing. They could try and fill it up with wealth or security or influence, or relationships, but nothing worked, really. And it was that void where the Darkness pooled. An inescapable, inevitable consequence of their incompleteness.

Kirie whistled through her teeth, one of the few sounds she could make on her own. 'Chit. That's a lot. Your father sounds like a real piece of work.'

Anet's room was full of ghosts. So thick with memory and pain that Kirie could almost feel it. But, she couldn't really. It had to be an imagined sensation, cut off as she was from any meaningful connection with the Force. She fought a strong temptation to rip off the collar and open herself up to the Darkness, allow it to capture all the eddies of memory and feeling that drifted around the room, to give her an understanding of the foundational threads that had become the complex woven tapestry of Anet Raine.

Maybe her Jedi sister would sense it and come running. Maybe Kirie would cut her down. Anet would probably find that rather satisfying, given her mood.

Kirie pursed her lips. What a deranged thought. She was sick, really. Head-sick, heart-sick, soul-sick, if it was possible to be.

“The possibilities are vast…yet, the most likely answers bring an even deeper shame to my being. As I traced the traitors path, it began from thievery within my labs - it is likely my own work that has maimed your handmaiden.”

Kirie winced. She had forgotten how wayward her mind was becoming. Without the Force to keep it tidy it was all coming undone. Thoughts and half-darkened memories jumbling together. She felt close to something, as if she had finally begun to notice the veil that had been draped over her, but had not yet yanked it free. She hated the feeling.

Her eyes followed Anet's to the dim space under the bed, but not for long. Trying to think of her instead, trying to understand. Kirie’s eyes fluttered shut a moment, listening for something.

Kirie gave Anet's hand a squeeze. 'I'll make you strong. You'll make me strong, right?.' Kirie swayed a little.

“Poor feeble Kirie, broken and marred by the wretched Kainite menace saved by the one thing they’ll expect the least…then perhaps, Kirie-Corsell-of-Weik. I might not be alone.”

'You're not alone anymore, Anet. We're neither one of us alone.'

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

'More like a real piece of--"

She caught the wince; wondered what that was all about. But the hand squeeze pulled her away from that interrogation. For all her analyses, Anet Raine still had that one, very common weakness - she was willing to disregard evidence and patterns for quick comfort. The easy answer, rather than the necessary choices. For all she preached about embracing fear, thrusting oneself into the unknown, she needed this moment.

Yes - they would make each other stronger, but...

Before Anet could say anything else, Kirie signed again with her free hand.

Something sank in her gut; there was a burning pain in her eye. It began to water. She didn't want to be there anymore.

Tightening the fingerlock, she led Kirie across the room and through the balcony doors, stepping out into the mid-evening light.

She pressed herself against the exterior bedroom wall, beside a window, as if a thief; she pulled Kirie in front of her, then let go of her hand, squeezing hers behind her back, pressed between body and stone. Her gaze looked off to the side, but always, always she kept one eye on Kirie. For her signs, but also just... for her.

"Strong," she chuckled dryly. A smirk mirrored the butterflies. She looked back at Kirie, head-on. "Remember what I said when I first invited you to the yacht?"

The smirk began to fade. "I refuse to be weak... for you."

She pried her hands out from behind her back and slid slowly down the wall until she sat, looking up at the source of her devotion. Each hand rested across either knee, bent slightly; her feet pressed into the flooring.

"And you - you, Kirie Corsell... You will become the Universe."

Her head turned towards the balcony door. She heard footsteps in the hallway, just outside the bedroom door.

"Oh, come on," she complained in a murmur. Looking back at Kirie, she sighed. "Some things about childhood never change." She nodded towards the edge of the balcony. "Climb up." The roof awaited them.

 

[Kirie]

Kirie lowered herself down, sitting cross-legged opposite Anet. The tangled ball of feelings inside her was easier to ignore when they were looking into each other's eyes, when their fingers were entwined. She held out a hand, turned Anet's palm upward, and placed her own hand on top as if completing a conduit.

They were each lost in their own horror-worlds, but maybe if they focused on each other they could both of them find away through, beyond the dark forests of the mind.

But Kirie, at least, could not stop the gears in her brain from turning, placing scattered events she usually refused to recall into stacks of cards that themselves began to form a sort of twisted film inside her mind. Darkened figured and half-remembered snippets of conversation. She was sliding now towards some inevitable discovery, something she had been avoiding, something she really didn't want to know.

"And you - you, Kirie Corsell... You will become the Universe."

Kirie was the centre of Anet's universe, Anet the centre of her own. But, they were neither one of them so grand. They were black holes, spinning and spiralling together towards

Annihilation.

She saw that so clearly. Even without her Sight to guide her, even without the Shatterpoints to interpret, she knew they would destroy each other.

'Together.' She wished she could have spoken the word into Anet's mind.

Kirie leaned forward and rested her head on Anet's drawn-up knees, reddish locks spilling around her like a waterfall and dangling a hand's breadth from the dusty floor.

In her mind, the last of the pieces fell into place. Without the Force to wipe the slate clean, or maybe because she had tried so hard to do so, the whole mess of it all had finally come out. It made her want to throw up.

"I am Lirka Ka. Remember that name - it will be important in the days to come. And what of you, Kirie? I know your name, but who are you? I know your name, I know where you stand in our Empire. But those are such...meager...things. I would like to know, to carry with some piece of your legacy if we are to lose some bits of your person during the operation."

And then, something inside Kirie broke irreparably.

She felt Anet rise, felt her own legs moving to do the same.

Her head turned to the door, turned back to Anet. She tugged at the collar on her neck, lips murmuring something voiceless and indistinct. Anet disappeared out the window and Kirie followed her, hiking her skirt and following the woman onto the roof without hesitation. The pitted yet smooth surface of the roof tiles felt alien beneath her fingertips. The huff of exertion that escaped from her lips as she pulled herself up was as foreign to her as a stranger's.

Kirie looked up at Anet, her movements sluggish and disconnected. The image of the woman she obsessed over sharpened. Finally, the fog began to diminish some. The way the sunlight caught the strands of her hair become her singular focus, alongside the stark contrast of her cool blue skin against the vividity of the evening sky.

She felt Anet's gravity catch her again, and she smiled. She shuffled over to lean against Anet, took the woman’s hand again.

'Beautiful.'

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

Had Anet not been oblivious to the war of revelation and denial inside Kirie's mind, the Sith may've made an opportunity at it - to prod and unravel the woman's turmoil until it became fuel for her fire.

Instead, all she had was her own brokenness. Although it was temporarily masked by her fragile yearning for normality.

She caught a glimpse of something in Kirie. The discomfort, but she couldn't place it, and their excursion onto the roof distracted her from a deeper analysis. Even as she held onto that thought, she couldn't help but smile as she watched Kirie exert herself, finally joining her above. Then, the brunette leaned against her, and their fingers intertwined once more.

The single-handed sign... the compliment... it made Anet blush. A pinkish hue on blue that looked quite like a Belazuran sunset. Indeed, that star in the sky continued to dip until the mountain's shadow crept across the valley. Lights across the villa flickered on, preparing to illuminate the grounds for the later hours.

For a while, in silence, Anet was content to hold hands on the roof. And whoever it was snooping on the pair, they had either gotten bored or simply moved on, leaving them quite alone.

Anet inhaled slowly, releasing the tension in her muscles with an exhale that was twice as long. She tugged Kirie by the hand, carefully walking them across the rooftop and over an archway that connected the building with another.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut as the silence held.

So finally, she broke it... Well, she wanted to, but she hesitated. 'There's more to you,' she thought to say, but a crueler part didn't want to admit it. The Inquisitor Raine scolded the woman without the mask. Reminded her of the goal - of Kirie's potential. Her power. It would be foolish to let anything else form. Their connection was meant to be a conduit, a framework for testing the future Dark Lord. Not... Not...

"Why haven't I noticed it before?" She questioned under her breath.

She looked at Kirie then. Her icy eyes were soft and thoughtful.

Insects began to play their evening songs.

Again, she wanted to say something. Something meaningful and from the heart. But part of her doubted the meaning. Part of her doubted the heart. The rest... The rest was ugly. Her frustration bounded like a trapped beast, slamming itself against the boundaries of its prison.

The fingers of one hand curled tighter around Kirie's. Her other hand brushed along the woman's arms, making a game of gliding her touch perfectly, without friction's interruption. She still looked at Kirie with those soft eyes, even as fangs dripped with need inside her heart. When her hand came up to Kirie's shoulder, she gave just the slightest squeeze before continuing the slow, deliberate pathway to her neck.

Strangle her.

Anet smiled gently. There was something bordering on genuine love in her look now.

Blue fingers caressed Kirie's cheek. 'You were right. We could have run away.' The thought bubbled up.

A bitter backlash swished to drown it. But finally, finally, Anet spoke.

"I don't know what to say." She tilted her head slightly. Her confidence fled in a messy retreat. "I don't know what to do."

'I don't know what I want.'

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against Kirie's and closing her eyes. "I want to feel strong," she said so again, but this time there was a plea behind it.

'Can I love you?'

"I want to help you."

She wanted to say more. But Anet was deeply afraid that her confessions would only hurt her. That Kirie would only see weakness. Or find a reason to mock Anet. Or no longer want her at all. She couldn't fathom the possibility of love and companionship that didn't hinge on extraction.

Fuck.

Maybe the mask wasn't so temporary after all.

 

[Kirie]

Even though she had been watching Anet intensely, Kirie missed the next words to come out her mouth. They were mumbled, and Kirie's chance to process the quiet syllables was ripped away by the sudden presence of Anet's eyes staring into her eyes.

In the silent minutes that had followed their ascent to the roof, Kirie had managed to kick her brain into something that could pass for normalcy.

The terrible realisation that had come upon her in Anet's bedroom still ate at her, but Kirie had resolved to erase it from her mind. She would delete it from herself like a troublesome corrupted file from a databank. A stretch of her mental abilities, perhaps, but she was confident she could manage it. Stars knew she needed it. The one thing she would leave, if she could, was the bare facts of the matter. Who was responsible, how it had happened, exactly who needed to pay. Everything else was distraction. Moreover, everything else was what would break her spirit.

Short of being able to rip her collar off and take care of the damned thing then and there, Kirie allowed the surety of her decision to right her. She would have relief soon, and that in and of itself proved some relief.

So it was that she had been staring, but not seeing, and certainly not listening, when Anet spoke. An indistinct jangle of syllables that pulled Kirie back to the rooftop, her hand clasped in Anet's, admiring the way the pink coloured her frosty skin.

Anet's fingers tightened around hers. Another hand slid across her body and up to her cheek. Kirie allowed this sensation to fill the hollow inside her. She wished again to be able to peer inside the woman's brain. This touching, this silence, it was clumsy.

"I don't know what to say."

"I don't know what to do."

Kirie's lips quirked up into a mirthless smile. Welcome to my world, she thought, but instead she just signed

'I know.'

"I want to feel strong,"

'I know.'

Touch. Another contact. Now the pair of them were perfect mirrors of the other, joined at head and hand.

"I want to help you."

'You will. You have.' Kirie paused. 'I want to help you too.'

Kirie's eyes fluttered open. She sensed the desperation, the loneliness inside Anet. She leaned back, waited until the woman's pale blue eyes met the strange yellow flecked pits of Kirie's own. She looked at Anet with compassion, a gentle gaze that said "I understand you completely."

She didn't.

Kirie raised her hands, and it was, she would tell herself when thinking back on it, to tell Anet something lovely, only that it didn't come out that way.

'This house.' Kirie signed. 'This planet. These people. They are beneath you.'

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

Kirie's reassurance was a placebo. Anet felt 'better' because Kirie wanted her to. But really, the words fell on a broken heart. She needed to hear something else. And those words never came. Yet, rather than fall into her sadness or try to be more open with Kirie, Anet took the placebo.

She even smiled. It was a lie.

When Kirie raised her hands, a small flicker of hope thought that maybe she caught on, and was about to say more, say what Anet needed Kirie to say. For a split second, that smile became genuine - anxious, yes, rather than warm - but it was the most honest smile she ever wore...

'They are beneath you.'

...and it crumbled instantly, and her hand fell from Kirie's cheek to her side.

That hope died. Normalcy died. The girl trapped inside that bedroom finally crawled under her bed and disappeared.

Good riddance.

Anet's right hand squeezed into a fist, before relaxing again.

Her phony smile returned. "You're right."

She looked back to the horizon, where the sun finally passed behind the mountain, shrouding the valley in gloom. There was only a strange, orange glow in the sky - like a crown of fire that covered every peak.

"Well... I've shown you my home. Let us do one last thing before we head back to ou--... my shi--the ship." She blushed a little, looking off to the side before her eyes found their way back to Kirie's hands.

"Anything come to mind?"

 

[Kirie]

Kirie was ever so good at reading faces, at comprehending the myriad expressions that flashed across a persons face in the instant yet interminable moment their mask slipped, when they could not hide their true reaction from themselves or others. It was with this perception, this skillful awareness, that Kirie realised she had somehow managed to do something unforgivable.

If Anet's heartbreak at what Kirie had said was clear, the dawning horror plastered on Kirie's face was just as obvious. But, what did she say? She had just been repeating the sentiment Anet had instilled in her time and again, being the Sith she thought the woman wanted her to be. Stars, when Kirie thought of the words 'they are beneath you' she practically heard them in Anet's clipped accent. Now the conversation, the heart-to-heart, lay before them like a dead animal, dead as a doornail and completely unrecoverable.

Horribly, Kirie's mind conjured the image of her own family. Beneath her only in the sense that every one of them was in the grave. Oh, Anet. She had been so awful.

She had to get this damn collar off.

Kirie wanted to tell Anet something, anything to take back the awful statement, but the moment slipped between her fingers. Anet fake smiled at her and Kirie fake smiled back awkwardly, feeling like an alien inhabitant that had just awoken in the body of a stupid, awful woman.

"You're right."

Kirie sighed, and smoothed down invisible creases in her skirt. She followed Anet's gaze out to the horizon, and they both stared into it, neither of them taking in the regret worn so plainly on the other's face. Whatever. Maybe, she was right. Maybe it was for the best. It wasn't like Anet would benefit any by dragging her family along the dark and spiralling path their lived were taking. It wasn't like Kirie would benefit any from Anet thinking she was a good person.

"Well... I've shown you my home. Let us do one last thing before we head back to ou--... my shi--the ship."

The slip-up caught her off-guard and Kirie found herself giggling, then laughing hard enough to double her over. A strange sight, given that for Kirie such a bout manifested as a series of increasingly strangled breaths. When she straightened up, she wore a gentler, more easygoing smile.

'Thank you, Anet, for showing me.' She gave a graceful little nod. 'Why don't you choose?' She took Anet's hand and let the woman lead her down from the roof. When she was on solid ground, Kirie steeled her nerves to ask another question.

'Then, will you take me to Jutrand?'

 

[Anet Raine]

Kirie
​

Kirie's laughter had done something to ease Anet's heartache. Or hide it, maybe. Either way, the half-pantoran's mind drifted from the terrible thought of discarding her family as less-than, her sister especially, whom she couldn't imagine as a Jedi Knight someday. Would she face Anet at the tip of a lightsaber? Would she recognize her sibling behind that twisted mask? Would Anet?

She smiled again when Kirie nodded. Already, Anet could think of a few last stops before they returned to the yacht. Then, at her... whatever Kirie was to her's question, Anet tilted her head. 'Why Jutrand?' She thought, but didn't ask.

Instead, she only acquiesced. "Of course."

The last few hours on Belazura were spent walking up one of the foothills and spying the stars. Anet was able to point out a few clusters where she'd spent time digging, and described a few constellations native to her people's culture. It would've been romantic. Very. However, at any point when Kirie attempted to get closer, Anet found a gentle way to maintain their separation.

It was a sad night. Even if there were happy moments.

CORUSCANT
​

Anet had returned to Coruscant after delivering Kirie to Jutrand. What the woman told her - what they discussed - was more frustrating than Anet ever admitted. Yet, she gave Kirie advice. Good advice, she thought. Sith advice.

The half-pantoran wandered down the dark halls of the Sith Temple. In a matter of hours, they would all deploy across ships and make for Abregado-rae. The small pleasures of her trip were already a distant memory. More than that, she was shaking, struggling. Without her mask, Anet felt weak. There were more intrusive thoughts every passing day. And the further she stepped inside, the more she needed it. The more she thought back to the euphoria of her power. The security that the Dark Side gave her.

Until finally she descended beneath the great temple, into the heart of a shrine long lost until the Sith restored it. The Emperor, Hasuras Na-Amoun, Meliant, was often found sprawling like a lazy lizard, absorbing the flood of darkness that poured from the vergence. Though she had heard rumors that he grew sick of it, and found his meals among the living instead now.

Kept hidden among a pile of rubble - wrapped in cloth - was her mask. The vessel of her power. Her connection to the Force.

She scurried over like a starved animal, falling to her knees and digging until her fingers bled. When she pulled the mask, holding it up to her face, she felt it staring back at her. She panted; she drooled. She wept.

A small part of her wanted to cast it into the vergence. Let the Dark Side consume it. Would it not have been a blessing? A chance at an ordinary life? Could she have convinced Kirie to do the same?

'I'll make you strong. You'll make me strong, right?.'

They promised each other.

"I refuse to be weak... for you."

With a muffled, raspy cry, Anet slammed the mask to her face. In an instant, her power came flooding back. Her connection. All the strength and Darkness of the Shrine that had been absorbed into the mask were now absorbed by her.

Her cries turned to broken laughter. To outright cackling. The vergeance flickered alongside her. Belauza rushed back through her mind.

"I'd like to meet her, what do you think?"

What possibly could a fallen Jedi have to teach that she couldn't?!

Anet screamed.

"That was my mother's," she said. "It looks good on you."

She screamed again. A choked sob interlaced.

"Oh! Shanli joined the Jedi Order. Her ceremony is tomorrow."

She cursed her father's name. Swore in her heart to kill every last Jedi.

'Why don't you show me where you grew up? You still have your room?'

Her eyes drifted down, towards the dark space under the bed. A place she used to retreat, and hoped somehow that the liminal darkness would drag her away from existence forever.

Good riddance.

She accused that girl of weakness. Of being the thing that held her back all that time. Of not being stronger in the moment. Pathetic.

'You were right. We could have run away.'

'Can I love you?'

'I do. In the only way that matters. What I did on Coruscant was a correction.'

Anet shook. Her hands balled into fists at her side. She struggled to rise. To do anything but kneel before the wellspring of evil. The vergence quivered as much as she did. Rippled as she sobbed. It cast the whole shrine in an eerie, unnatural darkness, extinguishing all other light within, until there was only that dark red glow.

She seemed ready to control herself. Capable of it. She let out a long, shaky sigh.

But then one final thought had to intrude - a knife ran through her heart.

'You know what’s so great about you, Anet?’ Kirie signed with her free hand. ‘You’re just like me.’

‘Damaged.’

Anet screamed. And screamed. The vergence erupted. The shrine shook. She screamed again. And again. Again. Again. Again. Again Again. Again Again Again Again - was it even again? Was it one continuous cry? Had her vocal cords snapped? Had the wind been stolen from her lungs? Was it even real? Inside her head? A call of the Dark Side? Did the floor really snap beneath her? Was the whole Temple actually crumbling above, ready to bury her?

There was a splitting Sound. Silent, almost, compared to her shrieks.

A crack had formed in her mask.

And the last light of the vergence vanished. The shrine was quiet. Save for Anet's shaky breath.

"Kill her..."