Introspection

[Lassiter]

The softening touch of hands on her cheeks and the slightest twist of her head had Sena checking her reflection in the mirror. The acolyte’s skin seemed a bit more pale. Eyebrows furrowed as part of her hoped it was the lighting, but another part knew it wasn’t. Fingers circled around her eyelids and pried them open in an effort to force herself to observe what she had become. Did she marvel or did she fear it? In truth she did not know. All she knew was that it felt right, she was embracing her heritage and the legacy of who her parents had forced her to become. She was a mutt, a Vahla mixed with the superiority of Corellian Nobility yet the Ember had taken her in as one of their own. Sena was the best of both worlds and she only had her genes to thank for it. Both she and her sister had it, but it had been forever since she last saw Velda.

Perhaps it was a blessing, or perhaps it was a curse. At first she had thought nothing of it, family was ever a concept that was alien to her. When the realisation that it had been months since they had last seen each other she finally realised that just like before Sena was becoming distant from her family again. Granted, she had never been close to them or known of their existence until she met Velda either. Her sister’s offer to train with lightfoils had been offered yet only now did it sink in that it very well could never happen. It was as if her twin was dead or an apparition in a fever dream and it hurt her.

At least she wanted it to hurt. It should have hurt. Her sister could have been dead for all she knew as a victim of the Netherworld Crisis and the Breaking of Corellia yet the thought caused her to feel nothing. No joy and no pain. Perhaps what she had said so many times before held true. Perhaps the girl had already mourned her family enough as it was or perhaps the feelings were all buried deep down somewhere she couldn’t find them. All Sena knew was that her sister could have died and she would not shed a single tear. It would all be more of the same emotionless expression that she stared at in the mirror every day.

Her feet dragged themselves across the floor as she carelessly wandered over to the windows of her cheap apartment. The shuffle of boots across the fake wooden floors of the tiny apartment echoed through the dust glimmering in the rays of neon light. For a woman who took pride in her looks and self-importance she lived like any other common rabble. She blamed it on the fact that her sense of worth in the eyes of her master came nowhere close to what she would have wanted it to be yet.

Outside her window she could hear and see the people on the lower streets of Coruscant wandering without a care in the world about the monster that was looking down upon them all playing with the idea of seeing just about how much chaos she could cause with a mere thought. Obviously it was an overestimation of her own ability, last week’s practice and introduction to the world of dominance over another person’s mind was hardly enough for the girl to cause any real damage on those who hadn’t had their minds weakened already.

The alarm on her door called out for her brief attention. The sudden twitch of her head caused a few locks of her hair to twist around her face. The moment of surprise slowly passed and her hand tucked it all away behind her ear. Judging by the aura she knew who it was but she still felt obliged to call out for them.

“Who is it?”

The girl was met with the low growl of the one thing that still scared her senseless. She swallowed a pocket of air as the surprise turned into hesitation. The hounds of Vahl were her greatest fear and motivator but in the end they both served the same master or at the very least the same organisation. It was just about the only thing she had that made her not fear for her life anymore.

A message was left at her doorstep and just as swiftly as they arrived they were gone again. It usually only meant one thing...

 

[Lassiter]

Her head turned to look down the corridor only to catch a final glimpse of the beasts as they rounded the corner towards the elevator. A tiny datapad the size of her hand palm had been placed at her doorstep with a message from her Master. It wasn’t something that happened very often, at best it was a monthly thing but it would seem this month was different and Sena let her eyes feast upon the tiny piece of hardware.

She had her suspicion what this was about. A hand reached out to grab it before raising it to her face to read. The other hand sought to activate the console and shut her front door. With a hiss she was once again left to herself. On the pad was a written message; an order and demand for a sacrifice for the goddess. Some would have called it an assassination, but it really wasn’t. An assassin’s target was left with the element of surprise. Sena was not built for stealth and she was not built for physical exertion either. She simply found herself enjoying the violence nonetheless.

Though to say she enjoyed it would perhaps be an understatement. Sena loved it. There was an excitement to the act that went unmatched with any other pass-time she had tried taking up in it’s wake but nothing lasted as she quickly found herself relapsing time after time again. To most she was most likely a lost cause, but her master seemed to have found a use of it. To reach this stage had taken a lot out of Sena. For one she was no longer permitted to commit random acts of violence which had proven hard to commit to. It was her nature almost but that all ended as she over the course of several ‘one-on-one sessions’ with her master got it ripped out of her. There was after all a limit to how much a singular body could withstand when it came to having electricity run through it.

A finger thoughtfully traced along the scar tissue covering her lower back and waist. It was a hard lesson to learn. Not only for the sake of being punished but also because of the knowledge it bestowed upon her in return. Be afflicted in order to learn, had she been a philosopher she would have drawn the similarities between force lightning and her addiction.

Sena lowered the pad and put it on the end table by her bed as she entered her room to get into something more appropriate for the mission. She had to admit that the whole leather armor getup was beyond her but an acolyte only do as a master say. Rooting through the wardrobe she stumbled upon the cloak she had first worn when approaching [member="Darth Nephthys"] back on Prakith. The cold and emotionless facade was broken as the tiniest shimmer of a smile crept on the half-vahla’s lips. She struggled to kill it off but in the end she failed at it, miserably so.

She wasn’t even afraid to admit it anymore. That tiny little woman, despite being her master, was the young acolyte’s best friend. Though the term ‘friend’ was ever so sketchy as it was in their organisation. Sena simply held a lot of admiration and gratitude for the Sith Lord and the opportunities she had been given her. If that wasn’t what you’d call a friendship then Sena might just have very well lost all contact with reality again.

With a proud swing she put the cloak over her shoulders and set out. At this point she almost felt sorry for the saps that the goddess had chosen. Almost.