Everything, then?
Everything...
Force. Asha was regretting not brewing the tea now, wasn't she? Her gaze slipped away from his, unsure if she could do both things at once - hold his gaze and speak, one took too much to upkeep the other.
Where to begin? How to begin?
Unaware of how some of her earliest years might have helped to shape and develop her into what she was today, Asha opted to begin with the most obviously relevant. She inhaled a small breath, unsure even if she could make it through the explanation. Maybe simpler was better... Then he could ask questions. Get clarification where he required?
That way she wasn't dredging up everything. Slow and steady... One thing at a time.
"
I was fifteen. Jericho and I... We'd always traveled. No real home. Always exploring some world or another, for as long as I could remember. By that point it was nothing new for me to go off on my own, and I really didn't want another trip to Korriban, so... I went to Thule." Somehow she'd managed to say the name of that world without so much as a wince. Deep down, she was almost proud of herself.
Almost.
"
There was a man there, he was injured and a storm had started. Dangerous storm... The kind you don't go outside in. So I offered to help him. Well, I was going to offer but he pretty quickly made it clear that he wasn't going to ask." Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Nope, no way she'd be meeting his gaze through all of this. "
He was bleeding really bad, I wasn't really paying close enough attention beyond that. Darksider. Like... The real sadistic type you hear horror stories about. He'd already killed everyone else in the building we were in. Expected he'd do the same to me too."
In many ways it might have been a blessing if he had. But she couldn't linger on that, as much as her gaze seemed faraway in consideration of it for a moment. She shook her head, snapping back to the present.
"
He didn't. Antagonized me, knocked me around, lashes and cuts," her hand instinctively moved to one of those grizzled scars on her inner thigh, the one currently hidden by her clothes, she didn't seem to notice she was doing it though. "
Had me cuff myself. And well, from there I lost two years of my life." She faltered, frown deepening. "
I think it was two years. I... I don't really remember."
Inhale, exhale. She wanted to retreat, wanted to avoid saying more, but if she didn't say it now she wouldn't. She'd run from the room and never look back; the man was the only thing keeping her there.
"
He brought me to a ship, huge thing.... Full of bodies. Old rotting corpses, skeletons... I don't know it's name, it's just... A durasteel graveyard." That was all it had come to be known by her in the years there and after. "
Made me clean it up. Dispose of them. Hated the sounds of horror. Refused to listen to them." Shorter sentences, she'd shorten them further if she could. The less time spent on them the better. "
And when that was done... He'd just sit, and ruminate, and plot, and drench himself in the darkness of the nexus. Made me kneel and wait, hours... Whole days just waiting."
Her head hung slightly, and she closed her eyes. That had been the worst part, worse than all the pain and all the horrors. The waiting. The stiff joints which cracked and popped whenever she was able to move again. The times she felt certain she'd keel over from exhaustion, dehydration.
"
That's... That's where I learned to Flow-Walk" she admitted, her voice quieter now as though she was telling some great secret. "
It was my only respite. My only way out. I started small, trying to find Jericho in the past, but I couldn't reach out to him for help though I tried. In time I found the Je'daii, saw Qae's teachings, and Asha, and the others... And I held onto it. He didn't even seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't care. What was I going to do? What could I do? A Sith with a giant ship's worth of a battery."
She should have done more than she had, though. Her mind wandered back to the time she had tried. Nope. She pushed that thought right back down.
"
I don't.. I don't even know why he kept me. To do the tasks he didn't want to? He had droids, though... They did most of it." That was the worst part. Not understanding it.
"
And then... One day he just..." She exhaled, and went back to hugging her knees again. "
I'd finally given in, finally succumbed, and so he cast me out. Sent me back into the Galaxy with just the clothes on my back, and..." Hand reached up toward her neck again, sometimes the phantom collar still seemed to linger. "
And an unbreakable band of metal around my throat. I felt certain he could see me through it, or hear me, or track me. I don't know if any of that's true, but that's how it seemed."
She dropped the hand, hid her face down.
"
I found Jericho on Bakura, with the others. Years... Years had passed. I thought he'd be elated, but he looked right through me. I tried to talk to him, but he shot me down. Looked at me as though I was the scum of the earth, as though I'd somehow chosen to be away from him. Left me there in the dirt."
It was a memory she'd never once been able to shake. For all that Jericho had done since to try and make up for it, she'd never been able to mend the damage done by that day, by that one reaction.
And it was something she was paying for even now. Even as she sat beside Cotan and tried to keep yet more layers from the surface.
"
He just saw me as broken and pathetic and weak. Not his daughter. If not for Sargon, I... Well, I don't know what would have happened. I certainly wouldn't have met you, I know that much for sure. But... That's all I see. His disgust, his rejection, the way he walked away and refused to even hear me out. I know you're not him, I know you wouldn't do that, but... There's a small part of me that fears for it all the same."
She swallowed, guilt swirling up through her for even uttering those words. She knew better, and she worried that even suggesting as much would damage Cotan more than she'd realize. But he'd asked... Asked her to be open. So here she was, trying. "
Keep it in, keep it quiet, don't show it. Remain serene, in control. Or I'll be rejected, or worse... I'll have it beaten out of me." The latter clearly didn't speak to Jericho, but the other, but sometimes it was impossible to separate the two.
Asha sat there in the aftermath, having said far more than she ever thought she could, and stared at a point in the grass just beyond her toes. She wiggled them, as though hoping to feel something, but numbness had taken root within her.
Was there anything else?
Asha couldn't even think long enough to know. She'd poured as much out as she could, and now she was left tense and concerned for how he might respond.
Cotan Sar'andor