My Greatest Achievement

[Cameron Centurion]

Disgusting.

Cameron couldn't actually stand all the glitz and glitter of Naboo. The people drifted in around in so many bright colors. Things were very orderly, precise which he respected to no end, but he could practically taste the opulence and over-indulgence that was rife on the planet. It wafted through the air like the most pungent aroma he'd ever tasted.

While the planet of Naboo was outside the realm of the Moross Crusade, the Sith Lord did not much care given the motivation for his arrival. Since distant relatives had begun sprouting up all over the galaxy, to include his former mate Shery, the mother of his most prized accomplishment in life, Cameron had been keeping a discreet network of contacts in search of potential sightings...force users that had features somewhat similar to his own.

It had been a long time coming and reports were...scattered. There was something though...something specific about the reports sent to him by a contact from this area of space. It had a fragrance of subtlety combined with an aura of power. Oh...and the reports were of a child. In keeping with how the rest of his family members had returned...having been in some sort of suspended animation through most of the Gulag. Unfortunate for the adult members, not such a big deal for a child. Still...[member="Elora"] was a baby when last he'd seen her. Reports he'd received for a child, yes, but certainly no infant. This...intrigued Cameron.

In an effort to...blend, Cameron had traveled to Naboo as a simple, private citizen. Dressed in a dark blue suit with a gray dress shirt partially unbuttoned underneath, the large Sith walked through the streets of Theed. The strength of his presence radiated freely and intensely - a beacon to any sensitive to the Force. Specifically to any that knew him...well. Silver-green eyes gazed intently down the row of similarly constructed buildings as a thin smile touched his lips.

Elora...

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The little sofa flew from one side of the room to the other. The child stared at it as it happened again, this time hitting the bottom corner hard enough to break the stupid old thing. Sun filtered in from behind the old curtains, and the state of the rest of the tiny flat was not faring much better than the couch.

It had been weeks since the Jedi had left her. He had promised to return and take her to the Jedi Council, but the promise was not held. The child had remained alone, and in her boredom, began to systematically destroy her current living space.

Food and water had never been hard to get. A simple stare at the local shop keepers had been more than enough to get the little bit she required to keep herself alive and sufficiently well. And while she longed so dearly to leave this wretched planet for whom she held not the slightest of affection, something deeper within her knew that it had been too soon.

The rest of her waking time had been spent practicing what the Jedi had taught her. Telekinesis. The first days had been dreadfully boring, moving tiny objects, usually without much success over the control she could muster over them. But after a few weeks with naught else to do...

Yet she found herself now simply dropping the couch as her chin rose ever so slightly, and her nose sniffed the air. No, not sniffed. Sensed. Various parts of her minds jumped to attention almost at once. Some of them let her know that it was... A presence. She knew who it was she was sensing. She knew it in her very bones, yet it had been centuries since she'd last sensed it, and never quite this acutely. Other parts of her warned her of the dangers. Darkness beyond her ability to tame. And perhaps... Had she already, in some kind of a way, done so for herself?

Not lingering any further, yet not really running out, Elora turned around and opened the doorway, sulking at the sunny sky but for a moment before turning her attention back to the beacon.

Without her command, her bare feet began to walk towards it, seeing him in her mind as a puzzle coming together.

Father?

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

A tiny pinprick caused Cameron's feet to halt their progress down the street. The swelling of the pinprick gradually forced Cameron's silver-green eyes to search the immediate area around him. Quickly, he began focusing the strength of his presence in on the sensation that spoke volumes above all others on the planet. It was a monumental feat given how pathetic everyone and everything native to Naboo was to the Sith.

The instant [member="Elora"]'s silent voice drifted across the expanse to touch his mind, Cameron's head snapped immediately in the direction from whence it originated. Elora... The swiftness of his next action was so intense that he practically ceased to be discernable by the naked eye. Blurs of colors and objects swirled around him as he bolted across the city to a small residential area. Coming to an immediate halt, Cameron's features set in hard lines. Lines of determination, of anger for years lost, of pain for not having been able to secure the child's mother. The pain was not because he had failed. He had, quite simply, deemed it unworthy of his sole attention. Shery deWinter was not helpless. He would not insult her by presuming to rescue her from any situation. She was a powerful Sith Mistress and did not want for his or anyone else's assistance in truth.

He did, however, vow a vengeance against those that had dared to keep her from him or their child. Given Elora had stepped outside and already started approaching him, he met up with her at the edge of the area in which she'd been housed, abandoned. Silver-green eyes focused in on a form he did not recognize...but a presence he had been fond of for over a century. "My child..."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Her senses were sharp. He moved fast, she knew, but she could also follow quickly enough to not let too many moments pass between his appearance in front of her and grasp of the present. She did not know how he had spent the past few centuries, but she had been sufficiently conscious for too many of them. Her Guardian had taunted her more than once with images of him. Not just him. Him and her.

But what were images, if not something that so easily could be distorted? And what were images when they were never accompanied by smell or touch? She had no actual memory of his physical self. What her glowing eyes had seen as an infant were not forever sketched upon her mind. Yet the presence... There were things that not even this many lifetimes or generations could remove from her memories.

And now he was here, in all his glory, and Elora froze. Sometimes, it mattered little that she was what she was; she too, had fantasies, and not all of them were those of destruction and pain on to others. She had imagined their meeting to be something grand and out of legends, something worthy of a song. Yet here she was now, with bare feet that were dirty, and a completely disheveled appearance that showed the signs of adult's neglect.

Only a moment had she to linger on that before his mere presence overtook her. She could feel her very soul choking and grasping for air as the power and brilliance of the man in front of her threatened to overtake her, despite the knowledge that he would never seek her harm. Fast and smooth as a wave did it wash over her before she stood there, looking at him with her big eyes, and blinked.

Taking a breath, she took a few more steps towards him, studying him carefully, her gaze moving top to bottom and back up, resting at last upon his hands. Hands that could once hold her and cradle her, but she was too grown now for anything but a lift to a man who was definitely one of the tallest she had been so close to.

A foot from him, she came to a stop, and inhaled. She smelled him not just with her nose, but through the Force as well.

"Yes," she said at last in reply to his statement, gathering the darkness around her, not to ready for an attack, but to peacock and show herself to him as he to her, "I am."

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron was not one for tears, but the intensity of emotions coursing through his body were what he imagined to be the principal cause of such. Imagine...that was false, he'd cried before...long, long ago. That was neither here nor there, however. Unlike [member="Elora"] there was no hesitation in the Sith Lord. His life, unlike hers, had been one of constant memory and confusion as to what had happened to her. He'd not felt the child's death at any point she just...dropped off the radar one day. It was as if she had never existed, so he knew that some other entity had to be...at work.

For now, the Sith Lord was not truly interested in the mechanism of her survival. Half a stride forward more than closed the distance and overtook Elora's position. Before her entire presence could be consumed by his body, however, Cameron bent down and scooped the child into his powerful grasp. Hugging her tightly, he placed a hand behind her head firmly, allowing the scent of her hair and skin to fill his nostrils. The strength of the darkness that had rushed around her was the final consideration, the final piece which identified her to him. "I have missed you, little one."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Her body froze as the ground suddenly departured from her bare feet. She closed her eyes, willing her control of her body to return to her, and relaxed in her father's arms. It was certainly a strange sensation. No one dared touch her now that she was out of the Guardian's protection, and the Guardian could never touch her either. The woman who had freed her from the Guardian had even had the time to lay a single finger on her.

Physical contact was... Interesting. Yet for all the strangeness of it, Elora found herself hugging her father back, not entirely sure of what to say. His mere presence was enough to strike her with awe. She herself, she knew, held no such effect on anyone yet.

"I was told you are dead," she found herself whispering as her body attempted to curl in her father's arm as though she was a toddler, "she tried to convince me that you and mother departed from this existence. When I told her I knew she was lying, she laughed. And then I left her protection and I knew your name, and mother's, but I did not know how to find you."

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron managed a soft smile after depositing a kiss to [member="Elora"]'s forehead. Leaning his head back to look into her brilliant emerald eyes, the Sith Lord actually allowed his smile to expand. "Death is very much a transitional state for our family, Elora." Lowering the child back down to the ground, he motioned back in the direction he had come. "I want to hear more about this...individual that told you your parents had passed. I'm also curious to hear how it is you are but a pre-teen." Obviously she would have either been much, much older or still a baby if she'd survived the Gulag like her half-sisters had.

There was also the matter of Elora's mother. "However, I'm keen to depart this...location, so we will have to walk and talk."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Elora blinked. Her skin remembered parental kisses. She, however, did not. And not since her independence from the Guardian had anyone dared touch her in any kind of a way. It had been simple enough to awe others though. A simple gaze and a few short sentences were all it had taken her.

With this man, with her father, she supposed... It would be different. She would certainly not be able to exercise any control on him as she did with the others. And the emotions he permitted himself to show her tasted genuine.

For the first time in her long life, Elora felt confused.

Still, the man was her father. There was no denying that. And with time, she would remember more than simply instinctively that she was his daughter. Biting her lower lip, she reached up with her hand to take his before they began to walk.

"I know little to nothing of our family," Elora said in earnest, "except for her. She tried to keep me from growing, but she failed. I grew. But slowly. Very slowly. And then I was free, and the galaxy was as it is."

And that was most of what there was to say. What details could she possibly grant him that he did not know? Her father... Her parents. They knew everything. That was what parents did.

"Where were you all these years?" she asked, gazing up at him, "where is my mother? Why is it that in all this time, not one came for me? Do you have other offspring?"

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron took [member="Elora"]'s hand in his and listened to her comments. So the, as yet, unidentified family member had never given a name. That knowledge bothered Cameron only insofar as it simply meant there were countless options. In fact, it could have been one of the many female members of her mother's...maternal side of the family. He supposed that it did not really matter, however. Elora had returned to him and he would set fire to the galaxy before allowing anyone to take her from him or her mother again.

It was Elora's rapid fire of question that brought a thin smile to the large Sith's lips as they walked. In that instant, Elora sounded a great deal like her half-sister Nessarose had at that age. Rest assured, Elora and Nessa were nearly nothing alike. "The far reaches of the galaxy, surviving, training. When I lost you and your mother, searching for you during the height of the Gulag Virus that gripped the galaxy and nearly destroyed it was...complicated. Rather than die trying, I maintained faith in both of your ability to survive, to prevail. My faith, clearly, was not misplaced."

Allowing his gaze to fall down to meet Elora's, he answered one of her question with the most sincerity he could possibly muster. "It is no accident that one of your family kept you safe...regardless of how they went about it. Rest assured you are the only daughter I've cared to find, to retrieve. You are my proudest accomplishment." Yes, of course Cameron had other offspring. He did not have any other children, however. Not by his account at least.

The next topic was...well he knew what Elora was going to say. "Your mother...was somehow captured by the Mandalorians, they have been keeping her in a specially built prison on Myrkr. I've heard nothing further of her."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Some children have to work hard to keep themselves from interrupting when a grown up speaks. Elora, however, remained perfectly silent, brooding over the words her father was saying. She still did not quite comprehend all that had taken place. How could she? Her experience of the galaxy, as well as her education, were severely lacking. Yet to say that she was pleased to hear some of his words would have been... wrong.

The anger bubbled beneath her otherwise calm demeanor. Anger at the knowledge that she had somehow been ripped apart from her parents, and anger at not understanding half of what had actually happened, save for the end result. The Guardian had mocked her lack of knowledge quite often, and she had promised herself to fill her mind with all the knowledge that existed when the situation permitted it.

And the situation would soon permit it. The child took a very adult-like deep breath as she let the anger wash away from her. It would do her no good to fall into a tantrum.

"You gambled with the life of your proudest accomplishment," she noted with a sharp insight after a long silence. Yet there was not a hint of the earlier fury in her voice. On the contrary. It was somewhat cold, calculating. If she was her father's proudest accomplishment, it did not take much to be gambled with. "And I have siblings," she noted as well. There was nor reason for him to specify she was the only one he'd cared to find if it were otherwise so. Did siblings matter? She could recall none of them. But she could not recall what life had been like prior to a certain point anyway, and in that certain point, she was already under the grip of the Guardian.

However, there were other questions she wanted to ask. "What are Mandalorians and why would my mother permit herself to be captured by them? What will you do with me now that we have found each other?"

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron's retort to [member="Elora"]'s question was swift, effortless. "I gamble with the lives of all things. This is the way of those with power." The comment was not designed to hurt, it was simply the truth. All of life was a gamble...regardless how much he may have treasured certain aspects of life.

The Sith Lord ignored the girls statement about siblings. She had...several. The comment about her mother, however, brought a thin smile to Cameron's lips. "A Mandalorian is a warrior that follows a very specific culture of battle and honor. That applies to those not part of the current Mandalorian government, the ones that somehow captured your mother. As to how and why, it is unclear."

Pausing for a moment, Cameron looked at his daughter. "Now that we have reunited, your training can begin in earnest. First, however, we reclaim your mother."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Elora came to a complete halt as her father said they would go claim her mother. Confusion was all too clear to see on her face.

She was understanding certain things; how her father gambled with everything, and how this apparently was what people with power did. She had power. Well... Not the same kind that he did, yet she had made similar gambles with herself time after time ever since her release from the Guardian. had she performed as he would have? Had she even done so correctly?

Training. Was there a difference between learning and training? More questions began to crowd her mind, but she shook her head, willing them to remain at bay. There was much she would have to know, and she would, with time.

"Why are we going to reclaim her? Have you tired of gambling with her life too or is she to fulfill a certain need?" But no, that didn't make much sense either. "If she survived these years then she must have power of her own... It does not make any sense that we would need to release her from anywhere."

The only logical conclusion left, then, was "perhaps she does not want to be here."

[member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Cameron's silver-green gaze slowly redirected from the horizon to [member="Elora"] with an arched eyebrow. "The ability to stay alive in a prison is hardly an indication of power, Elora. Prisons are designed to keep people incarcerated, alive." The Sith Lord paused briefly. Elora's words were those of a child that did not understand a great many things. For this, she received a level of understanding and patience Cameron did not normally afford to others...kin or not. "However, I don't recall saying anything about releasing. I merely stated we will reclaim her. As to why, because I said so is generally an acceptable, unspoken reason. However, in this particular instance, it goes deeper to it being what you need."

Allowing a thin smile to touch his features, Cameron returned his gaze to the horizon. "Your mother grants me strength, and I am not so foolish as to simply carry on life without allowing her to see and raise her daughter. There is a saying, a belief in our family. Your legacy requires that of a strong warrior and a powerful sorceress." And that was...really the main reason. Cameron was now forced to ensure Shery was liberated in the best interest of his daughter. Elora was their point of connection, common ground, and the one thing that would undoubtedly bring them back together no matter the circumstance...even if only briefly.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Elora said nothing at first about the new discovery. A strong warrior and a powerful sorceress. She frowned, trying to understand what it meant. Certainly, she understood the Darkness, at least, enough of it for the time being. She knew what Jedi were, sort of. No one had ever mentioned anything about warriors or sorceresses. Would she be forced into one of those... things, or was she one already?

"If two are required," she finally said, slowly, "then you are weak without her. And then anyone who is alone is weak, and no one can be truly powerful until they are two. I do not understand. And I do not like others."

Of course, her father was an exception. And she supposed, her mother would be as well. yet her time with others had already proven to the child that patience towards the existence of others was something the galaxy required more or less of anyone, and she truly could not comprehend what good most people were for at all.

Her gaze moved to [member="Cameron Centurion"] again. "Why did you survive the years if you are weak compared to yourself?"