Private Not quite forgotten.

[Darth Nwul]

Korriban. The sandy megaliths of stone and intricate carvings loomed over the breadth of the Valley of the Dark Lords. Wake, for all his interest in such things, had opted for a bit of a break. He was reclining on a particuarly difficult to get to archway, or rather the narrow lip above the archway. Just enough shade cast by the stone wall to his right that he could enjoy at least a few hours of relaxation before the angle became a bit too much. He let out a sigh and stretched his legs, glancing to the ground at one of the disgruntled workers who were staring up at him in disbelief. Wake shrugged at him. If he could come up there and make Wake come down, then he was free to make that attempt.

That unspoken exchange seemed to be enough to dissuade the worker as the man quickly resumed his work, paying the neophyte Sith no mind after that. Fine with Wake, he didn't want to be the center of attention anyway.

You did when I knew you, An sweet voice, one that filled his chest with longing. He cursed and sat up, rubbing the back of hiis head.

"Is this going to be a thing now? Because if it is, you have to tell me, right? It's a rule, isn't it?" He demanded the open air only to get silence as a response. He rolled his eyes and fell back to where he had been lounging. He rolled to one side, facing away from the wall and looking out over the Valley. Darth Caeden had been busy, no doubt about it. The man was keen on dragging as much knowledge as he could out of this place. Wake was with him on that, and he had been studying up till this point, but now he needed a breather or his eyes would rot right out of his head.

Not that his mind would even let him rest. He rubbed his eyes and shifted to a sitting position just as a figure approached. He squited at the incoming individual and rested an elbow on his knee, an eyebrow rising up a bit; "Here to join the rest of us down in the dirt? It's fun I swear!" He teased from afar.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

So many of them had died in the attack.

Aliris wandered the sands, her gaze focused on the dagger in her hand. Runes, a new rune at least, had formed upon the smoke demons return from it's hungry rampage. Even now it housed itself in the dagger, as if it was a genie. Maybe it was, in a way. But this new rune, what did that mean? What could it do? She frowned deeply, trying to at least figure it out. It wasn't anything she recognized, but perhaps there was something more?

"Here to join the rest of us down in the dirt? It's fun I swear!"

She hadn't been paying attention where she was going, nor who was around. She blinked slowly, glancing around. No one there was seeming to talk to her. So she looked up. And raised a brow.

"You seem a little far up to be down in the dirt, don't you think?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

"You seem a little far up to be down in the dirt, don't you think?"

Wake's lip twitched upward once in amusement. A bit of quipping? That was more like it. He got to his feet and slid his hands into his pockets, standing up straight and looking down at the woman who had approached him. That chilling spot in his abdomen ached when his eyes passed over her, intensifying when his gaze landed on the weapon in her hand. The faintest shift of expression gave away his reaction to it's presence. He shook off the moment and looked back up at her face, even from afar he could make out several details. There was a grimness about her, typical for a Sith these days.

Everyone was so damn unhappy.

He scratched his chin and shrugged, "Taking a break as it were, man's gotta sleep eventually, right?" He pointed out with a dismissive wave of his hand. "What about you? Coming out to the dunes and ruins this late at night? Are our purposes a sign of nefariousness or restlessness?" He teased, winking at her while remaining at the safe height and distance.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Weird place to sleep."

She muttered just under her breath before she tucked her dagger back in it's sheath behind her back. Then, rolled her eyes. It wasn't the type of question she expected from a Sith. Teasing, smiling. He was weird. Very, very weird.

"Wandering. Am I not allowed to?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake snorted, "At least from here I get to see the stars and meet interesting people. A bed and sheets are a bit boring, don't you think?" He said offhandedly, and tapped his heel against the archway he was standing on. His eyebrows rose when she shot a question back at him, a broad smile exploding across his face.

"Not allowed to- by all means! Wander away!" Wake enthused, "Wish more Sith would do a bit of wandering now and then," He huffed, sitting back down on the ledge and kicking his feet. "I'm Wake!" he called down.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Were they boring?

Aliris never liked her bed in the Ashlan boot camp, but it was better than not having a bed. There were times she didn't have one at all, and those were absolutely the worst days. Maybe not because of the bed, though.

"You're weird." Perhaps it was just a teenager thing to blurt out her opinion. Then, she sighed, rubbed at the back of her neck. ".. I'm Aliris. You were one of the ones around Darth Caedes , yeah?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake burst into laughter at her obvious confusion, it was strange to meet someone like him after being surrounded by so many grouchy rage-fueled, roided out sith. You become sensitive to positivity. He stepped towards the edge of the archway and hopped off, "I've been called worse," he said when he landed stretching his arms over his head and smiling at her. "Yeah, I was there during the invasion."

He left out the fact that a few of them had probably seen him consuming the mind of one of the defenders. The havoc his consume knowledge power wrought on a persons body was horrifying to say the least.

"You were the..." He waggles his fingers for a moment, "The observant one, but also the one who stuck her hand to a life-chewing orb. Ouch," He tilted his head, "Your hand alright by the way?" He asked, his tone oddly genuine.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Ah right yeah. The orb. Her expression went from slightly annoyed to utterly sour as she looked back to her hand. It was still dry and cracked, but at least color had returned to it. In time, it'd probably heal fully. Maybe. It still stung, somewhere in the back of her mind. "It's as fine as it's going to get, I guess. Sorcery always comes at a cost." She lowered her hand, staring up at him for a moment longer.

"Why? Why care?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake watched her face and spotted the damage to her hand from a distance. He looked back from it to her face just as she looked up at him. They made eye contact and he raised an eyebrow. She spoke and he shrugged, "That it does," He said casually, reaching into one of his pockets and drawing out a small white cylinder about the length of his middle finger. He checked it over before twirling it between his fingers.

"Why not?" He answered her question with a question, "How does it benefit me to ignore an injured ally when there are no threats present? Do I get some sort of advantage from watching you suffer? Hardly, it's pedantic," He said with a laugh and tossed her the cylinder, "It's a Kolto spray, treat your damn hand and stop pretending to be tough for a half second," He shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced up at the sky.

"The dark side doesn't have to be about being a dick to everyone, you know," He said with a breath, drinking in the view.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

She scampered to catch the cylinder, very clearly surprised that he'd thrown it. Part of her thought it was some kind of grenade or something nefarious, so he looked about ready to just throw it with all her might towards the distance. She didn't, though, as he explained what it was. Aliris frowned, glancing from it, to him, back to it. She wasn't trusting. The Ashlan's had ruined any sense of trust she had.

And she knew the Sith well enough.

But eventually she did spray it out on her hand. Sure enough, her hand stopped hurting as bad as it had been. She let out a sigh of relief before she could stop herself. Then just pretended she didn't with a clearing of her throat.

".. I mean, yeah. But a lot of people like to be dark and brooding for whatever reason."

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake stretched his arms over his head and yawned, scratching the back of his head and turning to walk towards the inside of the archway. He crossed his legs and plopped down on the ground, kicking a piece of broken tile out of his way in the process. He glanced over at her and watched her spray her palm, the kolto immediately going to work on starting up the treatment process for her injured hand. It would take time for the cells to finish replicating and restoring on their own, there would probably be scarring too.

He slipped a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a small flask, sipping at it once and glancing her way before glancing back at it and making a conflicted expression. Eventually he shrugged and put it away. He was about to bite into what looked like a thin wafer treat that he also pulled out of some space when she spoke up. He nodded and waved the treat in his hand in her direction in agreement.

"See! Yeah that's exactly my problem, besides raw aesthetic or collecting dark side energy from plain 'ol negativity, give me one good reason anybody should sit in the same place for hours at a time, in the dark, staring off to the space. A good and healthy reason," He bit into his snack and laughed, "I'll tell you, there isn't one. It's all aesthetics, to be 'cool' like their master's before them. But my guess is that they were just immitating their own master and so on and so forth," he chewed for a moment and swallowed hard, taking another sip from his flask.

"My point is, the only person responsible for how much fun I'm having is myself, that goes for everybody. Use my anger when anger is appropriate, and use other things when it does a better job, just sayin," He shrugged. He was having a hard time putting words to the thoughts in his head, he was still new to using the dark side but he'd noticed that it really didn't have to be rage that powered it. That was good enough for him.

"Anyway," He munched, "I'm done rambling, what'd you do before this, Aliris? If you don't mind me askin'."

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Oh he had way more of an opinion on that than she expected. Aliris blinked slowly as she listened. It.. Made a lot of sense to her. A lot of what the Ashlan's had told her was of the Sith being all dark and brooding all the time. Evil, through and through. But what did that mean for her? She expected a terrible fate having to deal with the edgiest folks she'd ever meet in her life. Wake wasn't one of those.

It was karking weird.

"Lived in an Ashlan boot camp while they tried to brainwash me into one of their loyal soldiers." She spoke without thinking, too caught up with his weirdness to put much thought in it all. Which had her narrow her eyes suspiciously as she watched for his reaction. There were Sith taht might think that made her an easy mark. Maybe she was. But she wasn't afraid of getting in a fight if she had to.

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake noted the contemplative pause that hung around her after his tirade and smiled. She was seriously considering what he had to say. That was a good sign. He'd never considered himself evil, but if he did, he'd had to admit that Evil wasn't always brooding. Sometimes it was smiling. He enjoyed a good smile. He wiped his lips on his sleeve as she spoke up, raising his eyebrows to show he was listening.

An Ashlan boot camp. Sounds worse than a Jedi Temple in its own way. Or maybe not. Boot-camp made it sound like rapid and forced brainwashing. Jedi Temples were significantly slower and more insidious. He quirked a lip at her suspicious expression. She hadn't even realized she was caught up in his pace and had already divulged something personal. Now it was time to shatter her illusions and seal the deal so to speak. He swallowed and sipped again at his flask.

"I killed my Jedi Master, I'm from the temple on Coruscant, ended up in the underworld for about half a decade after that, getting myself into trouble this-way-and-that," He said with a shrug, admitting it to her openly and with all the honesty in the world in his aura.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Huh?

He was so bluntly honest Aliris just stared for a moment, then started to laugh. Not at him, just at the whole scenario. Sith willingly sharing their pasts and history, it was just too weird! Who was this weirdo so willing to give away parts of himself that others might use against him? So she laughed. A friendly giggle as she shook her head.

"You really are weird."

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake smirked and sipped at his drink again, peering inside the bottle. Nothing left, again. Where was the whiskey when he needed it? He sealed up the flask and pocketed it, smirking in her direction as she laughed, his smile becoming wider and more genuine. His emerald green eyes twinkled, he knew she'd seen the horrors he'd wrought during the reclamation battle beneath the sands. The dichotomy between action and word was something he was well aware of, but he didn't care. Instead, he wanted to know something else.;

"How does a genuine laugh feel? Pretty good, huh?" Wake asked, smiling at her and letting out a contented sigh. His force presence free of the restlessness and unease of your average sith. He was relaxed. "I think it feels amazing," he sighed, running his fingers through messy black hair and clicking his tongue at her comment.

"Pfft, I've been called worse," He laughed, and winked, "If this is being weird, I hope to be the weirdest person in the galaxy."

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

".. Yeah. It does feel pretty good, not gonna lie." It reminded her of when she danced with Braze , honestly. Which only soured her expression for a moment. She didn't like thinking about him, not when she could avoid it. He was just a filthy Jedi, after all.

".. Being weird is better, yeah." Well, maybe he didn't have to just be a filthy Jedi, right?

"How'd you decide to become a Sith?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake glanced at her as an emotion washed over her, his sensitivity picking up on it. He noted the sourness of her expression and craned his head to the left; he was about to say something when she pressed her question toward him. His eyes glittered and he looked towards the sky; "The Sith Code, for one thing," He mused quietly, "I was interested in their ways for a while, after separating from the Jedi. I fell in with Darth Strosis while I was trying to fleece some slavers by pretending to be a slave. He taught me the basics, after that, I relized a few things and decided to embrace the path," He said simply, leaning back against the stone behind him.

He glanced her way, "You felt something just now, strongly, why'd you quash it?" He asked, "You were thinking about someone or something I imagine? Do it again, just let it happen, all the emotions, the warm fuzzies and intense negativity, whatever's there. It's all valid, emotions are just emotions right?" He said and took a deep breath himself, looking up at the sky and allowing himself to feel the enormity of the universe and the sense of awe, reverence, and joy it brought him. He took that feeling and consumed it, feeding it into the core of his power where the depths of his strength were slowly growing.

"Don't run from what you feel, Peace is a lie, remember?" He said, wagging a finger, using a similar teaching technique to the one that his old Jedi Master used. He couldn't help it, some of her quirks were his now.

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Because I don't like thinking about him." She half muttered, mostly to herself. He was right, they weren't supposed to just squash emotion. But they weren't supposed to be controlled by it either, right? And she certainly felt like she was controlled whenever she did think about that dumb Jedi.

Ugh.

But she did let herself feel the emotions. Mostly, it was frustration. Frustration that he kept trying to pull her from the Sith like she was something wrong. Frustration that even after her betrayal and insults he wanted to be her friend. Frustration that she still wanted to be his friend. .. It was fun, to dance. Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to not let the emotions actually take over.

".. I miss him. Why does he have to be a Jedi?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake turned fully to face her now, a smile crossing his face as the green of his eyes began to turn a bit yellow. The dark side was starting to work through him, he could feel her emotions, her turmoil, her confusion, her desire to fight back against those uncomfortable feelings that she couldn't quite understand. He wasn't sure if he had a right to teach, but her situation made him feel the instinct roar at him. If he could help her achieve greater power-then wouldn't that benefit him? Only a fool believed that strengthening the whole was a weakness. Every strong ally on the battlefield meant a swifter victory. His lip twitched and he reached out with the force to gently guide her feelings.

"Take it slow, it's okay to feel. Your emotions are valid, all of them. Do you love him? Do you lust after him? Identify the feeling, don't be coy and embarassed," He murred, his voice almost meditative before it came in sharp; "Face it! Face your feelings. The Jedi run from their feelings. Some sith will tell you to drink nothing but the bedlam of rage and hate. Face them all, face life," He hissed, "You can do it. Let the emotions happen, accept them, let them flow over and through you. They are fuel for the furnace inside you. They don't control you, they don't control you..."

He let out a breath and pressed with his mind, "Does he have to be a Jedi? All is possible with the force, right? If you miss him, accept that you miss him. If you want him, become strong enough and wise enough to take him," Wake continued, caught up in the moment, some of the words coming from a place that wasn't entirely his own mind. The wisdom of dozens of lives culminating into a singular voice. He leaned forward, his eyes now entirely yellow; "Attachments are only chains to us Sith if we lack the strength to protect them and if we are foolish enough not to empower those we are attached to so that they may defend themselves. Do you have the strength to protect this person?" He pressed.

"Let the emotions happen, Aliris, let it happen, let them flow..."

Aliris Tremiru

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

It felt weird. Foreign. All her life, short as it'd been, she was told to suppress and deny her emotions. She hated having to do that, but it was just how her life went. The Ashlan's didn't want her to experience emotion. And yet here someone was, telling her not to deny it but to experience it fully. All her emotion. But not to let it control her? It was confusing, overwhelming. And yet, utterly liberating.

She ended up crouched on the ground, holding her head. It was overwhelming. Just utterly overwhelming. She never had friends before. All she wanted was a friend. Braze was her friend, but she betrayed him because that's what Sith do. But that's not what Sith needed to be? She could still be his friend even though he was a Jedi? No, she just needed to make him a Sith, right? That's what Wake was saying.

She sniffled, wiping at her eyes. She just felt weak.

"I don't- I'm not sure how I can."

Darth Nwul