Private Repetition of the Past

[Darth Miseria]

R E M I N I S C E
Kyrinov
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Miseria’s ship swept low over the barren planet of Dromund Vastu. What, on this day of all days, had dragged her back here? Of all places. There was nothing here for Miseria anymore. There was nothing here that Dianah clung to either. Just an old empty shell of a once great empire. So… why?

In recent weeks things had begun to weigh heavy on the daughter of Darth Metus. Things that should have rightly never changed, people that should have still been around, memories that were now painful instead of joyous. Was it sentimentality that dragged her back? Perhaps, but Miseria would more readily call it a longing. A deep longing for what once had been. For who had once been.

A soft jolt saw the ship land on ash covered ground, and Miseria slipped from her seat. The shadow of the archives cast her in a dark and brooding shadow. It was almost suffocating, as it had been all those years ago, but Dianah was a different woman now. She had been party to this darkness for many years now, and she would readily call it a friend. No, it wasn’t the darkness that made the shadow brooding. It was the memories it contained. She approached the building, with little care for who or what might have been waiting inside for her. A flick of her wrist, and a wave of her powerful force, saw the heavy stone doors scrape and creak across the marble floor.

The depths of the archives stretched before her.

A much younger version of herself echoed through the empty corridors of the. The ghost of her former self. Well, look what I’ve found. A lone Sith in the middle of an empty library. The beginnings of a smile formed on her lips. How innocent they had been then, how unaware of the Galaxy and its inner workings. In some ways, she wished more than ever to go back to those days. When everything was simple. When everything fit. Her footsteps tapped loudly against the cracked marble floor as she delved deeper and deeper into the heart of the structure she once called home.

Her ungloved fingers stretched out, reaching for the cool metal shelves that had once been home to ancient tomes and texts containing knowledge even Miseria could not claim she knew yet. A thick layer of dust had made itself home there, her fingers left a trench where obsidian metal shimmered through. Can I help you? I didn’t think I would hear from you again after Cordialis. The memories contained here were painful to relive. While the archives had predominantly remained untouched, everything else around it had changed. Miseria was normally extremely fond of change. Some of it had been for the better...

My name is Dianah, but I think I prefer shape-shifting girl.

I’m Kyrinov. Nice to meet you, Dianah.

…but there were a few things she desperately wished could have remained the same.​

 

[Kyrinov]

R E M E M B R A N C E​

Silent, heavy bootfall thumped against the hardened stone of the surface of Dromund Vatsu. Above him, the sky shook and roared, splitting itself in two with flashes of white light. The Sith hadn’t seen any evidence that there was any life left on the capital world of what used to be the Jen’ari Empire. He knew differently. There was a familiar presence that drew him forward towards the Academy, drawing him away from his ship and towards the looming academy jutting out to break the smooth horizon.

Well, look what I've found.

Statues of past Sith Lords and those famous within the Jen’ari watched his every move with unwavering scrutiny, stone eyes peering down into his very being. There had been a time when their gazes struck anxiety, awe, and even fear into a younger version of himself. When they inspired him to push himself until he became a Knight within the fallen Empire. The only thing - only person - that pushed him more had been Dianah. Dust fell and cobwebs collected in corners and nooks as he descended down the stairs with closed eyes, a hand scraping the wall as he went, looking out through the Force to find his way. His ability to see through the Force was not absolute but it was enough to sense his general surroundings and the lone signature that he assumed was Dianah below him in the depths of the archives where they had their first official meeting outside of the battlefield.

Lately, the circumstances were rough. The longstanding friends found themselves on the opposite sides of a war. How, exactly, does one cope with that? How does a person reconcile with the emotions that ensue from such a revelation? Deeper still was the man called forth, a step at a time, one stair at a time. There soon came the familiar feeling of damp air that seemed to ensnare him and suffocate him, sucking away the oxygen and making it stale. His hand lifted in preparation to open the door, yet he found it open and inviting. Kyrinov looked about at the vast rows and columns of the library, dust caking on shelves and scrolls and tomes, untouched for years at a time.

It all felt surreal. It’d been nearly a decade since he’d stepped foot in this archive, nearly a decade since he’d met her here and started a genuine friendship. Memories flooded his mind’s eye as he wandered towards the signature of the Sithling with a clear sense of direction and purpose. It was stronger here, her presence. It was close, closer still as he ventured to the back of this section of the ledgers.

I didn't think I would hear from you again...

A shifting movement out of the corner of his eye brought him face to face with the changeling. He mulled over what to say several times before even leaving his office in the Temple of Silence and, in the days and hours to come, he hadn’t thought of something that would sound appropriate. What could he say after his recent diversion from the Confederacy? What was there to say that would explain everything that’d happened between his departure and now? He found himself speechless, for the first time in his own memory. The single word that echoed out into the void of the archives, breathless and booming simultaneously, was soon lost to the atrium in the center of it all.

“Dianah.”

Darth Miseria​

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[Darth Miseria]

S U R P R I S E

Kyrinov ​

Feet leading her further into the depths of the archives, Dianah found herself simply lost in the power that still surged through the dusty hallways. It wasn’t so long ago that this archive belonged to a powerful faction. A powerful faction that had been crumbled by her own hand, and by the hand of another. The only sound in the archives was the gentle echo of her boots. It seemed to carry on forever in the emptiness, bouncing off walls that Dianah couldn’t even see. Even when she had apprenticed here, she had never gotten to the bottom of the archives, nor had she ever wanted too. But now? There was nothing else to do save for watching the memories that surfaced on repeat. Why not explore further?

As she dove further into its depths, Miseria could have never imagined that anyone else would be here. The Galaxy had all but forgotten about the faction that this archive belonged too. There was only one other she knew of that was aware of its location, and what business would he have here? As though the force had been listening, as though it favoured irony on today of all days, something brought Miseria to a dead stop in her tracks…

Someone was here.

Not just someone. Him. Miseria could have picked up the signature in the middle of a crowded city. She knew it inside and out. Or at least, she had known it at one point in her life. It was different now, just as they were different.

She made no move to turn, no motion to look at the man the signature belonged too. There was no doubt in her mind that he would have cottoned on to her signature too. So she simply waited, eyes fixed on the towering bookshelf that contained holocron after holocron. It wasn’t long before she heard the familiar baritone cutting through the silence that had claimed the archives for so long. It was familiar to her ears but foreign in every other sense of the word. Miseria finally turned her head, to look at the man who owned the voice.

“It’s Miseria now.” No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hold back the tension in her own voice. Despite their history, despite the friendship forged in the fires of these very archives, Dianah could not shake the knowledge that he was the enemy now. He had played his part in destroying the world she grew up on. Something she was sure she could never find the will to forgive. “What are you doing here?” As blunt a question as any, but neither was stupid enough to believe that they’d expected the other to be here. On this day. At this hour.

Was the force playing tricks on them? Or was it fate? Either way, her body language spoke more than her words ever could. Her shoulders were tensed, as were her fingers. As though she were preparing for a fight, but she would not be the one to instigate it.

Not now. Not ever.​

 

[Kyrinov]

C O N F R O N T​

Miseria.

Even her name was different. Of course she was, the Dark Side seemed to purge even people and forge them anew. Whether this new state was pure or tainted was a matter of perspective and it required that he take a step back to examine and analyze. Assessing the situation was just as important here as it was out in the field.

She seemed different, nonetheless. She appeared to be the same girl that found him here all those years ago, her mannerisms were similar enough. The new Dianah - Miseria - was just as bold and almost as controlled as he remembered. But, after all of the recent fighting, the Sith couldn’t blame her for being tense at the sight of him.

Even if her words stung like venom to the elder of the duo.

“Tell her the truth,” Rhye’s voice echoed in his mind as he watched his old friend ready herself for a potential battle as if they weren’t already in one. It wasn’t a physical fight, but it was a conflict all the same. He had no intention of allowing things to get to that point, not with her and not if it wasn’t a necessity. “I felt pulled here, an urge or a whim you could say. A stroll down memory lane, revisit one of my starting places in this Galaxy.” Not the best reason to travel across the Galaxy, but he’d never known his intuition to be incorrect and so he relented and came anyway. Perhaps their meeting wasn’t coincidental.

He took a breath, whether it was to steady himself or simply a reminder from the body to breathe down here, he wasn’t sure. He understood the burning in her eyes, perhaps even more than she knew. Kyrinov knew betrayal, unfortunately, as an older friend than Miseria. “And after feeling you here, I decided to come for a talk. I don’t expect you to forgive me for the invasions on Confederate worlds nor do I expect you to brush it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen or that it didn’t hurt. I won’t excuse those actions.”

The Epicanthix still wasn’t keen on emotional shows or outbursts. Or expressions, for that matter. But, it was Dianah. Even now, staring at a different person, he couldn’t shake the fact that it was her. “I didn’t tell anyone when I left and it was happenstance that I stumbled on the Agents. What about you? Why are you here, of all places? How are you? How is Jaron faring?”

Darth Miseria​

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[Darth Miseria]

L O S E - I T

Kyrinov ​

Miseria could not help but roll her eyes. The same way she had done back when their tutor’s voice boomed at them for doing something they should not have. It was just like the force to do something like this. Just like the force to play tricks on her when she least expected it. Of course, Kyrinov had been drawn here. She should have known the moment she felt compelled to put those kriffing coordinates into her autopilot.​

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Kyrinov continued to talk. The same baritone voice that had echoed in these halls all those years ago. Miseria folded her arms across her chest, drawing them in to hug her sides as the words washed over her. It was a poor attempt at an apology. In fact, Miseria was sure the word sorry had even been mentioned. Her chocolate brown eyebrows furrowed in the centre the more he spoke. It was not just that the Agents had attacked the Confederacy. Miseria was not a fool. She knew there were people out there that did not agree with them. She knew that there were people out there who wanted to crush their ideals.​

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What hurt the most was that it had been her. The woman Miseria had formed a bond that she had assumed to be unbreakable. When Kyrinov had been thrown into the mix, Miseria had taken it to heart. Not only that, but they had picked Ryloth of all places. The world Miseria had grown up on, the world she had watched her siblings grow on, the world her family called home. That was when it had become personal.​

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Her anger, unbeknownst to Miseria herself, would not last long.​

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Kyrinov completely derailed it.​

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At first, it was only her facial body that softened. Her brows relaxed visibly, and her shoulders dropped a full inch. Then, it was her expression. The corner of her mouth, which up to now had been dragged down into a scowl, twitched. It twitched until Miseria was forced to release her control on it, which lead to a smile breaking out over her sun-kissed face. Then came the laughter. It was wild. Bubbling. It bounced back and forth across the archives, the most alive thing that had graced its presence since the days of the Jen’arii.​

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“After all this time!” Dianah managed to speak between the fits of giggles. “After all this time, after two kriffing wars, you ask how’s Jaron?” She could not help it. She had no idea why it was so funny. Perhaps it was the tension, which by that point had grown unbearable, but that was just an excuse. Dianah knew why. It was just like Kyrinov to try and break the tension with a question like that.​

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When the laugher finally died down, Dianah took a break in the conversation to suck in lungful after lungful of dusty air. “Kriff, Kyri.” She blurted out, slipping easily into the voice of the woman Kyrinov knew better. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she went on to answer his question. “I’m here for the same reason as you. I felt called.” She rolled her eyes again, though this time it was directed purposefully at Kyrinov. He most of all would know the cruel irony of the force. “I’m fine, not really sure how else to answer that question. Life ticks on, I guess. Jaron is fine too. The same stoic miserable man you left behind.”​

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She grinned at him. Out of all of this, Jaron Lesan seemed to be the one constant. He was the same as the day they had gone on that mission together.​

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“What about you? What are you getting up to now? Minus destroying innocent worlds, of course.” The latter part was said in clear jest, with a thick layer of trademark Dianah sarcasm.​