Sticks and Stones

[Kaili Talith]

Kaili slowly nodded as Mara realised exactly what it was that she meant. Of course she knew it was a serious gamble, but if there was one thing Kaili knew it was that deep down she had found herself in the same seat as Mara. Maybe not the exact same, but much like Mara couldn’t just sit idly by and watch as someone else potentially destroyed what she could have prevented, Kaili couldn’t sit idly by and let Mara destroy herself when she too could have prevented it. Worry had kicked into high gear, there was no denying that. Mara would feel that without a doubt. Kaili merely nodded it off, hoping that it was the sheer shock that had gotten her into this state. It had to be.

“I don’t care about the risk or the money, Mara.” Kaili assured her friend as she leaned back on the balustrade. “I care about you doing the right thing. Which I already know that you will, but we all have our moments. And if the pressure of your work is going to make that worse then I want to be there.”

“Besides, nepotism isn’t unheard of in the business world. People would hire a friend over qualified people any day of the week.” Kaili chuckled as she finally tried to lighten the mood again. “Having me follow you around without reason makes people suspicious. Having me on payroll makes you seem like the average depressed teenage-quadrillionaire and allows me to stay in proximity when things start to shift.”

“It’s a web of lies, sure, but I imagine that in the end you can’t afford to look weak when you hold the titles that you do. As... Weird as that feels to even say. People would question you bringing me places without incentive. They wouldn't question you to the same degree if I followed you around like an assistant of sorts.” Kaili shook her head. “It’ll be forty credits per hour. Enough to afford me a ride back to Borleias when my work is done and enough to get me back to you again when you need it.”

“And no, I am not talking to you when you have something to work through.” The kid grinned as she turned around to look at Mara again. “We’re friends, I talk to you whenever I damn please.”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

Mara chuckled and meant it. "Counteroffer accepted. But you're not going to stop me from giving you benefits. Forty credits an hour plus the full package, right down to non-essential dental. And that's non-negotiable. Because-" She fanned her hand in front of her face. "-you just gotta get that breath looked at if we're going to be seen in public together."

She pushed Kaili's shoulder affectionately. "I'm glad you came by, Kai. And I'm glad you're actually doing this. It's like I'm always in this tension between needing company and needing to be a loner, and being a straight-up loner just isn't for me, y'know? Not all the time, anyway, or even as much as Dad or Aunt Rave or even Mom." Out across the dark courtyard, the servants were tending the watchfires. Kilia IV had its charms, but not all of its threats came from steep cliffs and harsh weather. Mara leaned her elbows on the stone balustrade. "But I'm not one to have friends for the sake of friends. I could never fit in in a club or clique or whatever -- the Brat Pack notwithstanding. But it's tough to figure out how to do good when you're not all that tight with the SSC or the Alliance. How do you approach it?"

 

[Kaili Talith]

The two girls chuckled alongside one another in a good-hearted joke. Kaili held back any humorous comeback, the window seemed to close about as fast as it had opened. Still, getting the whole package was a great deal. Of course, it remained to be seen if that was part of the joke or not, but Kaili had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t.

Kaili knew that need to be alone better than Mara probably would be aware of. It was a thing they both seemed to suffer from, that desire for solitude yet not actually wanting to be alone at all. After all, most people wouldn’t actively choose solitude as much as it was a choice that was made for them. At least in the wider strokes of things, the misfits of society always seemed to seek it, but was that really a choice they had any other option but to make, and if so wouldn’t that mean that in the end it was a choice made for them?

Kaili looked to Mara as she went over her problem, her gratitude for Kaili doing what she felt was her duty as a friend. That was all anyone could ever really do, look after those who looked after you. So in that sense, perhaps the Brat Pack wasn’t as much of a friend group as much as a bunch of kids just looking out for one another.

It was most certainly a clique too if you considered the fact that all of them were more than well-off in their future finances one way or another, but chances were nobody really ever thought of that. Not even Kaili herself.

So, how did Kaili approach things such as the SSC and the Alliance? How did she do good? The answer to that was already quite simple.

“I just... Do?” Kaili chuckled. “It’s not really all that hard, if something feels wrong, then don’t do it. If it feels like the right thing to do, then do it. If supporting your sister’s war effort is what you want to do, and it feels like the right thing to do, then do it. Just make sure that it is what you want to do and not someone else.”

Kaili sighed.

“Which is exactly why I am stepping away from the Alliance.” The kid felt bad about it, she couldn’t lie, but there was more to life than just war. The fight against darkness, even if it was a universal thing, was not the fight Kaili wanted to take up arms against. It made her feel like a craven and a coward, but part of her just refused. It wasn’t the fight that she wanted to take, it was the fight she had feel obligated to take part of.

“Someone in the family has to stay out of it, right?” Kaili chuckled again in a poor attempt to avert the evident underlying anxiety. “Micah and Aela got it covered. I believe in them.”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"Lone agent, then. Glad to hear that's working out for you." She used the banality to give herself a moment and collect her thoughts. "There's more than one kind of evil and more than one way to resist it, Dad always said. Granted, he was usually talking about IEDs and false telesponders, but I keep coming back to it. I keep thinking about RimSAR -- the Silk search and rescue subsidiary -- or finding refuge worlds, making escape routes for refugees. How many worlds have been just plain torched? How many ships full of survivors have been turned back or impounded, all over the 'verse, because they didn't have the right registration or passport telesponders or...?" She slammed her palms against the stonework. "And then every other ship that gets let in has a Sith sleeper agent aboard, and whole worlds get furious and terrified, and the Sith feed off that. Inspiration's a pretty slim reed to grab onto. I've tried throwing money at these problems, and nothing. Money alone won't fix it, any more than swords will. If I had the guts, I'd go try and convert a bunch of Sith and see how far I got."

 

[Kaili Talith]

Lone agent. It didn’t feel like the description Kaili would have used, but it worked. Droid maker, the girl who locked herself up in her shop all day, now those were titles she could wear with a straight face. They carried an air of realism to them, acted almost as two statements of who people would see when they saw her. Titles that also was a far cry from the actual titles that Mara carried on her shoulders.

“Not far, I’d bet.” Kaili shrugged. “Father always said it was addictive, I have no reason to doubt him on it.”

“In the end all you can really do is try to prevent it, but then you’d have to tread that fine balance between helpful and totalitarian.” Sudden thought that you can’t help everyone came to mind and Kaili couldn’t help but frown again. She hadn’t been able to help everyone either. “You just-... You do what you gotta do.”

“You can’t help the sleeper agents, but you can help the refugees set up shop again. Maybe set up a new home? A planet in the outer rim for people to seek refuge in without the fear of being turned down because of the color of their species or belief.”

“I mean, if Silk specializes in exploration of the outer rim and what-not... Why not?”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"I bet there's data. I bet there's a ton of data, and a huge knowledge gap where more data should be. The Inner Rim and the Core have been at war since we were kids -- longer." She refrained from mentioning that Kaili's mother had been a POW of the One Sith before the kids were born. Kaili knew the time frame. "That's thousands of worlds' worth of refugees. Where are they going? Where are they settling? What conditions are they running into? What are their actual needs?" She gestured at the starscape. "I bet there's entire star clusters that're flooded with new arrivals, probably all through the Outer Rim, even Wild Space. This planet would probably be one of them if people knew about it."

She warmed to the subject, hunching over the rail. "Whole planets have been depopulated. Where'd the people all go?"

 

[Kaili Talith]

Kaili swallowed her breath and let out a deep sigh. Her wrist tapped repeatedly against the balustrade in hesitation, but she had to say it. She knew what happened, she had seen it.

“Mass graves.” Her voice shivered. “Big, unmarked mass graves where one’s hope in humanity goes to die.”

The young Borleian turned to look at Mara with an affirmative nod. Something to imply that Kaili knew what she was talking about, that it wasn’t a joke in poor taste. The terror in her eyes, the things she had seen when she had helped the Alliance. It haunted her still, it always had. It was as if it was just yet another sapling to the fire in her broken dreams, an inescapable maze of thorn hedges. Kaili had seen them, and Kaili could not forget them.

This, this was why she refused to work on weapons.

“I don’t think you’re any less unaware than I am about the horrors of war, but the things I saw. The things I had to do as a result...” Kaili shook her head. “I had to leave.”

“And so did the refugees, they had to leave.” Eyes closed by themselves and head tilted. Kaili really shouldn’t have. “The only difference is that they have nowhere to go, I did.”

“I know it’s not much, I don’t have much to offer, but if you ever decide to find them someplace, or do anything to help, I want to be there.”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

Mara drew a sharp breath as something went cold and hard inside her. And because she was a Force-sensitive empath, she knew the emanations of her emotions rippled out, perceptible to some, even tangible. Torch sconces lit the balcony. They flickered and dimmed. After a long, slow breath, the torches normalized.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "That's exactly the perspective I needed to hear." She pushed away from the stone balustrade and fished in her pocket. After a moment, she produced a much-folded square of local paper. She stared down at it, flipping it through her fingers.

"My aunt keeps herself busy. A lot of it feels like she means it for me, like the alchemical alterations around this place. It feels like she's preparing for something. Preparing to go away again. She gave me this -- here, read this. Tell me what you think." She held it out to Kaili. "I'm not immune to the need to act."

 

[Kaili Talith]

“I’m not saying that you are, I just-” Kaili set her eyes on the letter and began reading. There was no point in nagging about helping in the end. The kid had already pushed Mara far enough as if about procuring planets and acting as if it was just an overnight affair. Then again, Kaili didn’t have a quadriquintillion stacks of credits, in fact she had far, far less.

She swept through the letter line by line until eventually she came to the seeming heart of it.

“This-... This is about force severance.” Kaili blinked as she handed the letter back. “That’s some heavy stuff, Mara.”

“I mean, yeah, moral dilemma aside it is still something that’s going to need careful consideration.” The kid was raised by a Jedi after all; hesitation and later paddy-poking was part of the deal. “I trust you with it, but… Feth, I don’t know.”

“So let’s talk the Sith butchering an orphanage.” Kaili rubbed her brows as she leaned against the balustrade. “Where does the line between justice and vengea-...”

She cut herself short. It was a stupid scenario.

“Nevermind.” Talith shook her head in dismissal. “If we were to 'learn' this ability, would we learn it for the sake of personal justice, the greater good or because it’s nifty?”

“Part of me just... Needs to know.”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"I'm not immune to the need for shiny, either. I'm fething [insert young age here]." She chuckled, then sobered. "You know what scares me most when I go out fighting Sith? It's not what they can do, it's what I can do. It's how easy it would be to maim them for life, or kill them. I've done it. I took that Sith acolyte's leg off at Tython. Every once in a while I think back to that moment and remember how I just wanted to give her a contact burn, something to keep her down, keep her from attacking those girls any more. And then bap, her leg was on the ground. Coulda been her head. I'm not saying I'm uncomfortable with the lightsabre, Kay, but not every situation -- not every violent situation -- should end with the possibility of death.

"Now a lot of that is ex post facto, stuff I've come up with since I got the option. I picked up the Jem Wyzen holocron at auction because like feth was I going to let Sith get their hands on it. Once I got a handle on what the holocron holds, I realized I had a serious option, and I had to give it serious thought. I asked my aunt about it -- that's the context of the letter. She wasn't trying to push Sever Force on me, at least not without me asking first."

 

[Kaili Talith]

The need for shiny. Kaili had it almost every single day, there was almost always one more droid to create or any sort of piece of tech that would seemingly increase the value of her life. What’s more was that she had the resources to do it, but not much else. It was like a good way to balance yourself in reality. Nothing hurt more than the conservation of the means that kept you fed in the light of leisure.

A sigh burst its way through Kaili’s nostrils. She didn’t know what else to do, it wasn’t as if she had been provided with a situation quite like this one before. It all felt alien to her, taboo beyond belief, but when presented as non-lethal alternative there was little Kaili could do but perk her eyebrow. Maybe it wasn’t outright stated as a non-lethal, but it was what the kid had picked up and the more she thought on it, the more it just felt like a good idea.

“So, what’s your plan, Mara?” Kaili shrugged in an attempt to rid the taboo. “I mean, who was this Jem Wyzen? What did he do that would make this something the Sith absolutely can’t have?”

“... Other than force sever people, I guess.” Which in itself was horrible if weaponized. Kaili could understand that. “It’s not a name I am familiar with.”

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"He had a really boring life, not going to lie. The only important thing in that holocron is Sever Force, but that right there is enough to make the holocron a threat. Imagine a circle of Sith Masters deploying that against a temple." Mara shivered. A cold wind had come in off the lake. "Feth, it's getting late. I should turn in for the night. Not sure what your sleep schedule is like right now, or how shiplagged you're likely to be. But me, I'm exhausted."

She rubbed at her eyes and opened the door to head inside. "If you do end up staying up, uh, my aunt's probably puttering around alchemizing the toilets or something. Not sure if you want to tread lightly or seek her out or whatever - just figured you should know, she's often around. If you want to talk about Sever Force, or the...the things you've seen, she might have some insights from the other side of the tracks. Not that she's a Darksider anymore, but she doesn't set herself up as any kind of a good person. She's just..." Mara shook her head after a second. "Know what, ignore me. I'm too tired to talk straight. Glad you're here, though, Kay. Glad you came."

 

[Kaili Talith]

Shiplag did not matter much when you were having trouble sleeping long before you set off on a trip. Kaili nodded at Mara before the two of them separated. The temptation of sleep was always an ever lurking presence that brought nothing but terror. Memories weren’t her strong suit and it hadn’t been for the last few months. Some small part of her felt horrible, she should have told Mara about the crash, but another refused to let her mentor figure see her as weak as she was, as weak as it made her feel. It wasn’t a healthy mindset, but Kaili had gotten used to it. Hide and conceal, a fear of people getting closer. Something that was hard to do when you considered that Mara was the only person who wasn’t family that knew everything about Kaili, if not more.

A dejected sigh burst through the young Talith’s nostrils before she slowly pushed herself off of the balustrade. She stepped inside the slightly warmer castle and let the employees help her to her room. Eyes set for the ground like a prisoner being sent to death row, something that didn’t feel all too inaccurate of a description. They came to a halt outside an insignificant door. Kaili pushed it open and stepped inside. Embers crackled from the lit fireplace by the foot of the luxurious bed that she had been provided. Or well, what Kaili assumed to be a rather luxurious bed by the local standards. She forced the itchy clothing off of her body and took her spot inside the covers. Her eyes peered at the ceiling in apathetic horror for what was lurking around the corner before she twisted to her side, and then the other, and then back again. The chain continued, it always did until Kaili finally fell asleep again.

Her eyelids shut, the world turned black…

The same feeling of fear washed over her, loneliness in masses as if she was still there. The clicking of tendrils, the clacking as the insects made way towards the comms and the shuffling of fabric as the kid swept her way towards the others. But no matter how hard she tried the sound was always there, teeth sinking deep into her friend, the pained shrieks as the insect died and the sound Kaili’s saber getting turned off. The feeling as her hands got soaked in blood. Maila hadn’t died a hero’s death nor would she be remembered by anyone other than Kaili who still blamed herself for what had happened.

In her dreams it was usually Maila who was cradled in her arms, except this time the dream was changing. Her hand ran up the other girl’s waist, ran an inspection of the body. It was maimed, deformed, irrecognizable if not for the face. Brown strands of hair, brown eyes like-

Kaili woke up with a scream. Her heart beat heavy and she found herself out of breath. With each inhale she took the panic only grew. She couldn’t be in this bed, she couldn’t be anywhere, she didn’t want to be anywhere. She wasn’t dead, she should have been dead, everyone else was.

This was why she didn’t sleep.

She found the most remote corner of the room, wrapped her arms around her legs and bunkered down until someone came to check on her or she passed out again. She wasn’t quite sure which of them was more preferable at this point.

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

OOC/ For the inquisitive reader, note that this thread began prior to Rave's death, and still takes place before her final visit to Dromund Kaas.

[member="Kaili Talith"]

IC/
Kaili's door shut, and a woman entered -- shot gray hair, lined face, scars. Many scars. One hand wore a golden gauntlet. The other hand was rune-carved metal and terentatek ivory; under her dark robe, so was the arm, all the way to the shoulder. Same with a leg, its joints clicking and rasping, in need of a tune-up. Rave Merrill, the greatest alchemist in the galaxy and a retired, probably-reformed war criminal. Not a comforting presence to just about anyone.

The door clicked shut behind her; she'd entered Kaili's room unbidden. "Forgive the intrusion, young Master Talith," she said, though her tone didn't suggest she felt a need for forgiveness. "I came when I felt your pain; then I heard a scream."

Her head tilted as she reexamined her wording, but she shrugged and took a seat uninvited, as if Kaili hadn't been a catatonic ball in the corner. As if all of this situation's sharp edges were normal, comfortable, or at least not worth a remark.

"The dreams of a young master can reveal too much."

 

[Kaili Talith]

Her eyes were already planted firmly in the bend of her arm, stifling the tears of fright streaming down her cheeks. The figure that entered her room didn’t go unnoticed, an unfamiliar presence that Kaili had never seen or felt before. A glossy pair of orange-colored eyes peeked up from underneath the comfortable cover of her arm to set themselves on an older woman dressed in a black robe. Looked eccentric, had a leg that seemed to prove it.

Rave Merrill.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kaili lied. She knew exactly what the elder meant. “I just-... I don’t know.”

The kid buried her face in her arm again.

“What are you doing in my room?” The young Talith’s voice shivered as she spoke. “I mean, it’s-... It’s not my room, but…”

Kaili sighed. “You get it.”

[member="Rave Merrill"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"What were you doing in my mind?" said Rave evenly. "And all the other Force-sensitive in Castle Miriamele, for that matter. Your dream resonated in the Force, uncontrolled. So who intruded first on whom?"

She said it without an attitude of blame.

"Since your pain is affecting my experiments, I came to help." She held up her real hand. Her robe's sleeve fell away, revealing a golden gauntlet, more ornament than armour. It went almost up to the elbow of her scarred arm.

"I built this to restore lost and damaged memories, but it can heal memory in a broader sense."

 

[Kaili Talith]

This character wasn’t what Kaili had expected. Her eyes darted out from behind the cover of her arm again to give the woman a curious look. What was Kaili doing in everyone else’s mind? The Borleian kid’s face went pale as the woman mentioned that everyone who were force sensitive in the castle had felt it. They had felt Kaili’s nightmare. She was shown the golden gauntlet, yet all Kaili could think about was how she would have to explain this one to the only person she really owed an explanation to.

Mara.

Eyes set on the gauntlet.

“What does it do?” Kaili asked. Her voice betrayed her, made the panic she was experiencing all the more evident. “What are you going to do? What is that?”

[member="Rave Merrill"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

The gauntlet didn't require contact, but it did require proximity; Rave would have to be much closer. Conscious that the kid might well lash out at her if Rave just bore down on her, the old witch remained where she sat.

"When applied to intact memories, it leaves those memories intact, but it smooths away the sharp edges of their impact. Remarkably useful for handling crippling guilt, anger, fear, trauma." She eyed the gauntlet dispassionately. "Not that I've used it to ease my transition to the Light; that would be cheating. I only took this path because it was the only interesting course left to me. What a challenge, finding redemption. I admit it seems as far off to me now as time travel, parallel universes, or the Taurannik Codex seemed to me when I was your age."

She refocused on Kaili. "If you prefer, I can bring my niece in here and she can be the one to use this on you. I'm sure she's awake or close enough." A snort. "Unless dreaming of some Kilian Ranger has blocked out your broadcast. I doubt it, though. From what she's mentioned, you two have a genuine Force-bond. Stronger than my bond with her, certainly, and yet she's never had any trouble reading me." The skin around her eyes tightened, a bleak hint of a smile. "Or my own nightmares."

 

[Kaili Talith]

Truth was that the kid didn’t really know what it was that made her feel that way, but the idea of Mara seeing her in this state terrified her more than the idea of a stranger poking at her mind. It wasn’t the perception of weakness that did it, it was the idea that somehow it would change things. Kaili wanted them to stay like they were, just like they used to be.

“No!” She exclaimed at the mention of bringing in Mara. “No.”

“I don’t want her to see me like this, in this mess I am in.”

Another careful glance was cast out at the gauntlet before she closed them again. A deep breath filled Kaili’s lungs to the brink before she let out a quick exhale.

“Will it hurt?” It was the only thing she could think to ask. “What is going to happen with the memory? Will the nightmares stop?”

There were more questions, but they all remained unsaid. Kaili opened her eyes again to peer at the device. She was going to put her memories, possibly more, in the hands of a woman she had never met before.

If ever there was a clear definition of insanity…

[member="Rave Merrill"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"Embarrassment." So prosaic, she didn't say. Instead, Rave shrugged. "It doesn't hurt, no. The idea is sort of the opposite. It won't even make you re-live the memories in question. It would if the goal were to fix your memories, but we're simply after some rounded edges, hm? This falls well within secondary cathartic functionality -- far less profound."

She was, she realized, talking primarily to herself, not to Kaili. "It won't hurt," she said. "It'll only calm you down. The memory will be there, but with less pain and anxiety attached. And shame, yes? The nightmares will decrease, most likely. Maybe they'll stop entirely, though I'd imagine other factors are at play. Physical sleep habits, maybe. Do you grind your teeth?"

She rose in a clicking of artificial limbs and took a couple of steps toward Kaili, gauntlet raised.

"Speak now or forever hold your peace, child."