Tell Me Where It Hurts

[Sam Rodarch]

Overwhelming.

Generally an apt descriptor for when you wake up with less limbs than when you started. It was simply too much for the young woman to handle, or process. Too many thoughts all crying out at once, vying for both attention and answers but with none to be found.

Where are my arms?

I'm scared.

Where am I?

I'm sorry.

You don't have a name.

What do I look like?

Help me.​

That woman, that Sith came back. Her captor, tormentor and defiler. Oh yes, the Mandalorian was afraid, of course she was, this woman had inflicted naught but horrors upon her thus far...but, but in the same breath she didn't want to be alone. Not now. Everything was so wrong, so disorientating, so confusing that being alone gave way to to more rampant panicked thoughts.

She looked to the Sith, eyes seeing more detail than ever before and yet with a mind so muddled that she didn't know how to feel. Sam Rodarch would have been furious, would have broke furniture and teeth at the very concept of being called sweetie and told to calm down. Sam Rodarch would have sworn vengeance and fire at the Sith who had tortured and mutilated her. But she didn't.

Confusion was writ large upon her face, the benefits of those extensive changes not really sinking in as a pure positive at that point in time. It was difficult to absorb much of the Sith's attempted comfort, but still, somehow it helped.

Calm might not have been the word, but at the very least the young woman's verbal commotion had ceased.

When the hand came to rest upon her cheek she spoke, of all the thoughts and questions that swirled and begged to be made and asked, a single statement burst forth from her vocabulator. Pathetic in nature but held firm in truth.

“Don't leave...”

---

[member="Darth Imperia"]

 

[Darth Imperia]

"I won't. Of course I won't leave. You have my word, dear. I will be here for so long as you need me to be, understood?"

The Apprentice's tone contained not the barest hint of mocking, not a single trace of bile or venom. Her voice was motherly, concerned and empathetic, all of which were, of course, things that the Acolyte was normally not. But even the cruelest of winters had their pleasant days - and the cold wasn't always bitter. The young Sith took a seat by the table upon which her new toy was bound, taking care to remain within Rodarch's field of vision.

"Now, shortly, you're going to be released. I need you to stay as calm as you can, and not do anything violent, understood?" The Acolyte tinted a couple of key phrases in that sentence with some subtle Force Persuasion, just in case. She had no doubt that the girl was malleable, mentally speaking, but there wasn't any reason to take chances. "Before that, however, I can answer some of the questions you're no doubt asking yourself. I don't intend to hurt you any more, I promise you that - in fact, if you'll simply cooperate with me, I'm sure you'll find I can be quite pleasant. So please, ask your questions. I want to make this transition as painless as possible."

---

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Perhaps her lack of clarity was a blessing. It was a situation that went beyond the peculiar especially considering their relationship to this point, what with the kidnapping, the psychological torture and the graphic mutilation. The tenderness seemed to come out of the left field, as if the young woman wasn't disoriented enough, or perhaps that was the point.

Still, the relief and even gratitude of not being left alone could not be denied, even considering the company. Fear sought and fed off of solitude and it was very plain to see that she was a woman both frightened and vulnerable.

The clockwork heart beat within her chest and perfect rhythmic breathing sat contrary to the internal panic that surged through her head and that was still shown on what was left of her face. In itself the sensation was a horror, emotions not really one to take to the practical applications of such. It was as if her body was no longer her own. How much of it was even still hers?

Stay as calm as you can.

Not do anything violent.

Requests that seemed to be very much conflicting with the scenario and who she was, and yet still the shockboxer understood, not questioning the requested compliance by the Sith.

Having a head bursting with frantic questions, it was hard not to let all the words come out at once. Some seemed to have simple answers that she could have deduced if she were in a better state of mind, but when given the opportunity to ask, there was only one that had to be asked.

“Why me?”

---

[member="Darth Imperia"]

 

[Darth Imperia]

The Apprentice's smile shrank just a bit as Rodarch asked her question. Why her? Really, there wasn't an answer beyond "because you were a convenient target." But that simply wasn't an acceptable answer. She needed, after all, to gain her victim's loyalty, not convince her that the Acolyte was utterly unhinged.

The fact that she was utterly unhinged was irrelevant, anyway.

The Sithling quickly went over what she knew about the girl - she had an addiction to stims, and probably not the high quality sort, if the sort of place she fought and the paltry sums she won were any indication. Her life was going nowhere, she was filling her body with poison. No bright prospects for the future, in all likelihood. The Acolyte's smile grew once more. She knew what she was going to say. Her metallic hand reached down to touch Rodarch's own, which she grasped ever so gently.

"Dear, I was doing you a favor - I know you don't quite understand that right now, but I promise that it's the truth. You're a fierce and ferocious fighter, and a warrior such as you deserves a better life than what you had - living from fight to fight, pumping yourself full of cheap stims to dull the pain. I've made you stronger, more durable, a better fighter all around - and if you'll only accept my offer, I can provide you with a home - and with purpose. The chance to fight for something greater than yourself, to be a part of something more."

---

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

 

[Sam Rodarch]

When the Sith's hand touched her own there was an initial desire to pull away, a small flinch even. A natural reaction given to what happened when the woman laid hands on her prior. However, this touch was a tender one, directly conflicting with the materials of their limbs.

It was funny. The shockboxer had never considered that her life was in a low place. Oh yeah, she called it surviving. It was rough. Full of aches and pains, making enough to live but never enough to progress.

Said out loud it was a bitter pill to swallow. Mostly because it was true.

However, in her current state the woman wasn't about to mount the defensive about her lifestyle. It was just a layer of misery spread across the panic, and the fact of the matter forced the woman to squeeze her eyes shut, the remains of her natural face tight with pain, but that wasn't everything...

A positive notion, an offer.

Promises of things that she couldn't have even guaranteed herself. At what cost? What if she said no? Those two questions were soft, muted and so far in the background noise of her mind that they didn't even register.

“What offer?”

---

[member="Darth Imperia"]

 

[Darth Imperia]

The Acolyte's smile widened. Everything was going according to plan - she'd broken down her quarry, and, as always, the victim had accepted the first offer of support that presented itself. In this case, the offer came from the tormentor, of course, but she'd found that that mattered less than one might think.

"Serve me," began the Apprentice, still gently clasping the mandalorian's hand in her own. "Stand by my side. Destroy my enemies, protect me and my allies. Do these things, my dear, and do them well, and I swear to you that I will never hurt you again." From a purely objective standpoint, that promise was, to use a technical term, utter bollocks. But the Apprentice herself believed it to be true - after all, was it really hurting someone, if it made them stronger, better than what they were before? Well, yes, it was. But that was beside the point. The point was that she offered her victim a better life.

What the Acolyte considered a better life, at any rate. Serving one's betters was the best most people could hope for, after all. Not her though, of course. She was destined for far greater things.

---

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Well, it was a purpose, in fact more purpose than the shockboxer had ever known.

This time the offer of servitude was on a far more appealing platter than before. Thoughts were not very well recollected however, and the young woman could scarcely place together the pieces that would remember who put her in this position in the first place, and why.

Such little details were so evasive when you woke up with less organic body parts then before. Priorities.

Still, muted within the back of her mind there was a small voice and it was pissed. Behind every other single thought and existence there was violence. Sam Rodarch would have had some very short, choice words to return in the face of that offer, words that would have been accompanied by blood, spit and vinegar. Also very gratuitous swearing. Can a voice in your head punch things?

However upon that table did not seem to lay Sam Rodarch. Oh, she was in there somewhere, but on the surface there was only this panicked and disorientated creature that couldn't put two-and-two together to make out her situation.

Finally the woman opened her eyes once more, still taken aback by the quality of vision that had been granted to her. There were several blinks, as if it might have cleared up the excess of clarity. It was something that she would have to get used to...

“...I will.”

...there a lot of things that she would have to get used to.

---

[member="Darth Imperia"]