Private That's All [Complete]

[Katarine Ryiah]

Just as I thought it was going alright


​

Location: Unknown

She woke to darkness that breathed. Not true darkness, there was light somewhere, thin and invasive, pulsing behind her eyelids, but it felt heavy, pressing in on her skull. Katarine Ryiah groaned softly and immediately regretted it. Pain flared hot and sharp, a vice tightening around her temples. Her stomach rolled, a sick, floating sensation dragging her awareness back into her body far too quickly.

Drugs.

The thought surfaced with uncomfortable clarity.

Her lashes fluttered. The world swam into fractured focus, blurred shapes, sterile whites, the low hum of machinery that vibrated through her bones. Each breath tasted wrong. Chemical. Clean. Not air meant for living things.

Memory came in pieces.

Lothal....Dust on her boots. The Force uneasy, whispering warnings she hadn't fully understood.

Her breath hitched.

Daxium.

No. Not him. Something wearing his face.

The echo of that moment slammed into her chest: the way her heart had leapt with instinctive relief before twisting into dread, the way the Force around him had felt… wrong. Hollow in places. Too sharp in others. A reflection without depth. An imposter. A lie sculpted perfectly enough to hurt.

Her eyes snapped open. White ceiling. Too bright. Too close. Panic surged and stopped short. She tried to move. Nothing happened. Cold pressure circled her wrists. Ankles. Chest. Katarine looked down slowly, nausea spiking as realization set in. Restraints. Stark and unforgiving, pinning her to a hospital bed. Thin bands of metal and synthfiber bit into her skin, humming faintly with energy dampeners she could feel even through the fog in her mind.

The Force was there, but muted. Like reaching through thick water.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She tested the bindings again, more carefully this time, forcing herself to breathe through the pounding in her head. The room stayed stubbornly still. Machines beeped in steady, indifferent rhythms, monitoring her like a specimen rather than a person.

Whoozy. Helpless. Drugged.

Captured.

Katarine swallowed, throat dry, and stared up at the ceiling as the truth settled over her in cold waves. Whatever had taken her from Lothal hadn't done so by accident. And whoever wore her brother's face had been the beginning, not the end, of this nightmare.

"She's awake."

The voice sounded far off. She tried to turn her head but it was impossible to see that far at this angle.

"Give her another dose... The master wants her asleep for now."

She opened her cracked lips to protest but before she could the liquid from the iv ran through her arm and she drifted off to sleep.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

I found out I'm wrong when I thought I was right

​

Sleep took her sideways.

Not gently, nothing about this was gentle, but like a tide slipping under a door, cool and inevitable. The drugs pulled Katarine down into darkness again, her thoughts loosening, the ache in her skull dulling until it became distant, unreal.

She knew it was a dream the moment the ground shifted beneath her feet.

It wasn't dramatic. No sudden fall, no sharp break. Just the subtle, unmistakable wrongness of it, the way the horizon breathed, the way the light bent without a source. The Force flowed too smoothly here, like silk drawn through water. Dreams always carried that softness, that quiet distortion.

Katarine was walking.

Her boots made no sound. The terrain beneath her feet changed with every step, stone to sand to smooth durasteel and back again, but she couldn't say where she was. Not Lothal. Not anywhere she recognized. The sky above was a wash of color that refused to settle into a single hue, as though it couldn't decide what planet it belonged to.

She slowed, uncertainty curling in her chest.

"This isn't real," she murmured, more to steady herself than anything else.

The Force answered, not with warning, but with warmth.

Ahead of her, the air shimmered.

At first she thought it was light reflecting strangely, but then the shimmer gathered, drawing inward, shaping itself into something familiar. A figure stepped forward, translucent but whole, as if the dream itself had made room for her.

An elderly woman stood there, tall and graceful despite the years etched softly into her face. Her hair was silver, worn loose around her shoulders, her posture relaxed in a way that spoke of long-earned peace. She wore simple robes, not Jedi, something older, quieter. Her eyes were bright, kind… and impossibly knowing.

She smiled. Not the polite smile of a stranger. The smile of someone who had been waiting.

Katarine's breath caught.

"I..." Her voice faltered. The Force surged around her heart, recognition blooming without memory to anchor it. "I know you."

The woman's smile deepened. "Yes," she said gently. Her voice felt like home, like a lullaby half-remembered. "You do."

Katarine took a hesitant step forward. "That's not possible. I only met my grandmother once. I was a baby. I don't remember her face."

"You don't remember with your mind," the woman replied, lifting a hand. Light passed through her fingers like mist. "But you remember with everything else."

Understanding struck Katarine hard enough to sting her eyes.

"Isaline Ryiah?" she whispered.

The Force ghost inclined her head, pride and tenderness flickering across her expression. "Katarine Ryiah," she said, savoring the name. "You have carried so many questions for so long."

Emotion tightened Katarine's throat. "Why are you here?"

The woman stepped closer, her presence strengthening, the dream stabilizing around them. "Because you are lost child. Because you are hurting. And because you need to remember who you are."

Katarine swallowed. "I don't know if I can."

Her grandmother's gaze softened, fierce and loving all at once. "You already are," she said. "The Force does not make you whole, Katarine. It only reflects what was already there."

She reached out, resting a ghostly hand over Katarine's heart. Warmth spread through her chest, steadying, anchoring.

"Wake when you must," her grandmother murmured. "But while you dream, listen. I have much to show you."

The shifting world stilled, then suddenly vanished in a wisp of smoke. Katarine's eyes were closed as she slept on the hospital bed, but softly she whispered in her sleep.

"Grandma."

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

It's always the same, it's just a shame, that's all


​

The garden unfolded around them as if answering a memory.

Stone paths emerged beneath Katarine's feet, pale and smooth, bordered by low flowering shrubs and carefully tended trees. The air was warmand soft with humidity and the faint scent of water and blossoms. Sunlight filtered through broad leaves overhead, scattering gold across marble benches and quiet pools.

Katarine slowed.

"I know this place," she said, awe threading her voice.

Her grandmother smiled, walking beside her as though her feet truly touched the ground. "Of course you do."

"The Naboo enclave," Katarine murmured. "The temple gardens." Her chest tightened, not with pain this time, but with a wistful ache. "I studied here as a Padawan. During the High Republic. I used to walk these paths when my thoughts became too loud."

The Force here was gentle, alive in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. It hummed through flowering vines and curved stone alike, patient and steady. Safe.

Her grandmother glanced at her, eyes thoughtful. "Do you remember why you became a Jedi, Katarine?"

The question seemed simple enough. Katarine didn't hesitate. "To help people," she said. "To protect them. To ease suffering."

Her grandmother stopped walking. Katarine did too, turning back, confusion flickering across her face.

"That is what Jedi become," her grandmother said softly. "Not why you began."

Katarine frowned, searching her memories. "Isn't that the same thing?"

The older woman shook her head gently. "No. And you have always known that, even if you buried it beneath duty and discipline."

They resumed walking. The path curved ahead of them, the garden deepening, shadows and light weaving together.

"You wanted a life," her grandmother continued. "Your own life. One not written in blood or prophecy. One not defined by fear."

Katarine's steps faltered.

"You and your brother endured darkness too young," the woman said, not accusing, simply naming truth. "A cult that taught you that choice was an illusion and destiny a cage. You were children who learned survival before safety."

Katarine's hands curled at her sides. "I didn't mean to leave him," she said quietly. "I never wanted to..."

"I know," her grandmother interrupted gently. "This was never about abandoning your brother."

They stopped beside a pool of clear water. Katarine stared into it and saw not her reflection, but flickers of memory, narrow halls lit by candles, whispered doctrines, the weight of being watched.

"You chose the Jedi," her grandmother said, "because they offered you something no one else had: the chance to choose who you would become."

Katarine swallowed hard.

"You wanted to escape the darkness," the woman went on. "Not destroy it. Not redeem it. Simply… step out of its shadow. You wanted space to breathe. To exist without being bound to someone else's will."

The water rippled.

"From the very beginning," her grandmother said, placing a hand over Katarine's, "you were a soul determined to walk your own path."

Katarine looked up, eyes shining. "Then why does it feel like I've lost it?"

Her grandmother's expression softened, but there was steel beneath the kindness. "Because paths chosen freely are never smooth. They bend. They break. They disappear for a time. She gestured to the garden around them. "Even here, every stone was laid after the ground was cleared. Every flower planted where something else once grew."

Katarine exhaled shakily. "My path feels… rocky. Uncertain. Like I don't know where it's leading anymore."

Her grandmother met her gaze, unwavering. "That does not mean it isn't yours."

The garden stirred around them, leaves rustling, light shifting.

"You are not failing, Katarine Ryiah," she said. "You are standing at a place where choice matters again. You have always compared yourself to the others. You have always wanted to be of the same caliber of Hawk Hinata, Bethany Kismet, Romi Jade , Valery Noble or Caltin Vanagor - RIP , but you are not them. You feel your past is too convoluted to carry you forward. You believe it holds you back from having the story you want and the path you need to walk."

Her grandmother sat on a stone bench and gently patted the open area beside her. Katarine joined her and the two women sat side by side, watching the birds dip and dive through the beautiful garden.

"Your past is not the reason you never rise to greatness Katarine. It is your present that keeps you from that. You isolate yourself. You do not make the connections with the other Jedi you need. Even now, for months, you have been pushing Connel Vanagor away, the only person you truly know in this new era."

Katarine's face fell and her hair formed a blanket around her, hiding the guilty and disappointed lines of her frown.

"I feel so out of place in this galaxy. I do not know where I belong."

"That is because you focus too much on your inner turmoil and your past. You feel too deeply and go against the Jedi teachings. You've formed an attachment to the life you used to live and until you can let that go and embrace a new path you will never find your footing."

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

I could say day, and you'd say night

​

Sound came first slow, rhythmic beeping, steady and distant. Beneath it lurked something softer, a faint hiss that rose and fell like breath drawn through machinery.

She blinked, consciousness surfacing in reluctant waves. Light stabbed at her eyes, and she hissed in pain, squeezing them shut again. Every muscle ached now, a deep, honest soreness that told her the drugs flooding her system were meant to restrain, not comfort.

Footsteps followed, slow, shuffling, deliberate, as someone entered the room. She felt them through the Force, a dim presence pressed flat and muffled, as though her senses were wrapped in thick fabric. The Force was still there… but distant, unreachable, just beyond her grasp.

“Whose there?”

She heard a raspy chuckle. “I thought patience was a Jedi virtue?” A series of wet hacking coughs followed this statement, as if whoever was speaking had long lost the battle against lung cancer. The voice was not familiar to Katarine.

She strained to turn her head but it was futile. Her restraints were tight and kept her with little motion. Her companion did not seem to want to prolong the mystery however because a few moments latter the bed was rising into a sitting position, giving Katarine a view of the room instead of just the ceiling.

The same slow shuffling sounded until a woman appeared before her. Kats first instinct was to gasp as the grizzly sight met her eyes. The woman was withered and aging. Her red hair was long, lanky, and falling out leaving huge bald patches. Her eyes were cold and alert but her smile was full of brown rotting teeth. This ancient hag looked as if she belonged in a morgue, rather than a makeshift hospital room. Despite the withered and broken husk, something in the eyes was familiar to Katarine.

Another gasp.

“It can’t be…”

“Oh I assure you it’s me. Lord Grimm may not be good for much but he’s managed to keep me alive.” She started hacking again, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from her mouth. “Or at least some semblance of alive.”

Lady Sinistra could not possibly be alive. She had kidnapped the Ryiah twins centuries ago. How was this possible?

“What do you want?” Kat’s voice was a whisper but it contained a raw edge she rarely used.

“Now now. Is that any way to greet your aunty?”

“What?” The Jedi Masters deep green eyes widened at the revelation. After all this time… the person who killed her own parents … who kidnapped her and Daxium… who tortured them into the darkside…. Was family?

Her blood started to pump faster, pushing the drugs through her system until her eyelids felt heavy and sleep claimed her once again

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Tell me it's black, when I know that it's white

​

The dream world coalesced in wisps of silver smoke, but Katarine's impatient green eyes barely spared it a glance. She searched instead, desperately, for Isaline.

The shimmer of light thickened, drew together, and at last took the shape of her grandmother. Isaline's expression was soft, knowing, and unbearably gentle.

"Is it true?" Katarine demanded at once, her voice dropping to a frightened whisper.

"Yes," Isaline said quietly. "I'm afraid it is. Lady Sinistra is your mother's sister. She is your aunt."

Katarine sank onto a nearby bench, shaking her head as if the motion alone might dislodge the truth. "How could someone do that?" she whispered. "To their own sister?"

Isaline's smile faded into something sadder, heavier. "You know as well as I do," she said, "that darkness does not obey the limits of logic, or love."

"Does Daxium know?"

"I think he suspects and, that is why Sinistra has always had such a hold on him. She is a mother figure to him."

"Only because she killed his real mother!" Katarine stood up, her fists clenched, breathing hard.

"I know she did, dear." Isaline was patient, poised, and watched Katarine with steady eyes. "She killed my son too."

Katarine took a deep breath and sat down. She hadn't stopped to think that Isaline missed her parents just as much as she did. "I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize, child. Your story has always been so closely tied the events of your past. In many ways you truly belong in a different era."

"Tell me about it." Katarine snorted. "But I'm stuck here."

"You don't have to be."

"What do you mean?"

"There may be a way for you to return to your own timeline. But it will be dangerous."

"Tell me."

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Always the same, it's just a shame and that's all


​

Cold came first.

Not the sharp kind, no, this was a dull, soaking chill that crept into Katarine Ryiah's bones and refused to let go. Stone pressed against her back. The air tasted old, metallic, wrong. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, like they'd been glued shut by exhaustion and pain.

She shifted with a low, confused sound, breath hitching as awareness tried to stitch itself together. Muscles protested. Her head throbbed in slow, ugly pulses. Where…? The question drifted without an answer, slipping away before it could anchor.

Darkness. Silence. The faint hum of something unseen.

Then it hit her.

A flash of memory tore through the fog, rotting flesh held together by hate and will alone, skin drawn tight over something no longer human, eyes burning with a fanatic's devotion. Lady Sinistra. Not as she had been… but as she was now. Grotesque. Half-dead. Still powerful.

Katarine gasped and jolted upright.

The world snapped into focus with brutal clarity. Cold durasteel walls. A narrow cell. Energy bars humming faintly inches from her face.
And beyond them, Daxium.

He leaned casually against the bars, arms folded, posture loose in a way that didn't reach his eyes. The glow from the field caught sharp lines across his face, casting half of it in shadow. He'd clearly been there for a while, watching. Waiting.

His gaze met hers immediately, steady and unreadable.

"Hey, Kat," he said quietly, voice low, almost gentle. "Took you long enough."

Her heart slammed against her ribs, fear and relief colliding so hard it stole her breath. The Force between them stirred—an old, familiar pull, frayed but unbroken.

"Daxium…?" she whispered, pushing herself closer to the bars, hands trembling as reality settled in.

His expression softened just a fraction.

"Yeah," he replied. "You're not dreaming."

The cell hummed on around them, cold and unforgiving, but for a moment, all Katarine could see was her brother standing on the other side of the cage, and the terrible certainty that whatever Lady Sinistra had planned… it wasn't over yet.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

I could leave, but I won't go


​

Katarine groaned and pushed herself upright, cradling her head in her hands. Every pulse of pain was a reminder of whatever drugs they'd used on her. She heard the cell door open but didn't look up, the light was already punishing enough.

Someone sat beside her. A shoulder brushed hers. Moments later, a cool bottle pressed gently into her palm.

She sighed, accepted it, and took a slow sip, keeping her eyes down.

They sat like that for a moment, shoulder to shoulder. When she'd stalled long enough, Katarine finally glanced sideways, deep green eyes meeting his sulfur ones.

"What are you doing here, Dax?"

His jaw tightened. He looked away, resting his head against the stone.

"I'm helping Lady Sinistra."

"I figured."

"I owe her," he said quietly. "She found me. She brought me back."

Katarine's expression softened. "I didn't realize freezing myself would hurt you too. I'm sorry."

He scoffed. "You don't get to be sorry. Everything you do hurts me."

She studied his face, measuring the anger there, contained, but not fully unleashed.

"What does she want?"

"The same thing she's always wanted," he replied. "Us."

"Us?" Katarine's voice sharpened. "She murdered our parents, Dax. She dragged us into dark side rituals before we could spell our own names. That's not help, it's abuse."

"You still don't get it," he snapped. "She gave us purpose."

"She gave us trauma."

He surged to his feet. "You're one to talk about running from things. You abandoned your family. You abandoned your destiny."

"I rejected it," Katarine shot back. "There's a difference. I don't want the future she planned for us. I never did."

"And that makes you better than me?" he snarled. "You ran off to play Jedi while I stayed and survived."

"Lady Sinistra is a murderer," Katarine said flatly. "And you're letting her use you."

"I already know you want nothing to do with me!" he shouted, turning away and stalking to the edge of the cell.

Katarine rose unsteadily and crossed the short distance between them. "I never wanted to lose you," she said softly. "I want you in my life. I just don't want to live her life." She stepped into his space and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her forehead to his chest. After a moment, he exhaled and returned the embrace, his hand brushing through her hair like muscle memory.

"Then why won't you come home?" he asked. "Why won't you let us be a family again?"

She pulled back just enough to look at him. "Because we were never a family. She killed our parents and raised us as tools. That isn't love."

"Stop." He shoved her away and slammed his fist into the wall. Katarine sank back down against the stone, knees drawn tight.

"You never even tried to know her," he said bitterly. "You bolted the second you had the chance. And for what? The Jedi?" He laughed harshly. "They steal children too, Katarine. They just call it 'tradition.'"

"I never said the Jedi were innocent," she replied quietly. "I said I wanted a choice."

He dropped down beside her with a huff. "You got one. And look where it led." His gaze cut toward her. "Frozen. Forgotten. Abandoned."

"That wasn't the Jedi," she said. "That was one person."

"One person was enough," he shot back. "Enough to break you."

"Stop it." She whispered pleadingly and buried her head in her hands.

"No. You chose the pirate, and what did it get you? Did you get your happily ever after with James Terran?" She snarled the name as if it was the filthiest curse word his mind could think

Katarine winced at her husband's name and wrapped her arms around her waist. She could feel a hole opening up in her chest, the way it always did when she thought of James.

Dax looked guilty, but he kept on. "Your choices don't seem to do much for your life Katarine. You talk about me being misguided in my life but at least I wasn't left before my honeymoon even started."

"It could be different with someone else." She sounded like she had a head cold and Dax knew he'd brought her to tears. He did not feel like in indulging them however so instead he snorted.

"What with Connel Vanagor ? In case you hadn't noticed your choices chased him away too."

"What did you do, read my diary?" She snapped at him.

He shrugged. "It's my job to keep tabs on you."

"Oh well that is a real test of your talent. At least Lady Sinistra is putting you to good use!" She stood up and stormed away from him, glancing at the open door of the cell before picking up her water bottle again.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was trying for patience. "Look, I don't want to fight anymore." He stood up and folded his arms, watching her.

"I don't either." She turned to face him, her long two-toned hair softly moving with the motion. "So you need to decide right now Daxium. Are you going to let me live my life and drop this nonsense or not?"

He glared at her. "I can't. I'm sorry." His jaw was set, his eyes hard.

"Then so am I."

With a quick fling, she threw the rest of her waterbottle on the ground and summoned the Force. The next second the water turned to flame, creating a line dividing the back of the cell where he stood and the front where she stood.

"Katarine!" He hissed at her, but she was already out of the cell door, rushing towards the stone steps.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Though my heart might tell me so


​

Katarine didn't look back.

Her boots slapped against stone as she took the steps two at a time, the cold seeping straight through the soles and into her bones. The walls were rough-hewn, ancient, real stone, not durasteel dressed up to look rustic. Moisture clung to the air, sharp and mineral, and her breath fogged faintly with each exhale.

Underground, she realized. Deep underground.

That explained the chill. The silence too.

She reached the top of the stairwell and slowed, forcing herself to breathe evenly despite the lingering haze in her head. Whatever they'd given her still made the edges of the world swim, but fear was a better anchor than any stimulant. She let it sharpen her focus.

Hangar. Exit. Ventilation shafts. Anything.

She moved down a branching corridor, one hand skimming the wall as she walked, sending faint ripples of awareness through the Force. The stone was old, older than the cult itself. She felt echoes embedded in it: chanting, suffering, devotion twisted into ritual. Her stomach tightened.

A heavy door loomed ahead, taller than the others, its surface etched with circular sigils she didn't want to look at too closely. Cold air spilled from beneath it, carrying a low hum, mechanical, steady, alive.

Not a hangar.

Still… it was something.

She pressed her palm to the door and pushed.

It opened soundlessly.

The chamber beyond stole the breath from her lungs.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

I can't feel a thing from my head down to my toes


​

It was vast and cathedral-sized, the ceiling lost in shadow. Pale blue light glowed from dozens… no, hundreds of cylindrical tanks arranged in concentric rings. They floated from floor to ceiling, suspended by unseen fields, each one filled with softly swirling liquid.

Bodies drifted inside them.

Some were unmistakably clones, identical faces, identical builds, eyes closed in eerie synchronicity. Others were different. Older. Younger. Some human, some not. Some whole. Some very much not.

Tubes threaded into spines and skulls. Machinery cradled limbs. The hum she'd heard pulsed through the room like a synthetic heartbeat.

Katarine staggered forward a step, bile rising in her throat.

"Oh no…" she whispered.

She reached out with the Force, and recoiled.

They weren't dead.

They weren't fully alive either.

They were… paused. Held. Preserved in a state that made her skin crawl, like the galaxy itself was holding its breath.

"Looking for an exit?" Dax's voice echoed behind her.

She spun, hand snapping up on instinct, but he was already there, standing at the threshold, eyes reflecting the blue glow. He looked smaller in this room, diminished somehow by the enormity of what surrounded them.

Her voice came out hoarse. "What is this?"

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he walked past her, boots ringing softly on the stone, gaze drifting over the tanks with something dangerously close to reverence.

"Insurance," he said at last. "Preparation."

Katarine's hands curled into fists. "Preparation for what?"

"For the future," he replied. "For when bodies fail. When bloodlines end. When the Force demands continuity."

She turned slowly, staring at the nearest tank. The face inside it was hers.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

But why does it always seem to be


​

The faces weren't exact copies. Not exactly, but close enough to make her knees weaken. Same jaw. Same cheekbones. Same scars etched around her neck, reproduced with chilling precision. She wasn't the only face floating, there were others, but her own eyes were locked on the features that so mirrored hers.

Her breath hitched. "Those are.."

"Templates, Strandcasts" Dax said. "Vessels. Some are improved. Some are backups." He finally looked at her. "Some are experiments that didn't quite work."

She swallowed hard. "You're cloning people."

"Yes."

"Us," she corrected sharply.

He didn't deny it.

Katarine took a shaky step backward, suddenly very aware of how small she was in this place. "This is wrong," she said. "This isn't survival, Dax. It's desecration."

"She's trying to perfect the process," he insisted. "To make sure the dyad can never be lost again. When you abandoned us, she realized how easily our family could be broken."

Katarine laughed, a broken, disbelieving sound. "You think this is about family?" She gestured wildly at the chamber. "She's stockpiling bodies like weapons!"

"She's ensuring we'll never be powerless again," he snapped.

She turned on him then, tears burning hot behind her eyes. "By trapping people in glass coffins? By turning identity into a resource?"

He hesitated. Just for a second.

It was enough.

Her voice dropped, deadly quiet. "What happens to the originals when one of these is needed?"

Dax was silent, and couldn't meet his sister's eyes.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Me lookin' at you, you lookin' at me?


​

She took another step back, already searching the room for exits, vents, anything she could sabotage. "Tell me, Dax," she went on, eyes never leaving his. "Am I looking at my replacements… or my graves?"

He moved toward her, reaching out. "Kat..."

"Don't." She raised her hand, Force coiling tight around her like a blade. The drugs were still suppressing her strength in the Force, but her face was determined. "Don't come any closer."

The hum of the chamber seemed to grow louder, the tanks pulsing in uneasy rhythm.

Somewhere deep in the stone, alarms began to stir.

And Katarine knew, with bone-deep certainty, that whatever way out she found....

She was not leaving this place quietly.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

It's always the same, it's just a shame, that's all

​

The first alarm shriek cut through the chamber like a blade.

Red light bled into the blue glow, washing the floating tanks in a sickly violet as warning sigils ignited along the walls. Katarine felt it ripple through the Force immediately, systems waking, defenses orienting, attention snapping toward her like a predator scenting blood.

Dax cursed under his breath. "You shouldn't have come in here."

She shot him a look, backing toward a narrow maintenance catwalk that curved along the outer ring of the chamber. "You locked me in a nightmare and you're surprised I woke it up?"

The floor shuddered. Somewhere above them, massive doors began to grind open, gears protesting after long disuse.

Katarine closed her eyes for half a heartbeat and reached out, not gently this time. She pushed against the machinery, flooding it with interference, forcing conduits to misfire. Glass tanks chimed softly in protest, the liquid inside sloshing as stabilizers struggled to compensate.

"Kat, stop!" Dax shouted. "You don't know what you'll destabilize!"

"That's the point."

She twisted her wrist and a console near the catwalk exploded in a shower of sparks. The hum fractured, stuttering like a heart skipping beats. One of the tanks flickered, just for a moment, and the body inside it twitched.

Katarine's breath caught. Horror sharpened her resolve.

Footsteps thundered into the chamber, robed figures spilling in from side corridors, faces masked, weapons already raised. Cultists. Guardians. Whatever Lady Sinistra called them now.

Dax moved without thinking, stepping in front of Katarine, his blade igniting with a violent snap-hiss. The black glow carved a line through the chaos. He reached out through the Force and grabbed her throat, lifting her off her feet and squeezing tightly until she saw stars.

"I'm sorry" he whispered, before the world went black once more.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Turnin' me on, turnin' me off


​

Darkness didn't fall this time.

It opened.

Katarine drifted into it like sinking beneath still water, no pain, no weight, just the distant echo of her own pulse. The alarms, the chamber, Dax's hand around her throat all faded into a dull, muted thrum, as if remembered from very far away.

Then warmth touched her.

Sunlight filtered in through leaves she couldn't see, dappling the ground in gold and green. The cold stone was gone, replaced by soft earth beneath her bare feet. The air smelled of rain and wildflowers and something old, comfortingly, achingly familiar.

"Katarine."

She turned.

Her grandmother stood a few paces away, hands folded at her waist, the way she always did when she wanted to be taken seriously but didn't want to frighten anyone. Her hair was silver white now, braided down her back, her lined face kind and steady in a way Katarine had not felt in a very long time.

Katarine's chest tightened. She took a step forward, then another, until she was standing right in front of her. The Force hummed here, soft and expansive, not pulling at her, not demanding, just present.

Finally, the tears started to spill. The horror of what she had just witnessed engulfed her, and she fell into her grandmother's waiting arms like a small girl seeking comfort from a mother.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Making me feel like I want too much


​

The light came first.

Too bright. Too absolute. A single white glare burned down from directly overhead.

Katarine Ryiah woke with a sharp inhale, her body reacting before her thoughts could catch up. Pain followed immediately, cold, exacting, intense, and unavoidable. Metal restraints bit into her wrists. Her ankles were locked in place. A broad band across her chest held her flat against a narrow bed that hummed faintly beneath her, mechanical and wrong.

This was not the Temple.

The smell confirmed it, antiseptic air layered with ozone and something faintly organic beneath it. She turned her head as far as the restraints allowed. White walls curved upward without seams or windows. There was no warmth here, no healer's presence in the Force, only suppression.

Containment.

A shadow broke the light.

"Well," a familiar voice said smoothly, "you woke sooner than I expected."

Katarine's breath caught.

Lady Sinistra stood at the foot of the bed, her dark robes immaculate, posture relaxed, almost fond. She looked perfectly at ease beneath the harsh illumination, as though the room existed for her alone. Despite her ease her body was decaying and grotesque, making Kat's stomach churn.

And beside the red-haired aging woman was Daxium.

Katarine froze.

Daxium stood just behind Sinistra's shoulder, close enough that their shadows overlapped. He looked thinner than Katarine remembered, his expression distant, his presence muted yet achingly familiar. When his gaze finally lifted to hers, the connection snapped into place.

The dyad flared.

Emotion flooded through her. Katarine's pulse spiked as the shared current settled into a painful hum between them.

Lady Sinistra smiled, satisfied.

"Yes," she murmured. "Still there."

Katarine strained against the restraints, anger cutting through the haze. "Get away from him!"

Sinistra only tilted her head, indulgent. "I know," she replied gently. "I know this looks horrible. Especially now that you've seen the tanks."

The word landed like a blow.

"Tanks?"

The memory rushed back, towering glass cylinders, bodies suspended in glowing fluid, the Force echoing from them in muffled, distorted cries. Katarine's jaw tightened. "You're sick," she said.

Sinistra's expression softened, not with remorse, but with something closer to pride. "That's what people say when they don't understand creation," she said. "What you and Daxium share is not an ordinary dyad. The Jedi use that word because it lets them avoid the truth."

She stepped closer, heels clicking softly against the floor.

"You don't mirror each other," Sinistra continued. "You're not two halves."

Her gaze moved between the twins.

"You are one."

Katarine's breath faltered as the words resonated painfully within her, echoing in the place where Daxium had always existed, too close, too entwined to deny.

"One soul," Sinistra said quietly. "Split across two bodies."

Daxium shifted beside her, uncertainty flickering across his face. When he spoke, his voice was low and conflicted. "Kat… she says if it works, there won't be pain anymore. No separation. No pulling apart. The mutations in our blood… we would be cured."

Katarine met his gaze, her chest tightening at the exhaustion and longing she saw there. "You don't heal a soul by erasing a life," she said.

Sinistra laughed softly. "Oh, Katarine," she said, delighted. "I'm not erasing anything."

She placed a hand against the side of the bed, and the metal vibrated beneath Katarine's spine.

"I'm trying to understand how to merge what was never meant to be separate," Sinistra said.

Her eyes gleamed as she looked from Katarine to Daxium.

"And once I succeed," she added calmly, "only one body will be necessary."

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Livin' with you is just putting me through it all of the time

​

Katarine's breath shook as the words settled into the room.

"What happens then?" she asked. Her voice was strained but steady, pulled tight by fear rather than broken by it. "When you make us one, who will we be?"

For the first time, Lady Sinistra paused.

She regarded Katarine with something like genuine consideration, as though the question pleased her. As though it mattered.

"That," Sinistra said at last, "is the most important part."

She began to pace slowly at the foot of the bed, her footsteps measured, deliberate. "When the merge occurs, there will be a moment of conflict. Two wills, one vessel. Two identities pressing against the same threshold."

Katarine felt the dyad tighten, a sharp pull in her chest as if Daxium felt it too.

"The stronger twin will take precedence," Sinistra continued calmly. "Strength of will. Strength of self. The one who can hold the soul without fracturing it."

Daxium stiffened.

Katarine's fingers curled uselessly against the restraints. "So one of us just… disappears?"

Sinistra turned back to her, eyes bright. "No," she said, almost gently. "That's the tragedy of how the Jedi think. They're obsessed with loss."

She stepped closer, close enough now that Katarine could see her reflection in Sinistra's milky, aged eyes.

"The weaker consciousness does not vanish," Sinistra said. "It binds."

She placed two fingers together, pressing them lightly. "Your souls will fuse. Memories, instincts, emotions, woven together at the deepest level. The dominant twin will guide the body, yes. But the other will still exist. Felt. Heard. Integrated."

Katarine swallowed. The idea made her chest ache.

"You'd be… someone new," Sinistra said, reverent now. "Not Katarine. Not Daxium. A full and whole individual, unburdened by separation, by longing, by that constant tearing sensation you've both lived with since birth."

The room felt smaller.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Runnin' around, staying out all night

​

Katarine could think of nothing to say.

She simply stared at Lady Sinistra, shock rooting her in place, her mind struggling to grasp the enormity of what she had just heard. Sinistra, meanwhile, seemed almost radiant, her pale features lit from within by whatever vision played behind her eyes, as though she were already looking at the future she intended to claim.

Then the glow faltered.

Sinistra's breath hitched. Once. Twice.

A cough tore from her chest, sharp and ragged, quickly collapsing into a wet wheeze. Her hand flew to her sternum, fingers clawing uselessly at the fabric of her robes.

"Sinistra…" Daxium moved instantly.

She swayed, her knees buckling, and he caught her before she could fall. The change was startling up close. Stripped of composure, the woman looked ancient, too thin, too light, her skin drawn tight over fragile bone. Whatever power sustained her, it was failing her now.

These visits… Katarine realized dimly. They're costing her.

"I… need…" Sinistra gasped, clutching at Daxium's tunic. "My… chamber…"

Her grip tightened desperately as another wheeze wracked her body.

Daxium didn't hesitate. He lifted her carefully into his arms, as though she might shatter, and carried her toward the far exit. Within moments, both of them vanished from sight, the doors sealing behind them with a soft, final hiss.

The silence that followed was crushing.

Katarine surged against her restraints, panic and fury flaring together. The metal cuffs held fast. She strained again, harder this time, muscles burning, breath breaking as she fought for leverage that wasn't there.

Nothing.

The straps were too tight. The drugs coursing through her system dulled her senses, blurring her connection to the Force into something distant and unreachable. She cried out once, sharp with frustration, then sagged back against the bed.

She didn't know how long she lay there afterward.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Taking it all instead of taking one bite


​

Time dissolved into light and restraint and the faint hum beneath her spine. Every so often, she struggled again, a reflex more than a plan, until exhaustion forced her still. She stared up at the glaring ceiling, blinking against its unchanging brightness.

Eventually, she felt him before she saw him.

Daxium returned quietly. He sat down beside the bed, close enough that the dyad stirred weakly between them, but he kept his eyes averted, his posture tense, guarded.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

Then Katarine broke it.

"She's lying to you," she said softly. "The reason she needs a strong body is not for us." Her voice steadied as the truth crystallized. "She wants to put her own essence into it. It's been done before."

She watched him carefully.

He stiffened, just barely.

The reaction was enough. She felt it through the bond, the same thought forming in his mind, the same dread he was trying not to acknowledge.

"We have to get out of here," Katarine said urgently. "Please, Daxium."

He swallowed.

"We can't," he replied quietly. "It's too late."

The words settled between them, heavy and final, as the light continued to burn overhead.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

Living with you is just putting me through it all of the time

​

Katarine remained in that place for more than a year.

At first, she learned to survive it.

She showed cooperation, not because she believed in Lady Sinistra's vision, but because resistance only tightened the cage. She answered when spoken to. She followed instructions. She masked her fear and fury behind the same calm discipline the Jedi had drilled into her since childhood. Sinistra watched her closely, measuring every breath, every pause, searching for cracks.

None came easily.

Under Sinistra's supervision, the twins were made to train together again. It was deliberate, controlled, and never without witnesses. Lightsabers returned to their hands. Meditation was enforced, not as healing but as measurement. Sinistra observed their connection with a scholar's hunger, interrupting sessions to ask what they felt, when the dyad surged, when it resisted. Katarine learned to answer carefully, truth wrapped in omission.

Daxium changed during those months. Training beside her reawakened something fierce and familiar in him, but it was threaded with resignation. He obeyed Sinistra not out of loyalty, but out of a belief that the end was already written. Katarine felt it every time their bond brushed against despair.

Privately, she began a different strategy.

Katarine spent as much time as she could in Sinistra's presence outside of training, requesting conversations, asking questions, feigning curiosity about the Mirrorborn, about the process, about the philosophy behind it all. She listened. She nodded. She let Sinistra speak at length, encouraging her to linger longer than she should.

Each visit weakened her.

The decay was subtle at first: a tremor in Sinistra's hands, a tightness in her breathing, a momentary lapse in focus. Over time it became impossible to miss. Katarine learned how long was too long, when to press and when to retreat, how to keep Sinistra engaged without provoking suspicion. If these visits were draining her, then Katarine would make herself indispensable.

Slowly, freedoms followed.

The restraints were loosened, then removed entirely except during procedures. She was allowed to move within certain corridors unescorted. She gained access to shared spaces with Daxium. The walls remained, but the bars blurred just enough to suggest hope.

At night, it all collapsed.

When the doors sealed and the lights dimmed, the weight of captivity crushed down on her. The quiet was unbearable. The hum of the facility crept into her bones. The Force felt distant, muted, as though wrapped in cloth. Some nights she lay rigid and sleepless. Others, she broke.

She cried silently into her pillow, shaking with the effort of keeping the sound in, grief and terror pouring out only when no one could see. She mourned the life stolen from her, the choice narrowing around her brother, the slow ticking certainty of what Sinistra intended to do.

By morning, she always rose composed.

This pattern repeated, day after day, week after week, until time itself became slippery. More than a year passed in careful steps and quiet defiance. Katarine endured, planned, waited.

And through it all, the dyad held, strained, aching, but unbroken.

She clung to that.

Because as long as it remained, the story was not finished.

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

could leave, but I won't go


​

Sinistra decided Katarine was ready.

The realization came to her quietly, the way all her conclusions did, settling into place as certainty rather than doubt. Katarine had learned restraint. Patience. The art of listening without flinching. She asked the right questions now, at the right times, and no longer recoiled when the truth brushed too close.

Understanding, Sinistra believed, required context.

"Katarine needs to see the chamber," she said calmly, as though discussing a lesson long overdue. "She must understand what sacrifice truly means if the dyad is to be merged."

Daxium stiffened beside her.

Sinistra's gaze cut to him, sharp and unyielding. "She knows words. Not reality." Her voice softened, but only slightly. "Take her. Show her. If she is to be whole, she must accept the cost."

Daxium hesitated.

The pause was brief, but it was there, and Katarine felt it through the bond like a held breath. Fear. Guilt. Resistance he no longer believed he was allowed to act on.

Sinistra's tone hardened. "Do it."

Daxium bowed his head. He led Katarine through corridors she had never been permitted to enter before, deeper, colder, the air growing heavier with every step. The hum beneath the floor changed pitch, sinking lower, like a massive creature breathing in its sleep. Katarine said nothing. Her heart pounded, dread tightening around her ribs with every meter they descended.

At last, the doors opened.

The chamber was vast.

Rows upon rows of tall, transparent tanks filled the space, each glowing faintly with sickly light. Inside them floated bodies, motionless, suspended in fluid, their faces pale and slack. Jedi.

Katarine's breath caught.

Some wore the remnants of robes she recognized. Others were stripped down to utilitarian garments, their identities reduced to vessels. Tubes and conduits fed into the tanks, siphoning something far more vital than blood. The Force itself screamed here, low, constant, muffled by stasis but unmistakably alive.

Drained.

Not dead. Not alive.

Held.

Her knees threatened to give out as recognition struck again and again. Masters she had studied under. Knights she had trained beside. Faces from the Temple halls, from missions, from a life that felt impossibly distant now. Some were strangers, but all were Jedi.

Fuel.

Along the back wall, the horror deepened.

Figures were frozen upright in slabs of carbonite, stacked and shelved like stored cargo. Their expressions were locked in moments of fear, defiance, confusion, lives paused mid-breath. Waiting.

Katarine's vision blurred.

She reached out instinctively through the Force, and recoiled. The suppression fields clawed her back, leaving her gasping, tears spilling freely now as the weight of it crushed her.

"This is what sustains her," Daxium said quietly, his voice tight. "This is how she's lived… this long."

Katarine couldn't speak.

Her gaze drifted numbly across the frozen faces, until it stopped and then her heart shattered.

James Terran.

He was there. Preserved in carbonite. His features unmistakable even beneath the metallic sheen. The man she had known. Trusted. Lost.

Here.

All this time.

A sound tore from her throat,half sob, half broken breath. She fell to her knees, sobs wracking through her body with the weight of what she had lost, and what had been taken from her. The the blackness came as the truth finally consumed her.

 

[Daxium Ryiah]

A good soldier follows orders. A great one knows when they're wrong.​

Two days had passed since Daxium had taken Katarine to the chamber.

She still hadn't woken.

The healers, Sinistra's healers, said her body was stable. Her mind, unreachable but intact. Sinistra herself showed no concern. She dismissed Katarine's unconsciousness as shock, as adjustment, as inevitability.

"She will wake when she is ready," Sinistra had said, already turning her attention elsewhere. "Understanding takes time."

Daxium did not share her calm.

He felt it constantly now, a hollow pressure where the dyad should have answered him. Not severed. Just… silent. As if Katarine had curled inward so tightly he could no longer reach her.

And it was his fault.

Alone in his quarters, the misery finally split him open.

The first thing to go was the bookshelf. He struck it with the Force without thinking, sending dataslates and bound volumes crashing to the floor in a violent scatter. He followed it with a roar of rage, pacing like a caged animal, hands shaking.

"Idiot," he snarled to no one. "Coward."

The sink cracked under his fist next, porcelain spiderwebbing as water sprayed uselessly across the room. He didn't feel the pain. He welcomed it. Anything to drown out the memory.

He staggered to the mirror.

The man staring back at him looked older than he felt. Sharper. Harder. His eyes were too bright, rimmed with exhaustion and something darker, something he didn't remember being there before.

When did I become this? he wondered.

A monster.

How could he have done it to her?

Katarine, who had always reached for him, even when the galaxy told her not to. Who had seen him broken, volatile, toxic, and loved him anyway. She had been the only one who ever stayed without fear.
And he had led her into that room.

He pressed both hands to the mirror, forehead resting against the cold surface.

"I just wanted a life," he whispered hoarsely.

He wanted freedom from the poison curse in his veins, from the way his presence twisted outcomes and hurt the people who came too close. From being the man everyone eventually stepped away from for their own safety.

Sinistra's promise had wrapped itself around that desperation perfectly.

When the dyad was merged, she had said, the toxicity would vanish. One soul, stabilized. Whole. He would no longer poison the galaxy simply by existing. He could touch people without fear. Care without consequence.

He could stop being alone.

But then the memory crashed back in on him, vivid and merciless.

Katarine's face in the chamber.

The way all the color had drained from her when she saw the tanks. The way her breath had hitched, her eyes glassing over as recognition turned into horror.

And then,

James Terran.

The moment she had seen him frozen in carbonite, her expression had shattered completely. Not anger. Not defiance.

Just devastation.

Daxium's control finally snapped. A sound tore out of him, raw, broken, animal. He slid down the wall to the floor, fists clenched in his hair as the howl echoed through the empty room.

"I didn't mean to," he choked. "I didn't mean to break you."

But intent didn't matter.

He had chosen his future over her present.

And now, as Katarine lay silent and unmoving somewhere deep in Sinistra's domain, Daxium was left alone with the truth:

If becoming whole required destroying the one person who had ever truly loved him…

Then maybe the monster in the mirror had always been there.