Private The Best is Yet to Come

[Amur]

Carlac. Amur would never thought she would one day find herself back again on this frozen nightmare of planet yet here she was. She was just surprised she managed to sneak past the NIO's defenses and land planet side. Guess she still had some tricks up her worthless sleeves. Hopefully the middle of nowhere in some frozen forest far away from anything of strategic importance would let things pass as a mere anomaly and no threat.

Didn't matter though if they gave a damn. She just needed to be on this planet's soil once more. Her life had degraded into a nonsensical deluge of pain, suffering and loss. It was empty and now she felt less like a sith and more a walking shambling vessel as her feet made indentations onto the thick layer of fluffy snow. The odd crunch could be heard over the howling winds as the snowfall began to pick up. From atmo it look like a nasty storm was on it's way though that was just guess work. She would find out in time. Didn't matter as she walked through the forest letting the currents of the force guide her.

What she was searching for she didn't know. Maybe that was the point.

This place carried memories, old dormant ones that she had tried to keep buried. It wasn't her first visit though in an odd way it was. The trees billowed and swayed occasionally dumping large deposits of snow that built up on their branches. Snow landed on her armor only to quickly melt and form a water layer on it. Amur was warm for now, her suit's climate controls working to maintain a sustainable temperature but just. Extreme winter was always a problem for this armor.

The Sith stopped, listening around and craning her neck as she thought she heard footsteps accompanied by faint laughter only to find herself still alone. Though with the poor visibility it was hard to confirm anything. Still reaching out and sensing through the force confirmed that she was indeed all alone in the forest the only thing to offer companionship was her own thoughts. The one thing she wished she could shove away. They were quiet... for now. There was just a dormant body walking on autopilot, as the Sith couldn't remember much other then she had landed and she was here now. Everything blurred and then faded from memory in an instant even as each moment felt slow and agonizingly intimate.

She felt her phantom limb suddenly explode in pain, false nerves sending spikes of pain to her forcing images and sounds of crushing bone under immense muscle, her vision turning into a total white out, fear and terror accompanying it as her body felt weightless dangling from the missing arm only to intensify the sensations. Mind screaming at her to get away now.

"Squeal for me you wretched pig." Raged into her mind before subsiding, as the white out faded from view. The words of the Gen'dai now hollow and empty as Amur remembered the difference between past and reality. Mygeeto was gone. It was over.

Yet you still haven't moved on have you?​

The thought taunted and pulled at her. She felt remorse creep up her spine as she accepted the truth behind. It bringing the mind reason she was back on the planet that nearly killed her. Perspective. The sith was searching for a chance to maybe see where everything had gone wrong. Perhaps gain some new insight into why she could only ever see herself as a failure... And why she couldn't just let herself drop and end it all.

Spoiler: OOC

This is just a small self thread I've been wanting to do for some character development. Perhaps someone could join later but for now this road shall remain lonesome.

 

[Amur]

She didn't drop though that would have been nice in a way. A succinct full circle. A place where a new her was forged in a moment of extreme heartache, fiery betrayal that was being dredged up now a resting place. Bits of him were coming back to her. The smell of his breath, the cologne he wore, how soft and supple his voice could be while caressing her ears with sweet nothings that were lacing a poison in her. She felt the void in her chest crush at the thought of what he had done to her- NO. That wasn't her anymore. She died strapped to chair and lit on fire, that was it. She was different... She wasn't her.

A heavy sigh came from her helmet. She just wanted to feel something comfort her now. A hug, a kiss, something to lie with anything. She just wanted to be able to go sleep feeling coddled in someone's arms, to just know that someone was there. "I want you to be safe, I'll do anything to protect you..." Her own words floated above the surface even as her mind was now working trying to bury the memories of Kalanda. Thinking back on every moment together, every word they shared and the one kiss they had were the only sweet things she had in years. The only good thing for her. Yet to try and cherish only reminded her of what was gone.

Her body was aching, every joint was on fire and her head was pounding, each bit of friction on her skin was like a new fire being lit on the surface. Her feet just croaked as she could feel her weary soles just wanting to drop. Her phantom limb still on fire as it pulsed away. Worst of all was what happened in her mind as she thought to the promise she broke. It felt like a claw rising up to her head and digging deeper and deeper into her. The farther it went up to the back her head feeling like it was jabbing deep into the center of her brain and twirling around agitating every nerve. Her head twitching as her throat croaked at feeling an immense pressure from her neck muscles converge on it. Her body flinched and snapped as she punched what was left of her left arm repeatedly before cupping the stubbed portion in her hand and tightening her grip on it trying to crush the portion of her skin. Nerve endings coming to life sending a new fresh wave of pain before she let out a scream. An animal rage that wanted to destroy, to punish this pathetic worthless sack of fething flesh.

But nothing was enough, the winds howled and darkened faint distant thunder could barely be registered. Yet that didn't matter she just cared more about thoughts of her skin tearing, her bones being broken one by one and used to further mutilate her insides. She wanted her feel the wrist of her hand get crushed. Yet as she walked she found she couldn't do it. Inhibition and rage mixing together into an uncomfortable stew that demanded release. Instead Amur would just press a few buttons on her suit and soon a bright flashing warning would appear on her hud informing her that the temperature control systems in her suit were disabled. The cold could finally try to seep in through the insulation. The sky above flashed as a current of distant lightning coursed through and the snow intensified.

 

[Amur]

She stopped as the cold began to set in. It cooled the rage within as her bones and flesh began to shrivel, constricting, it was oddly relieving to her body to feel the cold grab her soul and sap away at it. Standing in it she just shut her eyes. The world disappearing into pure blackness, only the sounds of the whirling whistling winds. She breathed as she let the world around flow by and carrying it's snowflakes. She would try once again to reach into the Force. Concentrating she was trying hard to have her sight reach out and see the world on another level. To try and see if her Stub could really flow and move with the force, but all she could feel was a fizzle. It all was so much harder now. The reminder of that empty maw from when Akelia had drained her all the more evident. Just a small reminder of how weak she had become. Opening her eyes all she could see was the darkening sky mesh with the white blinding snow. She was blind. The inviting cold from before now turning into shivers, yet she wouldn't try to turn her suit's climate controls on. No she had a feeling of Finality. She was either going to freeze or find her answer.

She picked a direction and began a quick fast march, the cold giving each footstep an added level of pace and speed. Still she tried to the tiny candlelight of force with her to just reach out from beyond her. She wanted a sign, or anything anything at all that could tell her what she truly was. The lost soul of the husk wanting to finally complete it's voyage and reach the harbor this journey ended in. Then she felt something. It was small, insignificant, so subtle that it was shouted over by every sensation. Yet here and now she could feel it. A tug. A simple pull, a direction. A feeling telling her to go in one particular way. Amur stopped and question it, what was this? Was this the Force, or just her feeble mind trying to calm itself to chance. She spent a minute pondering this before deciding what to do. It may have been just a feeling, but just a feeling was enough.

So she walked on as the storm grew darker and darker, the winds carrying sears and threats as they tried to pull and push the Sith off course. She heard the Soft boom of thunder. Looking up she would be greeted by the brilliant sight of lighting setting the clouds ablaze. Though the Sith found herself incapable of being able to appreciate this freak occurrence of nature. No what mattered more was that the feeling was getting stronger and stronger. Her desire to just find the source of this feeling raising but at the same time a small inkling of fear was being laced in as she felt the bottom of her heart be tugged on by a small weight. The march turned into a run. Her breaths growing haggard as each intake of air was meant with a new internal shiver. Her entire body feeling like it was retching itself to pieces. It was in this state as she felt her extremities grow numb did it finally reveal itself.

It was the maw of a cave. Dark. Inviting in this white out, she could feel her insides stirring at this. It was in here. The sith slid her body sideways to slip though the narrow slit in the rock wall that was the cave entrance. Doing so as the white of the world was fading away into the glistening darkness and weak, hollow blue light that illuminated the cave. Careful step taken to guide her numb feet along the ice pathways as the cave opened up and led downwards along a gentle slope. The Cave was silent, eerily silent. The only noise she could hear was the sound of her own shivering breath, yet even then it sounded wrong. Sounds echoed and danced around the surroundings of an environment like this, yet here it felt like the very air itself devoured the very foundation and musings of sound itself. Step by step let the open void in her chest guide her to her fate. Bringing her closer to the very core of what drove her hear. With every step. Amur felt right foot slip just as she saw something come into view ahead of her. Falling she would slid down the slope quickly accelerating before an even pattern caused by the intersection of ice and rock floor would create a bump that the Sith slammed into causing her to roll and tumble for several meters.

Pain washed all over her as she cried out before it was cut off by an intense shivering, her body didn't want to move. Curled up into a ball, the Sith found herself wanting to just give up. This seemed to be her fate now, yet she could feel it calling to her. It demanding that she pay attention to it. The Sith lazily rolled her body over and was faced with it.

Staring back at her was a wall. A completely vertical obsidian black wall that unnaturally even and perfect. The Reflection of the Sith could be made out but only as a vague black outline. Yet as she stared into it, this abyss of dark reflecting stone. She could feel it latch it's claws into her, and she wanted to get closer to it. Weakly crawling to it, feeling her energy deplete and her vision begin to recede into an unfocused haze, she would painfully inch closer to the mirror. She would eventually stop, every fiber of body twitching incoherently even as her body begin to feel paradoxically warm again. Amur would reach out to the wall with her remaining hand and touch. Laying it flat against the wall was the last thing her mind would see before the world blacked out.

And into the ether she would go​

 

[Amur]

It started with a gasp​

Eyes fluttered opened and her lungs cried for air. The subsiding sensation of oil in her lungs, oil coating her body, and oil clinging to the ground around her flooding her senses. Little time felt allotted to grasp her surroundings or what had happened. Coordinates and time presented on her helmet's hud was now just a manic array of random numbers that were constantly changing and the time was no different either. All of that was working with the fact that everything was so dark. As her lone arm pressed onto the ground breaking an unseen barrier of unknown shimmering liquid that rippled Amur would push herself up.

Looking around she was granted with only the vaguest of imagery to determine where she was. She was in a chasm of darkness long and narrow. Looking around gave nothing to define it: Not a single bit of stone nor duracrete nor rebar could be seen. Yet she did see something that gave her some clarification. A light of blinding white on one end. It's luminosity intense yet it's reach short, but even then it cast a long shadow and looking towards it she could finally understand what she was in. It was a tunnel.

Turning around her she looked at one end which consisted of total comforting darkness. The veil of nothingness that both was perfectly still and constantly moving. This seemed much closer to her than the light though anyone used to this knows how infinite it can be. She could hear something as she stared, little whispers, undefinable yet unending. She could feel it tug at her and try to pull her in as she kept her back to the light. She heard these voices before, they were the little stabbing knives that constantly poked and prodded at her mind, yet she didn't know how to just shut the door on them. She could almost feel something in the liquid pool that covered all the floor something try to even physically pull her towards it, like a gravity that want to just consume her. Without thinking she took a step...

"Murmur"​

A whisper carried itself through the air behind her as it gently caressed her ears. She felt a chill run down her spine and the hairs on her back stand up. She turned around back at the blinding light, eyes wanting to revolt from staring yet she felt compelled to stare back at it. Her mind registering and desperately searching for something that must have been in there. A few seconds of laborious mental scanning revealed a silhouette in the light of someone standing. As if on cue the moment Amur noticed it she could register it moving, a small black scratch in the light stretching out of the main silhouette to wave at her.

Familiarity hitting her like a freight train, though exactly what it was was still an unknown. The weary Sith would walk towards the light feeling how each step in the pool would begin to stick just a small amount as the Sith would draw nearer. Her bracing herself for whatever this chasm was preparing to show her.

 

[Amur]

The quiet followed her. And it didn't stop, even as she was staring at the vestige of what may have been social interaction the Sith found herself completely and utterly alone. Just something about this place, this chasm seemed to just absorb everything like a sponge. Odd for such a narrow space. As Amur walked closer and closer to the light she would find herself wonderfully ignorant of the real way this place moved. The all encompassing darkness hiding a space that seemed to almost breath and reverberate to every step the Sith took, movement of her arm and stub, and every thought that came to her mind. The organ that she lie inside of quivering to her. Each step would move something into place, as tiny atom thin strands of wires would begin to move and collect in the darkness, before seeping into the gooey pool on the floor. Unknown to the Sith as they began to coalesce around her with each shifting thought of uncertainty.

The light got larger and larger as she went and traveling in this space the Sith was finding herself getting the most uncomfortable sense of deja vu. Soon the darkness began to clear and in it's place were long shadows. Her mind was just in suspension, her thoughts left to fester. She wondered if this was the end. Unknown if she was in a different passage of the universe or if she was in the trappings of one last dream that while infinite in the moment would eventually crash down and finally bring the great nothing. Something began to stir. Death was now seemingly certain. She didn't intend it to be like this, she just wanted to find a sign, she just wanted to think but now she just felt so stupid. There were tears beginning to well up inside as the maw inside her chest expanded. She could have done anything and now that seemed to be thrown away. This was it.

She felt the goo begin to drag on her feet throwing her balance off as she had to fight as the black reflective liquid began to try and pool up to her and wrap around her. The sith tried to run for the light end of the tunnel, seeing the silhouette and wanting to just see what would be there, a part of her mind was now hoping it was Kalanda, the one thing she most desperately wanted to see right now. Even then just any person, any one thing that could be a clear and blunt way of telling her she wasn't all alone in this decrepit existence would be enough. She tried but as she ran the light and silhouette kept receding away growing farther and farther with every step forward towards it increasing the length away by two more steps. Soon it began dim more and more until it just felt like a memory and now the strands from early had bursted from the fluid and ensnared themselves around each limb and her neck trying to pull on Amur as hard as they could in order to pull her into the floor. The Sith tripped as the first one grabbed her leg as she fell forward now crawling on all threes as kept trying to move only to then feel another strand wrap around her other leg, and then her hand pulling her upper body into a kneeling position as the final strand of black wire wrapped around her neck as her entire universe and mind turned black.

Her breathing quickened and there was a true panic as a new pain exploded inside her, different then before. This wasn't the constant decay that crushed her under it's oppressive grip. No, this was a cry, a plea, a new found desperation that raced inside her and flowed with such veracity. As she felt air exit her lungs and then her back fall onto the floor sinking into the ether of nothingness her thoughts turned to begging.

no no no no
this isn't what I want.
This was a mistake.
I don't want this!
I don't want this!
I don't want to die​

It felt like a weight was ripped off of her. The darkness that surrounded her was repelled away by a bursting of light that left her blinded for several seconds as everything seemed to burn away. Everything that was trying to pull her down now was gone and around her the ground felt solid, reassuring. Her breaths were like cold shivers as her vision returned to normal. The brilliant white light was now burning away right beside her and with it she could make out the silhouette Only a few meters away from her. A woman of some kind with her back turned to her. The Sith climbed up on her two feet as she walked a bit closer to the woman. The sides of her nose now were wet. Amur stopped trying to make out the figure as she felt a part of her practically scream at her that she knew this person. Her mouth moved softly filling the small void between them with uneasy vibrations.

"Who... who are you? Amur asked filling like a cloud lifted from her vision as the silhouette turned around. The once dark shadows now replaced with color and form.

"You should have already known." was a reply she got back. A tone of casual and amused disbelief in it. The hairs on her back stood straight and proper now as her ears registered the Corellian accent, in fact every aspect of her voice. The woman turned around and Amur found herself face to face with a near perfect copy of her younger self, free of the scars and marks of pain that have haunted her very soul.

"I'm you, silly."

 

[Amur]

She blinked, she... the other her also blinked. Confusion was well now the norm in this environment. What was going on? I mean she was having a crazy force vision but even this was just surreal. Amur looked at the mirror image of a past self and found herself entranced, and a little bit of fury as she looked at what to her seemed like nothing more than the very image and representation of a fool. Entrenched denial began to sing to it throes from the Sith.

"You're not me" "You're not me"
"You died a fool here" "You died a fool here"
"I'm nothing like you" "I'm nothing like you"
"Shut up" "Shut up"
"Stop repeating everything I say as I say it" "Stop repeating everything I say as I say it"

The small spat of interlinked talking began which only incensed her more as the mirror reflected everything she said exactly when she said with perfect cadence and flow. Meanwhile Skyler just chuckled to herself, a small playful smirk cresting her lips as her shimmering blue eyes gazed upon the vessel like she were a parent mentoring a rowdy child. An amused sigh leaving her lips.

"I know what you're about to say because I am you. Please don't make us have to spend most our time communicating this fact. I'm you, even if you don't acknowledge me and you keep trying to lock me away in some cage and throw away the key. I just want to talk. Skyler muttered her light smile growing thin as she continued.

For the Sith though she found it incensing, as it partly clicked. This was it. The part that made her weak, the part that made her pathetic, and the part that meant she couldn't stop herself from falling in love with Kala, and ruining everything.

"You want to talk huh? Was it you, that made me care for her, was it you that made me want to take her into my life and ruin her. Was it you that had the gall to be such a fething slut for hi-""Stop it! Why do you always have to keep hurting yourself after the fact!"

Amur had initially spoke out her anger becoming more and more concentrated until she could practically hear her voice distort from it. Behind her the darkness that was massing behind her began to move closer, the liquid fluid seeping back and inching towards the Sith and the razor thin wires trying to wrap around her again. Only to be taken aback by the raw frustration that poured through Skyler's voice. A single set of tears having fallen from her unscarred face.

"You nearly did it again, and I don't want to see us go. Did you forget about the talk you had with that Jedi? * sigh * Look. Sky I see you do this a lot. You're taking it out on me but you don't realize the real person you're hurting is yourself. When you obsess over it, you let it build up and fester inside you... It has nowhere to go because you keep it there. Do you even realize what this place represents? Skyler spoke her tone much more somber as recounted what was always the recurring tragedy that played through constantly.

Amur meanwhile was reminded of her recent near fade away into the great nothing. The sith listened and with it came contemplation as it felt like the entire space opened and expanded from a simple tunnel to giant chasm. She looked around it, unnerved by seeing how the once distant darkness had faded back in so close to her, like a predator. Still when asked what this place meant, given the feeling she felt that guided her in the force it felt so very simple.

"This is the Force itself? Light and Dark?" The Sith poised as an answer though didn't quite understand why that didn't feel right. Meanwhile Skyler would just give an amused chuckle.

"heh, No. It's not that, though the overbearing imagery would lead you to think that. This is what we feel, and the mechanism for it. This is the space where you keep your pain, the place where you think, the place where ideas and thoughts go from being abstract sensations to words and actions. Yet look at it. It's dying. You have to try to work with this inside of you wearing down..." Skyler explained before pausing as if finding the right words to communicate her point.

"This is you're home, and if you don't try to fix it soon, then this suffocating miasma of hopelessness is all it'll ever let you be."