Private The Newest Obsessions

[Kaila Irons]

Location: Echnos city, a few days later...
Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

Echnos moved on as it always did.

The tithes had been more heavy handed than usual, and where the people of this dome city once supplied only the mighty Second Legion, so too were they feeding manpower into the Third. factories which once brought wealth to this barren moon were now producing armor and weapons without recompense.

But Anathemous kept it all afloat anyway.

Workplace accidents as a result of increased demands were tended in new hospitals she'd constructed in the wake of Jedi invasion, at no cost to the victim. The city was more of a labyrinth consisting of long hallways and rooms they called housing in one great megastructure than an actual city, which was being expanded to house immigrants to keep up with the new industrial demands by digging sublevels where they would live away from the toxic air above.

It was not perfect, crime still infested the lower floors and their people often died in the empire's wars, but the governor maintained that careful balance between moral and production every day.

And she did it all from this bloody manor. It was more like the largest room in the megastructure than an actual manor, devoid of expensive furnishings and art as she'd sold it all to fund repairs after the siege. She afforded herself a degree of comfort however, as the office was lined with potted plants from Yavinese to Dathomiri varieties, and a library of her own making filled with tomes of real parchment even. Sith history, tales of the Nightsisters, theories drafted by force wielding cultures long since extinct.

It made for the most peculiar backdrop when she returned from the sparring room sweating like an animal, carrying a heavy warblade over her shoulder. She had to change quickly of course, SB-13 was already there waiting to inform her that "She" had arrived.

She'd switched rooms and changed quickly before returning, donned in the black dress Quinn had bought her all that time ago.

"Show her in." she asked of her faithful guard-captain, and sat behind the crescent desk.

​

 

[Boe]

A smouldering wreck of a freighter slipped out of hyperspace and broke into the moon's upper atmosphere, its safety guaranteed only by a promise made in a dream. A trail of smoke followed the starship all the way towards its designated landing pad, and it landed with all the accompanying groans and cracks of barely functional mechanics.

Inside the cockpit, a pilot awoke amid confusion and fright, without remembering how he had gotten here. It wasn't even his ship, for that matter.

"Whaaa?"

The only half-word he could mutter before Boe knocked him out cold and tied him up. She would need a ride out of here, after all, and unfortunately, she didn't have the time or resources to bind his consciousness to her indefinitely.

As soon as she descended down the ramp, Boe was approached and insistently led inside by the guard. The walk to where she would be received offered a small glimpse into the life of the Sith that ruled here. It was a far cry from the same brooding atmosphere and torturous architecture she had come to know from other Sith in her past.

A thick interior door halved, and the guard stopped to beckon her inside with but a motion, as the Guard-Captain stared her down with both threat assessment and a warning.

Boe walked with slow steps, her figure a familiar sight but at the same time different than what Kaila had seen in her dream. A young woman of average height, a strong build, and filthy, as she had been surviving in the sub-levels of Coruscant for a few weeks now. Her simple clothes were stained with sweat, grease, and blood. She looked unremarkable and out of place in these halls.

She spoke, her voice meek.

"As you asked."

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

The young Darth made no attempt to hide her presence in the force.

It was raw, refined, young and ancient all at once. A blurring of dark power and souls which surrounded her in a whirlwind as if to look upon Anathemous was to see a graveyard made flesh. She didn't even do it to intimidate, just an aspect of herself she did not waste energy to hide in the comfort of her own home.

Contrary to this disjointed presence, she sat politely waiting, hands folded in her lap.

Rusted-gold brows rose in faint surprise at the state of her 'guest' as she was escorted in by the commando droid.

She spoke, her voice meek.

"As you asked."

"...If I had known the state you would arrive in," she began, voice familiarly soft, but dangerously close to pitying.

"I would have had a bath drawn, and a medi-chamber prepared."

Just then a BB-unit rolled into the office from a side door, a platter and duraporcelain tea set clattering in it's tiny servo arms.

"Ah, thank you Zero." Kaila hummed, leaning down to pet the black sphere's little head and lay out the cups on her desk.

She poured herself a cup first, sipping the steaming liquid, a subtle show of poison's absence.

Then she held the pot over another cup, and waited.

"Tea?"

​

 

[Boe]

Boe looked at herself as if Kaila's comment were confusing. In truth, she had never much considered the fact she was made of meat, or wrapped in old clothing. Her focus had always been deeply internal and vastly outward, seldom did her perspective ever meet in the middle where it all connected.

Then, the little droid rolled on in with a peculiar teaset that clashed with her notion of how this encounter might go. As did the way Kaila patted the droid like it was one of Boe's kath hounds... Oh, how she did miss them.

"Tea?" She tilted her head in incidental emulation of the very creature she had been thinking of. "I can do tea," she did like the psychoactive effects.

It was strange. Anja would have never harbored such patience or respect over Dreamweaver. No, she would've launched a righteous assault on this moon and left a wound so deep that what would echo eternally in the Force. All in the name of the very sword she had made from a piece of her own soul.

Boe slowly approached the desk, her eyes more on the tea than they ever were on the Sith, until finally she stopped just short of permitting herself to sit. Though she did reach down, grab the cup, and gently slide it towards the waiting pot.

It was then and only then that she tilted her gaze towards Kaila proper, and looked upon her with some mixture of awe and curiosity. As far as Boe was aware, this was the first time she had met someone in a dream before ever setting her eyes upon them.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

The silence unnerved her.

Not because it painted the woman as a threat, but rather because Kaila could not rightly say if it was the sign of a professional at work or merely a disturbed mind.

Nevertheless, she poured, and slid the cup back.

Next she took the sugar cubes, mixing them into her own drink while she thought on what to say over the backdrop of swirling tea. Really there was no right way to tell someone you didn't trust them, nor had it ever come easy to her. Her fellow apprentices had learned the hard way that there was no knowing when Kaila was onto them, not until they felt the knife.

"I have every intention of returning what is yours." she finally answered.

"However, I wish to know what exactly I'm giving away, and to whom."

It could be the key to some planet destroying power for all she knew, or an artefact of the arch enemy.

Kaila finished stirring her little spoon, taking another sip before continuing.

"What do they call you? do you remember this much at least? and how this blade will help?"

​

 

[Boe]

Boe took the cup with gentle fingers and brought it to her lips.

She watched curiously as Kaila mixed strange cubes into the drink, then looked down at her own cup. She considered whether to ask about the sugar, a substance she knew of but had never seen in such a form before, nor had she ever taken tea in such a way. Her inquiry, however, would have to wait, for the Sith had questions.

"Dreamweaver," she began, "it is a sword. The blade itself is forged from a Phrik alloy to resist high-energy contact from a lightsaber. The hilt was constructed around a refined reverie crystal... You are likely unfamiliar, but it is a force-attuned stone found only on Sernpidal. It is known to passively have a strong effect on the mind."

Another sip. "The weapon belonged to Anja Aj'Rou, Lord of the Primeval Host, and her magicks altered the crystal's natural properties. A single cut from the blade on exposed flesh is all it takes for the crystal's latent magick to pour into an enemy, and heighten the efficacy of mental magicks. Additional cuts, or a proper penetration and..." She trailed off in the lecture, realizing she hadn't answered the other question.

"I am Boe..." The answer lingered in the air for a while, and the witch looked rather confused. "Anja's successor. The blade belongs to me."

Her tone lacked the same possessiveness it had when she invaded Kaila's thoughts. This entire time, Boe had been rather timid and unlike the woman she originally presented as.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

Kaila leaned forward, elbows against the table.

Dreamweaver. Primeval. She'd heard these words before but never quite understood them.

Her gaze was almost inhuman, mechanical in the way it took in every twitch of muscle and folding of skin as the woman spoke. Everything was carefully compared against tone and memories of experiences, all the ways she'd been lied to, what their faces looked like when they tried.

She had a feeling this one was telling the truth however.

"I am Boe..." The answer lingered in the air for a while, and the witch looked rather confused. "Anja's successor. The blade belongs to me."

Golden eyes widened the barest inch, accentuated by a layer of dark eyeliner.

That name sounded awfully close to one Darth Empyrean had spoken on the day that started it all. Dreamweaver, the nameless book, Mother Talzin's grimoire, the powers by which she would break her chains all awarded for services rendered in the shadows. And now she wanted them back.

Kaila leaned back in her seat, dragging blackened fingers over her lips.

This complicated things. She'd have to report this to The Emperor, personally. She could open a portal to Vash'karath right now if she wanted, tug upon the faintest thread of his psyche to gain audience and wise counsel both.

It would draw suspicion however, perhaps even risk a breach into that secret world.

The Asharim-prospect took a deep, steadying breath, concluding that she must handle this alone, for the moment.


"You are Boethia." she stated her revelation more than asked.

"I have heard of you, and this 'primeval'. I'm told you were quite powerful."

Any woman to teach a Sith of the Emperor's caliber must have been.

"I..." her brows knit.

"Was under the impression you had died."

​

 

[Boe]

It was unexpected, to a degree, but not surprising, that Kaila would know who she was, and less so the Primeval. More shockingly, however, was that she knew her name. Her full name. She was naturally curious to know how the Sith had come to learn of her, and why the Sith would have assumed her demise. To hear she had a reputation for power only added more intrigue.

In so few words, Kaila had demanded far more questions than Boe came prepared to ask. So she stuck to the purpose, for now.

"As you can see, I am very much alive." She retorted.

Boe took another sip from her tea, this one generous enough to finish the cup, which she gently replaced onto the table with a satisfied sigh. Her eyes flickered from the tea set and back to Kaila, though her lips did not part again so immediately. No, she chewed on her next thought.

The witch cleared her throat when the words finally came to her. "My weapon. Is it here? Do you have it?" It was clear by tone alone that this detail was all that mattered to her in the moment.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

"Hmh." she should have expected such a retort, if not for the witch's meek demeanor.

Then the conversation shifted once more to the sword, reminding Kaila that her interrogation must be focused, lest personal curiosities lead her astray.

"I do." Kaila nodded slowly.

"Tucked away, for safe keeping."

Though where exactly she would not reveal until she could be sure it was the right call.


"So... what will you do once you have it? In my dream you told me that you needed it to 'remember yourself'."

"What did you mean, exactly?"

Was Boethia like her somehow? robbed of something so sacred and personal as sense of self? The thought made her visibly tense, ritually blackened fingers tightening around arms held soothingly close. Equally distressing however was the fear that her sympathy was misplaced, as it often was. She could be the next Carnifex for all Kaila knew, or another brand of uncaring murderer beside.

Yet she'd invited Boe into her home on a hunch.

​

 

[Boe]

Boe exhaled through her nostrils at Kaila's response.

The Sith made it abundantly clear through tact that yes she had the weapon, but no she hadn't decided to give it back, at least just yet. So, the witch would continue to answer her questions.

"The reverie crystal is a force-attuned stone. It can feed on emotions and actions. Much like how a lightsaber can carry an echo of strong memories or events from its wielder, and even project those memories onto other force users through contact alone." She explained.

Boe continued. "Dreamweaver is quite special in that regard. As I said, the reverie crystal has strong mind-affecting properties... Over the years, it has seen much, fed on emotions, and witnessed actions. It has cut, it has killed. It has touched minds in a way that few things have."

The witch wasn't entirely sure to what extent Kaila favored such wisdom. Many Sith preferred to see the Force as a weapon, a tool, a fundamental force to be understood only so far as it can be subjugated. Still, the witch spoke, as she had a hunch that the Sith before her was a cut above the rest. If not, this meeting never would've occurred.

Boe closed her eyes and thought about it further. "You might catch a glimpse, should you listen, but Dreamweaver and I are tied. More than weapon and master.... Sisters." It was more motive than an answer to Kaila's question, but the witch spoke it with conviction.

Her eyes opened with a predator's intensity. "A sacred bond, and I will have her back."

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

"Sisters." she echoed quietly.

"The Mandalorians have a saying about this. Aliit ori'shya taldin."

Kaila spoke the guttural language with the fluency of a native speaker, as though it were her first.

"Family is more than blood."

She afforded her the faintest smile, even as Boethia's statement processed within her mind. The young Darth was not one to take threats lightly but neither was she unsympathetic. This woman looked and sounded as though she'd been through the Netherworld and back to reclaim this sword, to say nothing of how she must have lost it.

Her fingers drummed in thought.

"If this is true, than I too have a sister. And I would do anything to see her safe and sound."

Golden eyes flicked to Boethia's, meeting predatory intensity with that of a rock-lioness ready to defend her pride.
She understood, she could reason with beasts, but that did not mean she was anything but.

And Boethia sat in her den now.

But as that quiet understanding passed between them, muscles slowly uncoiled and oxen arms eased.

"...including retrieve her soul from a sentient sword, if required." she sighed at last.

A brow rose, gauging the witch's reaction.

Was she right? or was the blade's power more complicated than this?

It mattered not, she supposed, and so she opened her arms wide, palms up as if she would deliver a sermon.

Her prayers were meant for no god.

"Tsûtri wa." she whispered in the clerical speech of Sith.

Green mist spread between her fingers in a writhing tether as the ichor of Dathomir sprung from deep within, wild energies slowly given shape by her request, straightening, spreading, flattening until a familiar shape began to show.

Dreamweaver.

The phrik blade was carefully wrapped in red cloth spun from spider's silk, and it's hilt was wrapped in matching talismans which had since served to empower and strengthen the wielder's grip both. Dathomiri symbols hung from the end, etched in zersium trinkets upon which intricate runes and enchantments were laid, as though the sword had been ritually prepared as much as enshrined.

Kaila held it out for Boethia to reclaim.

​

 

[Boe]

Kaila's Mandalorian struck deep at the root of old memories. Before her ascension as a witch of the Primeval, Boe had just been a young girl from Wayland, following its conquest by the very cult that shaped her into the woman that stood before the Sith.

She remembered the Warlord, the Mandalorian traitor who bowed to the Primeval Host in exchange for ruthless tyranny over the forest world. During those dark times, her own family--who remained loyal to Mandalore--were stripped of status, wealth, and land. Boe, then a young girl, was forced into the Warlord's service as both a hostage and a slave.

Boe snapped out of the flutter of memories and shook her head.

-- I too have a sister...

Boe tilted her head again at that statement, wondering if she meant literally or in the same vein as Dreamweaver.

She watched as the Sith relaxed somewhat and then asked a very direct and presumptuous question.

"Ah..." The witch chuckled. It was likely the first time Kaila saw her show any humanity beyond more primal emotions. "That is what you think?"

"Close, but not exactly..." She wondered if the Sith would push her into elaborating, but that thought would disintegrate at what happened next.

Kaila spoke, and the Force sang back in a familiar hymn, all heavily accentuated by the strange energy that emanated from her fingers.

Dreamweaver appeared. Yet her first reaction was not towards the very weapon she had risked death itself to reacquire, but towards the display of power that she had never seen a Sith wield before.

Her mouth popped in surprise. "Magick?"

She was so preoccupied by the display that she didn't even notice right away that her feet were already moving, that her arms were outstretched, and her hands pulled towards the blade as Kaila held it out. She inspected the red silk wrapped around the blade, the talismans that adourned the hilt, and and the iconography that was strange but still familiar. Perhaps their roots drew from the same soil, if not born from the same tree.

Boe took Dreamweaver. Hilt in one hand and blade in the other, and as soon as she did, her body shuddered and her knees nearly faltered. She gasped in nothing short of ecstasy. Her senses came to life, the Force bit and clawed its way back inside of her to make its home again. It would take some time for all of the memories--all of the power--to return, but already she felt renewed.

"Nogras..." She looked back at Kaila. "You have honored me, Anathemous."

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

"Indeed." she nodded.

"I am Dathomiri by blood."

And so the half-witch watched Boethia reclaim her blade, preparing at first for betrayal, then easing into relief. A thin smile graced her lips, the woman's shear joy a strange sight to behold for one so in the dark as Kaila, but no less joyous to behold in of itself.

It felt as though she'd done a good thing, a chance she did not often get.

"Nogras..." She looked back at Kaila. "You have honored me, Anathemous."

"Of course." she bowed her head, slowly, just a little.

"I can show you how to bind such charms, if you wish,"

A dark nail was pointed at the talisman wrapped about Dreamweaver's hilt.

"So that you may beckon her across space and time as I have done."

Then a thought crossed her mind, something she'd not thought to ask until now. In truth she knew little of Boethia even now, and even The Emperor spoke little of the artefact's past. Who she was to him and how he came into possession of her belongings was mysterious as his reasoning for gifting them to the then-apprentice.

Pondering on that connection saw the young Darth pinch her chin in thought.

"How were the two of you separated, anyway?"

"Truth be told, I never had chance to inquire as to it's origins with the one from whom I received this blade."

​

 

[Boe]

Hearing she was Dathomiri made some sense. Her mother, Loxa Visl, was of Dathomiri blood, and she was a powerful witch herself. Though in truth, Boe knew little of Dathomiri witch culture, and only picked up on a few of their techniques through her mother's training.

Boe pondered the Sith's offer. To learn magick from another? After so long? More importantly, from someone whose demeanor had shifted several times over during these few moments alone. What was going on in Kaila's head? Why was she so interested? Boe, as usual, weathered the torrential rain of thoughts that snapped into and out of existence.

She was about to speak on the offer, only to be startled by the next question.

How did I lose Dreamweaver?

She didn't know. As far as she was aware, it was with her the whole time. Only when Jack Sandrow rescued her the blade was missing. It was gone, and she ached for its return.

"I... I don't know."

Boe balled her hand into a fist. "Someone took it." She accused the phantom thief with venom in her voice.

"Who... Who gave you my blade?"

She learned from Jack that it had been half a century since her imprisonment, and it's entirely possible the blade had passed hands numerous times by then, but still... It was peculiar of all things that it would fall into the hands of another witch, a Sith at that, rather than some collector, or even a rogue Zealot from the cult she once belonged to.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Boe

"I..." Kaila hesitated, then turned to look out the window.

Her fist was balled, chin resting atop while she considered her answer.

The view outside one of few windows in all of Echnos was nothing fancy. Dust and rock and air which would kill most species for as far as the eye could see, broken up only by the occasional trench or sad excuse for a hill.

But in that emptiness, she often found clarity.

She'd already said too much, and no one was to know of her meeting with the Emperor, a meeting even the Empress had not known of until recently.

"I cannot say." she sighed.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do not betray the trust of my allies lightly. Their anonymity is important."

At the very least she should have the Emperor's counsel before revealing his hand. This situation was already complicated enough and the likelihood that she'd already made a costly decision, right or wrong, had not escaped her mind.

"Please understand that I want to say more, but there are too many unknowns right now."

​

 

[Boe]

Boe disliked the way Kaila spoke on the matter, to the point that her soured mood rested plainly on her face.

"You cannot say?" She teased the words right back at her. "Trust. Fear. Desperation. These are the causes for loyalty, no?" She wondered which one it was for the Sith.

Sith.

Always, ever, a Sith. If there was one thing that separated Boe and Anja, it was their perspective on that old alliance. The witch exhaled through her nostrils and came shy of a frustrated grunt in her displeasure. Her hand wrapped around Dreamweaver with enough intensity that her knuckles changed color.

"Perhaps you should know more about the gifts you are given... You said in your dream that this was a reward, yes?" She held the blade up as if its existence hadn't already been so apparent, let alone the entire reason for their meeting.

Then, she pointed the tip directly at Kaila, and then she lowered it towards the ground, her grip loosened. Her entire energy loosened, as she exhausted her anger in those words.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress Armor
Tag: Boe

Her eyes narrowed.

If Boethia wished to know the reason behind the young Darth's ever shifting demeanor, she need look no further than the nearest mirror. Every good deed, every act of kindness she performed, was always rewarded with reason to doubt and distrust, and the witch was no different.

And the moment her blade turned toward Anathemous?

"Wayasi a' yatini ki!"

Words barely hissed sent a ripple through the force, green flame licking at her form in patterns too artificial. Even as Boethia's grip loosened, Darksteel plates had formed over her dress, and Nyslasteel muscles coiled over her limbs, wrapped in the very same charms which decorated Dreamweaver.

Kaila stared at her through the crimson-slit visor.

It didn't matter the witch's intentions, they were unknowable to the young Darth, and she had killed for less.

That is why she yet lived.

She stood to her full height, a simple nudge from her exo-muscled form sending the hover chair spinning out of the way as she gripped the saber now attached to her belt, the one from their shared dream.

Her grip about it's phrikite hilt was iron, but stilled.

"Be careful that you do not abuse my hospitality, Boethia." her voice was cold, distorted by the helm.

"Let me be very clear; you repossess this blade because I know what it is to lose oneself and reclaim memory."

"I have taken a grand risk in returning an artefact to a woman who has thus far refused to give me any reason to but pity alone. I will not be pressured into revealing secrets which may do me harm, and I will not have my generosity spat on."

"Do not make me regret taking that chance."

​

 

[Boe]

She was startled by the sudden arrival of armor, the quickness in her step, and the sheer determination that carried her from hospitable to battle-ready in but an instant. Then, the witch returned a grin.

"This..." She muttered the word quietly, whisper-like. For a moment, she looked confused.

"This is what I've come to expect from the Sith."

Boe maintained the floorward grip of her blade and only took a marginally visible stance at the ready. However, the first action she took was to rip the charms right off her blade, with the Force wrapped around her fingers like a razor. No chances. Not if the Sith might steal the weapon right back with but the move of her tongue.

Still, she might've just added insult to injury with that last move, and it was positively suicidal to pick a fight here of all places. Even if Boe were to win, or at the very least survive, what was she supposed to do? She was on a world that did not belong to her. Under permission and protection from the very woman who stood before her, ready to kill by the look of things.

"If you are willing to kill, willing to die for that trust... It must be a worthy ally, then." She conjectured.

But all this excitement. All this wondering. All this being in control had its cost, and fate came to collect. Before Boe could say or do anything, she collapsed. Her body went limp, her weapon clattered on the floor, and her entire being sank to the floor like a corpse. It was an involuntary trigger of a particular technique, and its onset would likely not be understood or explainable by witnessing it alone.

Still. It happened.

Kaila Irons