Private The Oldest Obsessions

[Boe]

In a seedy and forgettable part of Coruscant, a witch works in the secrecy of an abandoned apartment sub-level.

After days of preparation, the final pieces are put together. The room has been cleansed, the floors have been marked, and all the necessary esotericism fleshed out. A trio of tied-up prisoners aligned perfectly to form evenly spaced points around the center. They struggled to get here, and they would've struggled to remain were it not for the drug cocktail tea they were forced to drink.

Boe went around the room, a flame flickered on her finger, and one by one a candle lit. Each a sickly glow, a myriad of colors no eyes but a witch's could see. With the stone of power in hand she knelt in the center of a diagram. The intricate arrangement of lines and patterns all told a story. They were voices, memories, promises, and warnings.

A deep breath. Eyes closed. When they opened again, her natural gaze was replaced by a violet glow that matched the stone. For a witch, the Force was neither master nor disciple. It was Mother, the matron of the universe, she who birthed the stars and begot the promised power.

The stone began to glow brighter, her eyes with it, and the candles flickered wildly and cast cryptic shadows. Otherworldly figures now danced on the wall, they watched and they called to her with temptuous offers, but it was not they she came to parlay. The lines began to glow next, theirs a deep crimson, and like tendrils, they began to rise and move on their own. They wrapped around the prisoners like a serpent and a tree from one end, while their other ends all met in a writhing glory around Boe herself. Slowly, their very life forces were drained and poured into the witch's magick.

Heathen powers. Respect the Gods or invoke their tempers. Echoed the familiar voice in her head.

"Nogras, Mother, hear my petition." The first candle burst into a roaring flame, then disappeared. "From Sargon, we enter life as idiots, without thought, without spirit." The second candle merely extinguishes, and for but a second, the room was perfectly black.

"By Halrormalenth's gift we are granted change, we are allowed to turn the wheel of pain so that we might become something better." A third candle flickers with such subtlety that it is as if nothing happened at all.

One of the prisoners, whose life force must've been weak indeed, died on the spot. Their corpse would not be spoiled, however, and breaks down into an ethereal existence that flows directly into Boe. Her whole body arched at the unexpected surge of power, and the ritual nearly stopped there from the excruciating pain of too much life.

Stop and you will die.

"I know," the Witch muttered softly and tried her best not to hyperventilate. "Balagoth, hear me last, for it is you who greets us last. You take life not in spite but to give it weight. Without you, we stagnate, but now I ask for your protection." The fourth candle begins to bubble and then melt into a liquid.

"Starmaker, Dead One, Broken Creator. Hear me and draw from the very nothingness which gave you form. Bestow upon me your power!"

The remaining candles erupted and exploded, sending shrapnel of wax and flares of fire in every direction until all the light that remains is the glow of the tendrils, her eyes, and the stone in her hands. Now came the hardest part of all, to resist the dark urges and instead shape this power into purpose.

Dreamweaver... The sword that Anja made, the sword whose spirit is sister to Boe's own. She focused on what she remembered... How it felt to wield the power it held when it struck the flesh of another, and more importantly, the memories it carried deep within the crystal at its hilt. In Boe's head came a flurry of strange visions, the cryptic and intelligible thoughts and feelings of another. So the blade is in someone's possession then? She thought to herself.

But they were awake, and their mind were impenetrable while they were. So she had no choice but to wait, though she didn't have forever. When the last of the two remaining bodies breaks, it will be her life that the ritual draws from. A necessary risk. Besides, the forces she toyed with would not be so kind if she showed fear and hesitation.

And so Boe waited until the blade-thief went to sleep. It would be then that they'd pry at their mind, and discover who exactly had stolen it.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Location: Echnos city, Sith space
Tag: Boe

A thousand holo-feeds flickered across the governor's desk.

Live security footage, criminal records, The Imperial Tithe which was due soon.

Darth Anathemous was the all seeing eye in her city.

Yet it rendered her blind.

So much information, so many responsibilities came before even her own needs, and too few she could trust to shoulder the burden. It was good then that Tamsin Graves was settling into her newfound authority as Marshal of her city, perhaps in time she'd teach her sister to manage even bigger projects, ease her into politics.

Thinking on it though, didn't she promise Tamsin that she'd sleep soon?

Hours ago...

Finally she dismissed holo-feed. Her nightly routine was well practiced and over quickly; night gown, brew a soothing tea, hygiene, put on her dreamscape in case of more visions, then sleep in a bed made by droids that morning. It visibly sank beneath her heavy frame of metal bones and tightly coiled muscle, uncharacteristic of the delicate silken sheets she crawled into. Perhaps more so to the militaristically drab furnishings or the suit of armor she walked past to do so.

The lights dimmed by her will alone, leaving only the corrupted golden glow of tired eyes until these too dimmed, and sleep quickly took her.

Though it rarely kept her long.


Minutes passed, minutes became an hour, and already it hung in the balance.

She found herself walking into a hospital room, but could not rightly recall if this was where Quinn Varanin once tended to her, leading to so much more, or if this was the battle of Susevfi all over again...

And as she stepped further into the room, she saw a figure lying there.

Sheets pulled over their face.

​

 

[Boe]

The space in which Boe meditated spun slowly around her sense of self as she fell through the emptiness of meditation.

It took effort, discipline, and no small amount of self-awareness to completely evacuate your mind of total thought. In truth, it couldn't be done, but what she could do was simplify her focus to the point that it might as well have been nothing at all. A void, some spinning, the sense of falling. It was enough to induce the necessary trance as she waited for a sign, any sign that her quarry was asleep.

Then shapes appeared out of nowhere. Silhouettes, lines, and the subtle sense of depth in their form. Then came the light, at first it blinded; it dulled until white frayed into threads of color that tangled and knotted their way around the shapes.

Out of nowhere, Boe's feet planted themselves onto a hard surface, and the space around her confined itself to a sterile hallway devoid of persons. Her orientation was strange. She tilted her head to get a better sense of it, only to realize she was standing on the ceiling.

"Do not dwell on this. Accept it." The familiar inner voice echoed again.

Boe took one careful step forward, proof that she could move like this. "Why can't I just fall and walk normally?" She asked aloud in a whisper.

"Absolute control over the experience."

Cryptic but fair enough, Boe supposed. She mulled over the wisdom, and it didn't take her much time to figure that it was important for a witch to never relinquish her leverage when it came to mind games. Or in this case, mind manifestations.

She continued to walk across the ceiling, down the hallway, and towards a singular door that stood at the very end. When Boe finally approached it, the door opened, and she fell immediately into darkness. Only to then notice her orientation changed again, and there was a sensory experience too. It was darkness, yes, and an endless one at first glance... only...

Her hand reached out, fingers pulling against the fabric of the void.

"If I just..." She thought to herself.

Her fingers sank deeper into the fabric like a stick into mud and pulled down a veil that obscured the world in front of her. Suddenly, she found herself lying on a table, a sheet now discarded around her legs, and she wasn't alone. Boe sat up, slowly, and made eye contact with whoever it was on the other side.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

Kaila crept silently forward.

She felt lighter in here despite the weight of these memories. No more implants, even the stitched scarring on her arms had gone. A manifestation of the soul, rather than what she was in the waking world.

Even so, blackened fingertips remained, tracing the smooth walls on her way in.

Every glance around the room brought with it bittersweet recollection, despite the warping peculiarities of a dream.

The Mors, a herald of cataclysm turned beacon of hope in her darkest hour, blotting the sun above Susevfi below. She remembered the pain, the rage, the fear of losing Her as she knelt beside this very hospital bed the whole night through.

Though Kaila's understanding of dreams and mindscapes was slowly improving, it still compelled her forward with little input. She flinched, knowing the two outcomes of removing the sheet. The echani may wake, and Kaila would reaffirm her promise, or she'd be met with fate's silent retaliation.

She swallowed, and reached for the sheet.


And gasped girlishly when it moved of it's own accord.

Several steps back were taken, light, almost skittering until slowing again as human instinct gave way to numbing experience. Naturally silver eyes, once wide, began to narrow as she tilt her head like a curious avian.

"...you're not her..." she spoke in soft, confused tones.

Her voice was too young for one so grizzled, and too proper for one of such barbaric physique.

"You're not supposed to be here."

​

 

[Boe]

"Her?" Boe echoed.

She stepped off the table and planted her feet onto cold tile. Dark, long, wavy strands cascaded down her body, wrapped in a simple garment. Not unlike a Jedi's, but certainly more practical than religious. Steel eyes met silver for a moment before they glanced around the room.

"Press the advantage. Control the moment."

The witch pointed a lazy finger at the woman before her, "You're exactly where you need to be." She took a cautious step forward, eyes no longer distracted by the surroundings as tempting as unfamiliar places are to her.

So far, so good, she believed. Her quarry was entirely unfamiliar to her, but that was to be expected, yet it appeared she was caught off guard by Boe's sudden appearance. That could be useful, the witch imagined.

At this very moment, the two shared a headspace, and neither would be safe from the other's manifestations. It was time to put that to the test. Boe drew from the energy of her two remaining prisoners and began to weave magick from her fingers.

"Who did you expect? Is this a memory?"

A chair appeared behind Kaila, and with a push from her hand, Boe insisted she take a seat.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

Rust-gold brows knit.

That sounded exactly like someone from her dreams, or nightmares beside. Even in her sleep she was hounded by Fate, gloating in it's control, stolen from her.

But the Force had never questioned her before, not so directly.

"Something like that."

The figure's push was strong in this place, as Kaila remained featherlight so long as she continued to believe herself in a dreaming state, unaware of her own awareness.

She would grunt and plop down in the chair, features tightening in frustration.

Her scorched fingers tightened around the edge of her seat, yet her eyes had not yet broke with the stranger's.

"What did you mean, 'where I need to be'?" she spoke with a noticeable edge bleeding into her voice.

"I... I don't want to be here again."

Only then did her gaze break, drifting to the now empty hospital bed.

"Why do you keep bringing me back?"

​

 

[Boe]

Boe placed a hand on each hip and looked down at Kaila. Her own expressions were intentionally blank, at least as best as the witch could do. There was the subtle twitch of mild surprise whenever she received new information. Such as that this was a memory, and a frequent dream, it would seem.

One of the first features she noticed was the fingers, which interested Boe, but now was not the time for her whim.

"Why do I keep bringing you back here?"

She wondered whether it was better to lean into the familiarity... Though she didn't know anything about this place, and Boe doubted she could maintain that ruse for very long. No, she needed to be something bigger than this stranger's monsters.

"You do know me... but not in the way you think," she answered. "I am in your head, yes, but I am also much closer than you realize."

As Boe meditated in the apartment sub-level, she selfishly drew more power to benefit her next illusion. A second body was vaporized and consumed by the magick.

The room began to shift, the walls separated, and the floor of the room--and all its furniture--began to move through the empty space like a starship. There was no sense of inertia, physics clearly did not apply here in the way they should have. Then, Boe lowered herself in front of Kaila, her eyes grew dark as the void itself, and that darkness crept beneath her skin like roots in the soil, spreading all across her body.

Her voice changed, not deeper but colder. "You have something that doesn't belong to you, girl."

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

"Always so cryptic." she muttered.

The room began to shift around them, and Kaila did not even think to clutch the chair harder until she realized it too was freed of gravity's pull. Yet it did not take long for the witch to wrest her focus once more, as dark pools stared back at her.

She wondered if this were a manifestation of Mystra Midnight in her head again, a faint memory of those black eyes brought on by her binding, altered by dreams. The stranger was right of course, she had something which did not belong to her, many of them in fact.

But Kaila saw it differently.

"I have fought, and clawed, and bit for everything I have." she replied coldly, jaw tightening.

"Every scrap of power, every soul at my command."

"...are you one such soul?" her brows furrowed.

"Come back to haunt me after so long?"

Kaila leaned back in her seat, pinching her chin in thought.

Perhaps she should take this to Revna or even Ashin when she awoke, surely they could better interpret this strange dream than herself. What confused her most however was face this one took. Usually when the dead entered her dreams she could remember their faces more clearly.

In this stranger she features from those of guilt wracked nightmares before, but only isolated similarity. In her long hair she saw Ala and Leven Jeyd both, but in those black eyes she saw Mystra.

But nothing enough to be concrete.

"What have I taken that is so important that you would come to me now?"

​

 

[Boe]

"Haunt you?"

Her otherwise stoic expression cracked. A bit of amusement otherwise rounded out by surprise, like she just reached an epiphany.

Every soul at her command? Just who exactly are you?

The thought lingered, but she did not pursue it so openly. No, she first had her own matter to press. Boe leaned in.

"You mistake me for a ghost? Then you sorely misunderstand my relationship with death," she insisted in that same cold tone.

Kaila's final question got to the heart of her purpose, her resolve. Boe stepped back as she held out her palms, each pointed to the sky. In them materialized a single, guardless sword... Dreamweaver. The weapon fell gently, hilt and blade, into her waiting grip.

Boe's gaze struck with intensity beneath sharp, furrowed brows. "A weapon you undoubtedly fail to understand," she accused.

"Allow demonstration."

The blade began to hiss and rattle as she held it aloft and pointed at the sole remaining object of Kaila's dream outside of the room, the familiar sun. Boe's gaze wouldn't falter as it remained positively fixed on the dreamer without the slightest loss in intensity. The weapon cried out with the roar of a kath hound as its tip pressed against the star, causing it to ripple and then burst into countless javelins of light.

All went dark before the weapon's blade began to glow with the star's remaining fire. Then, the witch presented it, hilt first, as she held the blade in her hand without a word of instruction.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

This new tone remained consistent.

It was not the voice she once heard, despite it's similarities, and that sent the young woman's mind abuzz.

Perhaps she were not unlike her own apprentice? two souls in one body, each fighting over the right to speak. But then why would she dream up such a figure?

And then she summoned forth the final piece of the puzzle.

"Dreamweaver?" she murmured.

Kaila looked on in equal parts awe and confusion at the stranger's radiant display.

Even if it were a dream, the power to battle the very stars themselves was no less tantalizing a prospect, certainly to one of such impossibly scaled agenda as she. Was it a metaphor then? Did the blade hold some key to a power that would aid her cosmic crusade?

When the last embers of starlight burnt out, Kaila felt an impossible cold until that promethian blade stole the flame for itself, and the strangers became locked in gaze once more, light dancing in their eyes.

Kaila stood to take the offered sword, reaching for it, only to hesitate.

"It... was a gift." she said, tracing her black fingers along the flat of the blade, regardless of the flame.

"A reward."

Her gaze followed until resting upon the hilt, a preceding a careful grip.

"Do you represent Dreamweaver then? why have we not spoken before?"

She glanced up at the figure, a look of revelation in her eye.

​

 

[Boe]

"A gift? A reward?" She scoffed.

When Kaila took the hilt, Boe did not let go of the blade and began to walk forward. She did not hesitate or react in any way one should, as a star-kissed blade began to pierce her chest. Instead of blood, Boe's wound rushed with a myriad of colors.

Her cold words grew stronger, determined, and perhaps angry at the dreamer's question. "Do I represent Dreamweaver?" She spat the question back out like bitter poison. "I created it with magicks older than any knowledge in this head of yours. Haven't you noticed?"

The witch's hand ran along the blade as it continued to disappear, before finally, her fingers tapped Kaila on the forehead. "We're in here, dreamer."

"I am not merely some phantom memory or spirit come to haunt you. I am very much alive, and I found my way to you because of this weapon. You should really know better what possessions you keep. They can be the very things that bring us down."

Suddenly, without warning, the strange voice that possessed Boe disappeared. It was only then that Boe noticed the final body was beginning to burn up, and there was little time left before the cost of this ritual took precious life from the witch herself. Her stoic face usurped by a fright, and those resolute instincts replaced by impulse. Boe had been abandoned in the moment, and it showed whether or not Kaila understood the switch.

Boe snapped her teeth like an animal and grabbed at the hand wrapped around the hilt. "It was promised to me!" She screamed.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

"Stop, you'll-" Kaila swallowed as the witch approached.

But it was too late, the witch was pierced. There were no screams, no pained breaths, not even a shiver of pain as she began to bleed more colors than Kaila could count.

Her jaw clenched.

The woman continued to berate her all the while, making her blackened grip tightened instinctively.

"He didn't tell me anything!" she hissed back.

That was the way it had always been. The world expected everything of her yet gave her no means by which to satisfy it. Every sith, every man to claim the title of "teacher" or even "master".

Yet here she stood all the same, stubbornly alive and stronger for it.

"Agh!"

She turned away when this stranger dared touch her.

Until she finally spilt.

"I am very much alive, and I found my way to you because of this weapon."

"This... is real?"

Her eyes widened with shock, with horror.

And then as the invader's face was changed by fear, Kaila's ceased to be. there was no more concern for the woman's safety, no more of that childlike curiosity or fear of the uncanny.

This was the face of Anathemous.

And it was wrath.

The muscles in her freckled cheeks visibly sank with the grinding of teeth, and though her eyes remained wide, her brows arched. Her gaze was injected with fiery gold once more, the corruption of dark sorcery spreading in seconds. They shone with power enough to light the space between them.

"You." she growled, "Are not welcome."

"I am done entertaining invaders in here."

Her hand began to warm with frightening speed, the master pyromancer's entire arm beginning to glow red hot just as her eyes flared brighter.

Just as she began to lean in close.

"And I can see your fear."

​

 

[Boe]

Boe leapt back as soon as the woman's arm appeared, ready to burst into flames. The sudden shift in her demeanor completely changed the entire dynamic, and now Boe was no longer in control. The vision of Dreamweaver scattered like dust into nothingness.

"Anja..." She muttered under bated breath. Boe's eyes locked onto Kaila's golden orbs with ascertained fear.

"It was the only way I could contact you," she barked back and snapped her teeth again. "I..." She began to hyperventilate.

All that control...

No, no, no, no!

Boe tangled her fingers in the thicket of dark hair that flanked her head and began to tug at locks like threads. In the world outside this shared dream, where her body knelt in meditation, she began to shake and sweat. Her nails dug deep into the flesh of her knees as she clenched her hands into fists. The last body vaporized and vanished, giving Boe the last burst of life force that wasn't hers. It was dangerous to remain, but she couldn't disconnect in an instant--if only magicks were so simple.

"I need it. I need it. I need it!" She recoiled a step each time she repeated until she approached the edge where the floor met the void.

She snapped her attention back onto Kaila with tears streaming down her cheeks, though it seemed she overcame the outburst for a moment...

... Only for it to unravel just so soon. Boe looked every shade of scared, angry, and broken as she could in the throes of a vulnerable second, a tryst with her sense of self. She inhaled deeply before snarl turned to scream.

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

Anathemous stared her down, even through the dust left in Dreamweaver's wake.

"Then you should have asked nicely." she huffed like a bull before the charge.

Even as the trespasser began to backpedal, the young Darth pressed forward. Each step grew heavier until they would thud against the cosmic black, as muscle coiled around laminanium bone, bringing her ever closer to her true form as the lines between dream and reality began to blur. So too did plates of darkened steel twist and attach to her form, armored plating malformed by the sleeper's memory.

But for every ounce of aggression in her body language, so too was there hesitation.

The hyperventilation saw her slow, for whatever comfort that was worth as the tall, black-clad figure continued to approach. Her gaze was mechanical in the intensity of observation, inhuman in it's constant analysis, and yet the faintest glint of sympathy remained somewhere deep behind fiery starlight.

"Why do you need it?" she half questioned, half growled.

"What could possibly be so important as to trap oneself in the mind of a Darth?"

Her eyes narrowed at the invader's fear, the disconnect between personas as uncanny as they were curious.

She could sense the surge of power even before the resulting wind whipped her hair, forcing Kaila to cross her wrists before herself as cosmic dust stung her pores and imaginary wind dried her eyes.

The young Darth managed one resounding step forward.

Then another.

Before armored boots slid back several paces.

"Raagh!" she hissed, slamming a gauntleted fist against the ground to stop from being toppled outright.

"Answer me!"

A blade materialized in her opposite hand, like violet fire and crackling energy.

"Or be banished."

​

 

[Boe]

Boe could sense that there was little time left before the ritual took a sour turn, and so steeled her resolve as best she could.

Wait... a Darth?

"Sith?" she processed aloud. "You are Sith?"

Her outburst ended.

She now looked at Kaila like she was a string on which hope tugged. She had not caught her breath, even in the dream, where control over her sense of self had faltered entirely. The thin line between constructed fiction and bitter reality had been crossed.

"I only needed to know who had it... I woke up without it, and I need it to remember myself again."

Mere stream of consciousness at this point. She looked at the warrior's own weapon. "Does it not speak? Does it not remember? Everything it has struck and killed, and every reason so? Has it not felt your fear, your anger, your resolve, and your motives?"

Question, upon question, upon question, and so on.

A bargain crept its way up Boe's throat. "I have known Sith before... Given to Sith. Fought beside them. I can give again."

Kaila Irons

 

[Kaila Irons]

Tag: Boe

"Yes." she answered, almost congratulatory to the witch's realization.

"Sith."

Kaila pushed herself upright, standing to her full height.

"A dark lord."

Despite her tone, that shift was not lost on her.

The witch was afraid still, not of her, not fully at least, but perhaps of losing herself. That struck a chord within Kaila. To remember oneself, struck her deeply. Against her better judgement, her hands fell to her side, it's blade gone, unthreatening.

Mere stream of consciousness at this point. She looked at the warrior's own weapon. "Does it not speak? Does it not remember? Everything it has struck and killed, and every reason so? Has it not felt your fear, your anger, your resolve, and your motives?"

She held the weapon before herself, golden eyes fixating, remembering the weapon which had served her so long. It took shape the longer she thought, a telescopic device of black and silver, upon which sat the spikes of a stylized guard.

"It knows power."

The lightsaber sparked and clicked rhythmically, extending into a phrik staff which rang with finality, planted into the floor.

"And it has known many battles." she hummed almost wistfully.

"But it is just a tool."

And it was in that moment she understood. Dreamweaver, like this saber, was just another weapon in her arsenal. But to the witch, perhaps, it was everything.

A bargain crept its way up Boe's throat. "I have known Sith before... Given to Sith. Fought beside them. I can give again."

"Spoken as if that somehow makes you trustworthy." she muttered.

Nevertheless she was not Sith, and that made her mildly more trustworthy than Kaila's own kind.

She took a deep, slow breath, thinking it over. Unstable as she appeared, the invader had piqued her curiosity, and Kaila knew deep down that she had done equally dangerous things to satisfy it as invite a stranger into her midst.

"Fine." she answered at last.

Nevertheless her gaze was firm, full of warning against betrayal.

"If you would remember yourself for it than come to Echnos."

"Tell them Darth Anathemous requested you."

​

 

[Boe]

A tool...

Dreamweaver was anything but. The weapon had served the witch well, but it was more than that. It was an echo in the past, it carried the imprints of memory, strong emotion, and power. It was both her sword and her focus, a way to master some of the most potent magick; the ability to completely dominate a foe's perception, and all it took was a cut.

Boe gawked in surprise before a smirk curled on her lip. An accord was struck, even if motives remained in question.

"Echnos?" An unfamiliar name. "Very well, I will find you there."

Meanwhile, in meditation, Boe twitched and the candles reignited in the snap of her fingers. Her connection to Kaila's mind, their shared dream was at an end. The last thing the Sith would see is her fade away in the fog of her mind, like a mirage at last disappeared.

Boe's eyes snapped open, and she immediately vomited on the floor in front of her. It was then she noticed the bloodied scratches on her knees and the bits of flesh buried under her nails. She looked around to see nothing where the three prisoners knelt, not even their binds.

It was a close call, but the ritual was a narrow success, and more than that, she knew where to look for her sword at last.

Kaila Irons