Registering that though tension still roiled between them, the mood was gradually shifting to one slightly more favorable of logic and reason. More venom was spat, more disquieted writhing of unhappy snakes- the brothers had their moment and though Malum thought to present them as a unified front, A'Mia saw them as anything but. Regardless of whatever agreement they'd come to privately, it was still his helping hand which held the knife.
Such was the way of the Sith though, and the neti cared not to dissect whatever delusions these emotional beings clung to in order to go on with their lives. Indeed, this interaction was a study in all the dangers she faced as she sought to harness the powers of broadening her emotional horizons. Again she was reminded of her Master and the deft way he balanced such things with such a practiced touch. His wisdom was borne of hardship and age, but as she continued to learn from him A'Mia sought to become as capable as he through practice and augmentation to her metaphysical form.
Her silent musings gave way to action when eventually it was clear that her offer was being taken up by the Dark Councilor. A'Mia glanced sidelong at Darth Caedes, a silent assumption passing from her to him that he would tend to Darth Strosius in whatever way the stubborn man might allow while she took their other guest on a trip down memory lane.
The neti took a sweeping step away from the King and reached one hand delicately out to Darth Malum. A brief moment of hesitation left her long red-brown fingers hovering just shy of touch, a faint smile alighting upon her face which never quite reached her eyes. He could bully and bloviate all he wanted, it didn't change the facts. So she focused on what she
could do and that which would alleviate remaining tension between gathered parties.
"
This will hurt," she promised, "
But in the pursuit of family, I am sure such discomfort is a small price to pay..."
Feather-soft brush of fingertips gliding atop his cloaked and armored shoulder was all the preamble there was before creeping tendrils thinner than hair began to take hold. They pooled around his feet and spread from where her hand now rested, seeking skin and burrowing just beneath the surface where purchase was found.
The melding of their minds was instantaneous as true contact was made, and both of their senses would soon blur to become one. A'Mia guarded her mind from undue intrusion, as Malum surely did too, and she'd already ensured that the connection to her Master was dormant for a time. There was no circumstance under which she would carelessly allow for another to peer into
his mind.
For their part, the Dark Councilor and the Lord Seer were still for a time- in some deep reverie that they shared, minds entangled the way the roots of two trees tangle to share nutrients and information. The neti swayed slightly but her eyes had gone milky white and blank, her form loosening faintly so she looked more arboreal than humanoid.
The steady beat of energetic music.
Flashes of lights in a cold, otherwise dim environment.
Crystaline structures that dazzled the eye every time light did happen to catch them.
This first transition to memory might be disorienting, with little preface or context, but A'Mia refused to go out of order or obfuscate detail. He wanted the truth? He would have it.
The neti loomed over the masses, moving through the crowd in a
living gown of her own creation. It would feel to Malum as if
he were the one there in the moment, striding between party goers and seeking out
Revna Marr
. It turned out that the little woman found her first.
From there they spun out onto the dance floor and a
playful trap was sprung. The neti handed
Revna Marr
off to the King of Korriban to let that play out how it would. In the doing, caught up in dance and motion as she was, her form felt more alive- more recognizable perhaps to a warmblooded creature such as the watcher who now observed.
And something also ever at the periphery of his senses would be the
Orchid Core, through which A'Mia could also somewhat experience what Revna felt. Given that the arboreal woman was without many of the same base emotions as her fellow, the interpretation of such data might be strange through A'Mia's lens. But for Malum? It would be clear that the two women shared a
kind of magnetism rarely found in mere acquaintances.
The shift was likely jarring, though perhaps less so than dropping into the first memory.
They were suddenly in a grand library.
Small perhaps when compared to the likes of the tomes collected on the Malsheem, but an admirable personal collection nonetheless.
And it would be clear to Malum, through odd recollection of a memory he was borrowing, that this was in fact Darth Caedes' personal library nestled deep within the palace of Vardin.
A'Mia approached the woman she'd danced with, the woman her King was suddenly taken with. It became clear how
taken they were with eachother, and the neti recognized an opportunity to serve her Master by ensuring the woman was seen to and given every care that Korriban could muster.
They talked for a long while, they held hands even. A gesture A'Mia utilized with very few. Then their conversations took them elsewhere and everything went hazy once more.
An exam room.
Revna, vulnerable and bare save for a medical gown on a strange and soft but clinical exam table.
The neti felt no embarrassment to see the woman in this state, she was her patient after all. But for any other, particularly the
uninvited, the scene might strike a chord.
A'Mia calmly explained that the woman had been sterilized, wounded in such a way so as childbearing had been made impossible. She asked a few questions, the pair deliberated, and the neti again offered to cure her.
The memories began feeling a bit more disjointed and grew more intrusive too, as the pair worked together to heal damage caused by a hateful Master now long dead.
Emotional feedback became more heightened from Revna, and A'Mia sank deeper into the cold clinical mind of someone with a puzzle that needed a solution.
For his part, Malum could feel the alien turnings of A'Mia's mind. Slithering tendrils of thought, like roots creeping through soil to extract data points- a tangling intellect which revealed itself to not only be older than the neti's appearance might let on, but displayed just how deep her ancestral knowledge ran.
Though she'd been severed from her family's Grovemind at a very young age, A'Mia still possessed an uncanny
knowing by way of her heritage.
This series of recollections reached a critical pitch as Revna lay fully bare and A'Mia conducted a ritual of rejuvenation, the two women combining their power in the force and utilizing ritual sacrifice to secure the dark energy needed. A sense of professional satisfaction washed over the arboreal scientist, and a wave of emotion was readily apparent in Revna too. Exhaustion? Relief? Hope?
When viewed through A'Mia's lense, emotions were mysterious and difficult to fully comrehend but Malum could feel the way she observed his mind- clearly keen to understand her own memories from a different point of view.
The memoryscape lightened suddenly, and the pair were in a greenhouse.
All intensity and vulnerability from before having passed to flow into a kind of calm companionship.
A'Mia was not one to understand friendship necessarily. Her view on interpersonal connection was more tree-like than mammalian, so all of life and every interaction was built upon the ebb and flow of give and take. The sharing of resources and mingling of personhood with another was undertaken with the unspoken expectation of mutual gain, or in instances where differences could not be settled, survival of the fittest.
So through observation and direct exposure to A'Mia's experiences with Revna, it was clear that the neti held the little Sith woman in perhaps the highest regard she was capable. As highly regarded as her King, or herself for that matter. Revna was a member of A'Mia's grove now.
Becoming more fleeting still, the memories began to shorten and flicker through more faintly.
A meeting between Revna and the neti, to discuss her troublesome but promising students
Varin Mortifer and
Lysander von Ascania.
Gleeful moments spent together in the laboratories or greenhouses, creating new poisons and occasionally testing them on a wretched prisoner.
The odd moment here and there taking tea together or enjoying other, mind altering herbal remedies.
...
Fading out...
...
The reverie was ending, but A'Mia's hold on Malum's mind had tightened. There was something about her very nature that made entanglement in such a way feel like the most normal thing in the world.
A beckoning darkness called to the Sith Lord...
Like the pull one feels as they look deep into a wooded area, or the gravity felt when one stands over an open grave. A'Mia's mind yawned before him, unconsciously inviting him to lose himself there.
It was madness.
She would consume a psyche given over to her in that way, make it her own, add it to the Grovemind.
Then the neti seemed to recognize what was happening, perhaps at the same time he did, and began to pull away. Both mentally and physically, A'Mia slowly withdrew and her form solidified back to humanoid once more.
Madrona A’Mia
/
Darth Caedes
/
Darth Malum of House Marr
