-of light

My SOUL is a black MAELSTROM, a great madness spinning about a VACUUM. Houses, faces, books, snatches of music & fragments of voices, all caught up in a SINISTER, BOTTOMLESS INFERNO.

    “Forgive me, my lady, but I don’t feel a need to ask you anything. What good would curiosity do me? To know things that have no bearings on my path forward? To question you and all you do for the Empire? 

  That could be tantamount to treason, don’t you think?” For the first time, in a long time, Kyra smiled. It was a fanged, chilling, snow white thing that looked foreign and stressful on her features, but it was all for Reva. The loyal servant, Reva.

    “I choose you. Your crusade, ma’am. If it is the will of the empire, then I will see it done.”

Words instilled in her by The Emperor himself. Those that served him, and his wishes, were and always would be able to count on Kyra to aid them in turn. After all, what use was a weapon, even one as young as thirteen, if she couldn’t wage war?

Her whole body jolts, and swings again. Once more whiffing, finding only the air. Face is contorted and twisted into this violent grimace. Electricity already beginning to arc off her body and onto the metals all around them. Breath rapid and without steady rhythm, eyes are wide awake.

Still, no words, no sense, nothing balanced. Now both hands harshly violently pound away at already bruising skin. Feral, ferocious, and with not an ounce balance to her being. Syndra’s body is a conduit for these wild powers unchained uncapped by the Force, and right now it is certainly to her detriment. All of that power, and with no control.

Flesh sizzling, frying, cooking as energy, infernal and primal, arced off from the body of her current muse. This corpse she’d shrouded her spirit with was aching beneath the wave of destruction. Begging for a reprieve. Should have left. Should have run. Yet, there she was. Oscillating between frames of existence, mewling softly as the object of her affections wounded herself.

A deep resonating feral snarl rips itself from her supple rose colored lips. Anger and spit spewing from her as she swings, and misses. Whole body trembles, quaking with rage and fury, blinded by it, guided only by the baser wild instincts, and unable to even fully see straight with those piercing corrupted eyes. Wild screaming, no words, no composed thought, and she bashes closed palm against her forehead.

Ferocity. A powerful attack, wasted on assaulting the air instead of the aggressor. And an aggressor Kyra certainly was. To cause as much trauma as was remotely possible, all in the hopes of aggravating, exacerbating and devastating the force around her. 

[ breathes heavily ]

Crimson stained lightning sparks and arc off her body, grounding itself against the floor at her feet, and radiating around the armor coating her body. Even through the thick plating that protects her she feels the cold hateful touch of it, kissing and tormenting her smaller form, numb fingertips only ghost the feeling. They don’t experience it now, but the phantom memory is haunting even still.

Violence had struck out, but when lucidity had fallen away so too had sense, so too had the proficiency with her abilities. An animal, backed into her corner, if only mentally. Hatred, vicious all consuming hatred wants to see wide yellow eyes swing violently. To be done with this– Thing, this aberration in the force, this ghost that did not any longer no the kiss of the light and the only dark it knew was the all consuming void it lived in.

Practically foaming, Syndra’s eyes blown out and fully wide, considers the swing. Of taking this life to be done with this pain and confusion, to take the life that now lingered in her mind as some sort of horrific nightmare.

Body heaves, chest compresses and rises with breath and exhale in rapid succession. “I–” The Force surges through her but it is not the love of life it once had been, it is hateful, it is cold, and she can feel it like acid burning down to her very bones as the sparks climb up her arms.

Trap. Trap, the paranoia and fear whisper lingering in the back of her mind. If she swings, there is a counter. Even if the blade passes through, she thinks, this is a trick.

“Why do you beg for your death?” It made no sense, to one so consumed and tormented by the fear of death, of vacancy in the Force, of ceasing to be. Why would anyone want to join themselves from whence they came? “I can’t– I– I–” Before, when moving like liquid through the air she had no problem dealing potentially killing blows, but now that it was all instinct that drove her, her hands trembled.

There was the Power. Note for note, each step was being approached ritualistically. Similarity. Familiarity. The past stared deep into the eyes of the future, wondering just where the present would lead. It was up to her, the wyrm, to tip the scales. Send this one tumbling over the edge, or find a means to steady her? Wickedness or Weakness?

  She should’ve stayed home. She could’ve been in the Core right now, attending a senatorial meeting with Kyra’s parents.

The detached limb is released, the arm that is still whole is lifted to card through her hair, freeing her vision to gaze upon the being opposite. She was so confused, she was so confused. She needed guidance. Focus. Her chains had been shed, but the freedom she claimed was tearing her apart. If the force was a maelstrom, this one wasn’t in the eye. They were trapped in the gale.

    “Beg? I don’t beg. I don’t plead. I do not implore. I am telling you to strike. I am DEMANDING that you strike. Because I know what the alternative is.” Weakness. Hesitance. Pain. The notes were different, but the song was the same. Decisively act, or Die in anguish. 

“People don’t think gods exist, either.” But here she was. But there had been a time she hadn’t believe in those either: love or gods. But she had been proven wrong on both counts.  “I tolerate you,” she replied, in that lightly annoyed tone she used when they exchanged barbs back in forth, but which in reality possessed no anger. The words are a lie. She would not be around those who she tolerated. And those she thought even less of wouldn’t be alive. “I…” Who is she now?  Is… she? She is no longer human. No longer a being of flesh and bone.  “Alexandra…” She spoke about herself as if it was a different person entirely. Perhaps it might as well have been. Yet she was reluctant to reveal anything, even of her past life. But she is so lonely. As much as the universe is vast, did she feel the solitude of her existence. The words are distant: “She was, once.” Twice, perhaps. An eternity ago…

   “Gods don’t exist. Where’s the proof?”

One lone, mad maiden on the fringe of civilized space? Hardly the empirical evidence you needed to prove the existence of them beyond mortal ken. This was all a fever dream, a burst vein of dimethyltryptamine in the dying mind of a girl who’d flung herself over the edge oh, so long ago. And other lies she told herself to pass the time.

   "Ugh, you wound me.” Only TOLERATED? How impersonal. She needed to step up just how lovingly aggravating she could be, it seemed.

 She’s about to pick up on that perceived challenge, when she feels the very air itself being sucked from her lungs. A name? A... human name. Was that-

Hatred and fear burns her, soaks into her bones and melts her from the inside out. Holding in and onto such emotion is like poison, rotting away from the inside all things that allowed for clarity in mind and in vision. Seemingly senseless and brutal violence has turned her into this new thing that she was. It does not matter what someone tells you, how comfortably or softly they approach–

Because it whispered. It tainted, twisted, broke down everything. Until all that was left was this ferocity, this bestial creature with eyes burning with every ounce of that vile darkness that coursed through her veins. Blade raising aloft, its flame-like countenance as unstable as its wielder, broken and corrupted by the same grief and loneliness. It brought fear to those eyes, burned away all kindness.

Breathing does not ease, it is still panicked, afraid in spite of coming words. “You– I’ve heard that before. But I can see the truth, the Force itself guides me. You’re no better than anyone else.” Don’t panic– Don’t want to hurt you– Don’t move– It all worms into her ears like dark memories– Blaster bolts– The crushing weight of another– She shakes her head, retreating backward even further.

“I am not hurt. I am stronger now– Better than ever.”

What a turn. A shawl drawn, snuffing out a flickering flame in lieu of a burning abyss. How familiar. She thought of who she had been before, floating in bacta, hollowed out to be controlled by another. Had Kyra not been available, perhaps this girl would have served the purpose of a vessel. There was a hollow, choral PAIN to be harnessed there, one that saw peace for what it truly was: A lie.

  What’s your name? Not the name of the body you wear, but the name of the beast commanding it.

    “The FORCE guides you? That rings true, I fear. The FORCE and I have been quite divorced, of late. Perhaps that is what took my arm. The all-encompassing took you away from yourself, and brought your blade down on its bastard child.”

She said nothing. Something uncomfortable (emotion) coursed through her. That any part of her might be knowable to another. Pinned down like a butterfly in a glass case. But worse, perhaps, was the consideration of that title: Watcher. How much power lurked within this form that she portrayed herself. How much of it went unused. How much was wasted. Because she must be good. She is the saint of the universe. She is there, in the moment, watching Anxi devour her prey, just as much as she was present in the depths of her memories. In another time, another person.  ( I’ve been watching you. You’re the most interesting person in this place. Violence is the surest expression of power.  I love any game where your opponent can believe he is about to win… just before you kill him. I am already sworn to help you. Let us finish this. ) The display of dark ecstasy stirred that primitive, human part of her. The cruel curiousity of wondering what the experience was like… such all-encompassing pleasure. She crouched beside her, her arm extending out, the brush of her fingertips featherlight against her cheek. “You would not have been able to be so patient… to experience this… without me.”

Obsidian gaze slowly rolled back to grey, to blue. The DEMON OF THE NIGHT WINDS was relinquished of control, leaving the maiden to shiver and coo in her place. To be parched of thirst and unable to quench it. To be starving but unable to keel over. Finally granted a seat at a banquet, her maw finally unbolted by her master and oh. OH!

  Like a newborn, her lips spread at the soft touch. Head canted just so, feebly chasing the finger, to suckle, to indulge the primal need to be so tenderly cared for after re-experiencing bliss. 

    “You look so lonely up there.” 

Strength found its way through the haze, the predator trying to urge the vessel back into action. She reached forward, grasping toward God’s outstretched finger. Had she been here before? Did she truly care if she had?

    “What’s love? Is that an Earth thing?” 

She’d heard the word thrown around every once in a while, but it had never properly existed within her being. Lust was easy. Lust was POTENT. Lust was all-encompassing, she had been a slave to her lust, her passions, her sins for over a hundred years.

    “Love... that one exists here?” She raised her hand to her chest, tapping her Remnant Chest Plate.  “I see flashes of it every once in a while when I’m eating. People THINK they’re in love, but I don’t get it. It’s not concrete, it’s not quantifiable. I don’t think it exists."

Finally, she reclined and pulled her knife free of her teeth, casting the lodged morsel into the wind with a flick.

“You– I don’t remember–” Like lightning in her brain, surging, buzzing, hitting every synapse as it passed along through. How did she get here? Where was here. Her heart pounds like the violent beat of a wild war drum. Rhythmically beating against her ribcage. Eyes like burning coals set deep into their dark lined sockets. Grip is iron tight around the hilt of her blade.

“Who– Are you?” What was she? A lump sets itself thick in the back of her throat, she does not blink. Does not take her searing hot gaze of the other woman as another step backward is stolen. Not that distance would help. But sanity is only loosely grasped, and the ferocity of a wild animal, backed into a corner, has taken over. Even if, by all stretches from what she had gleaned, she had been the one to strike first.

    “Is the galaxy too big? Or am I too small.” Was there too much noise in her ears, or was the vessel she wounded simply unremarkable? This body had served her for so long, perhaps her footprints were beginning to grow leaden, pulling her presence down into the sands, burying her alive...

    “Kyra.” She pressed the extended, petrified finger to her own chest then. “Kyra Marek. My father serves on the Senate.” The arms, both arms, are lowered. She watches this creature shrink further and further away from reason, poisoned by the wrong words and worse actions. Fragility, bound to mortal flesh.