"Take a care," she hissed as she shot an ivory-clawed finger Shayla's way.

"You overstep your bounds!"

Her eyes remained riveted on the human female's pair for a few moments longer before she cut them back to Panthar and Matt.

"Well?" she asked coolly, settling herself once again, the very epitome of languid repose... save for the heat in her eyes, which were beginning to glower like twin volcanoes under imminent eruption.

[ 10-28-2008 12:43 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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Panthar rubbed his eyes, then focused. He had hoped, assumed, and thought he was speaking to Graysith, but it was in fact ShaRhylla. And Shayla…?

“I…” he began, not exactly knowing how to continue. But something within him wiggled a bit, as if reacting to that first morning light when sleep is broken and something – something – stretched.

“Phalomir and Jhar-- Graysith,” he blurted, “they were, um, supposed to…”

He grimaced as his insides turned, and he was sure something serious was suddenly wrong. Perhaps the injuries he had suffered were worse than he thought – but no…

Panthar’s vision went dark around the edges, but everything came into crystal clear focus. His head stirred deep inside, and a strong feeling of… power… washed over him. It was a familiar feeling, and one that was not totally unwelcome. Even though alarms flashed everywhere within him, he stood taller and felt – good.

“Phalomir and Graysith are irrelevant,” he said. “Now that I know you are here, and in command, what they have to say matters not.”

Panthar paused, listening to himself and trying to figure out where those words came from. He blinked, then blinked again. He then turned his head slowly towards Matt and gave him a wondering look.

--------------------

Said look she then quietly turned upon the human male being held captive before her. But from deep inside herself, something other reached out an icy black tendril, slithered between the ticking seconds which comprise the endless now, and touched its like/otherness that she so easily sensed coming to life within Panthar.

Welcome...

[ 10-28-2008 11:04 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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“If I may be so bold,” he said. “It is most refreshing to see such beauty in the royal house.”

Panthar took a step forward, suddenly uncaring of any guards that may be nearby, ready to spear him through for doing just what he did. The power rushing through him was incredible, and at this moment he felt nothing could harm him.

And a voice deep within him, roiling up and permeating his mind, sounded silently back,

And to you…

--------------------

Oh to be back in the Darker Realms, there to explore every nuance of vibrant life through the shuddery ecstasy of repeated death...

But that, for the time being, was impossible. So she merely blinked, masking the darkness, letting it seep back into hiding even as she leaned forward to address Panthar.

"You speak such pretty, pretty words," she purred.

"Perhaps you will answer my question of what it is you wish to say to my..."

She paused fractionally, her delicate nose wrinkling.

"Mother."

She let her eyes cut back for a moment to Matt who, still panting for breath, seemed to be trying to get himself back into some semblance of control once again.

"So far this simple question has gone without answer; you will never know what you might receive in reply until you speak," she prodded with surprising diplomacy for her.

[ 10-28-2008 11:46 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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“I came to see if they had returned from their travels,” said Panthar. “And to escort them back to meet with a representative of the Empire. But suspecting they would not be here, I rather had hoped to offer assistance to you.”

What did I just say?

Panthar shot a glance to Shayla.

“But I see you already have counsel,” he added curtly. “It is…

Good? Wonderful?

Interesting... to see you again, Shayla.”

[ 10-29-2008 12:09 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Panthar Dantares ]

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ShaRhylla coughed delicately behind an even more delicately raised hand. But that hand hid only her smiling lips, and not her eyes...

...which cast a suddenly hard look upon Shayla.

"I have no counsel," she continued to speak to Panthar, her granite-like gaze never leaving Shayla, raking her up and down.

"Not yet."

--------------------

“For too long have I stood in the shadows, watching the antics and ravings of those who think they know how to govern. I shall stay still no longer, and offer myself to you now and ever.”

--------------------

"And who are you, that I should accept this assistance?" she finally asked, settling back upon her divan once more, appearing to utterly ignore Shayla while in fact keeping her intuitive abilities trained upon the young woman with quivering accuracy.

[ 10-29-2008 12:24 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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He frowned, his green eyes clear and curious. He would have liked to think that maybe Panthar was somehow playing a part with Rhylla to keep them on her good side...

...but he knew better. "Panthar, what are you doing?" he asked in his travelling partner's direction, realizing that although he didn't necessarily agree with Panthar's decision to make this trip that he sure didn't think turning on everyone else to join Rhylla alone was his true plan.

--------------------

...and yet what does it offer one in return, truly?"

Shayla turned and looked ShaRhylla directly in her eerie bicolored eyes. "Or is it perhaps only what you can offer it?"

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What AM I doing? he thought. I’m saying things without thinking, it’s as if someone else is planting things – or a little like that time I was…

Panthar’s face tightened with realization as he recalled the recent past when he had been infected with the black tar. At that time he was forced to do things he did not wish to do, to say things he would never had said. He was forced to take a back seat in his own mind, forced into blackness while something else controlled his actions.

But this was different. He felt that he did not have control, but yet he was fully aware of everything going on around him. It was really more remindful of the time he first came to these worlds, when he was still in his own body, still human… yet possessed by the spirit of Phalomir.

Yes, Phalomir. The strange ghost from another time – or so he said. That free-floating spirit who jumped out of a crystal and just helped himself to a body that wasn’t his. Then he got it destroyed! Oh, and let’s not forget his buddy Thoran, that other mysterious freak who hid inside me and caused me to end up in this monstrous body! What in the world was I thinking? Why am I so awfully fond of that Phalomir, and why in the bloody blue blazes do I keep sticking my neck out for him time and time and time again? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE FOR ME?

Panthar, agitated and panting, but without saying a word, turned his head to Matt and nodded. He wasn’t sure if the thoughts were his own or induced by whatever it was inside of him, but he could not fight the rage that suddenly coursed through him.

“You’re right,” he said. “What AM I doing? I’ve come here to help out a pair of royal pains, and they aren’t even here when their people need them the most. We’ve been beaten, run nearly to death, and bullied – and for what? Trying to save the thrones of these weak minded fools? Maybe it IS time for a change! If Phal and Gray can’t save the galaxy, then maybe these two ladies can.”

--------------------

"And just what is it you seem to think we need to save the galaxy from?" she asked, toying idly with a strand of her hair and looking for all the world like such matters concerned her not.

Which, in fact, they didn't.

--------------------

“Some people think the Vong are returning,” he said, respectfully. “But we have another threat, and that is the ever-expanding human Empire. If you believe the Vong theorists, then we should seek out the friendship of the humans. But if not, then they are the biggest threat to the galaxy.”

Panthar paused, collecting his thoughts and trying to organize them into something he could understand.

“Wait, no…” he started. “The Vong are…”

He shook his head, again trying to clear it. He finally grunted in frustration.

“Your mother,” he said, “and her man-dude-Sith-thing Phalomir, they believe the Vong are coming. You must know he claims to be from the future, and has been sent back to stop some horrible event involving the Vong. Well, being a historian, I can tell you with some certainty that he is a few years too late to stop the Vong, and as it turned out, we didn’t need him anyway. So why is he here? And how did he win over your mother so easily?”

Something told Panthar that ShaRhylla didn’t really care about any of this, but he wanted to hear her speak nonetheless.

And she had a really nice, if not sinister, smile…

--------------------

To be reborn... to then truly live.

Thus it was no surprise that she had utterly dismissed the young woman's earlier query as being something not worthy of a reply. She twisted the strand of hair she had been toying with, then abruptly dropped it and made an imperious gesture toward Shayla, indicating that she go stand beside the strange Sith before her. When the young human female had obeyed, she settled against her cushions once more.

"This one also spoke of such things," she suddenly blurted, shooting a pearly claw toward Shayla. She held it there, an arrow of seeming accusation, then slowly let it drop.

"Perhaps there is some truth to this ridiculous suggestion. Perhaps they really are coming back."

As if she really, truly cared. For she knew fully well that they were as lethal a threat to the galaxy as was seemingly alluded by these two, deadliness which could only serve to further strengthen that Darkness within. That Darkness temporarily locked away, but never really gone.

That waiting Darkness, which lurked within the body of the Sith in front of her, but which currently could not do much more than whisper sweetly into her psyche.

She leaned forward.

"Who are you, both of you, that you come here with such offers of assistance? What or who do you know that would be helpful in any way?

"What is it that you can actually do to help? Take a care with how you answer, my patience is wearing thin."

Never one to enjoy diplomacy or the bandying about of mere words, she waited expectantly to hear how the pair would then reply...

Especially the female.

[ 11-07-2008 11:24 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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...and she knew exactly why. "Sounds like you feel you have this all figurd out," Shayla began, raising her eyebrows a bit, "But I know that the Master is stuck in the Darker Realms, and that he thinks he has Phalomir with him..."

She trailed, considering just what the Master was trying to do by taking Phalomir to the Darker Realms...

...and why the Darkness would want him in turn. Furthermore, she also realized what the Darkness was probably doing by taking over ShaRhylla, unaware as to the possible extent of that. "...now why would you want to share the Darkness with Lord Phalomir, for that is what the Master truly intends to do...

...and what he intends to do and in fact he has already done with a mere clone. You could destroy the true Phalomir before the Master realizes his error...

...unless you are truly willing to share that which you covet with him."

--------------------

She seeks personal gain as one of the Three Ladies, and references that which she does not understand. Her ambition is admirable, but her information is false.

"What do you mean, clones?" she asked, forcing back the dark to let the sham of her former being emerge, making every effort to appear haughtily curious, wondering but demanding, as if the statement the young woman had just let fall was merely something to pique an interest in something extraordinary enough to yank her momentarily from her self-centeredness.

"What do you know of clones? And of... Lord Phalomir? Oh dear, this is dreadful, don't you think?"

She put her goblet down and clasped her hands, straightening against the cushions of the divan upon which she had been reclining, putting on a show of concern if only in response to hearing the title of the one whom Shayla had just named in her unexpected statement.

[ 11-21-2008 10:22 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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And what of you Shayla? You came here thinking that Rhylla would perhaps be convinced into helping you find Graysith. Now that this is unlikely, just what are you doing?

Shayla let her greeny-blue eyes fall unflinchingly into ShaRhylla's eerie bi-colored pair, reminded for a moment that she was Graysith's child...

How she longed to see her little Zackary become a young person as Rhylla now was, though unnaturally so...

But these thoughts brought with them a seemingly damning one as well. And here too, a child who perhaps had been lost...

Shayla let none of these thoughts show in her face, however. Instead her eyes grew implossibly darker. "You toy with me," she said under her breath. "Of Phalomir's clones I know quite a bit, for I have seen them. Who or what created them, I do not know, although I suspect the Master in that."

She paused then, suddenly smiling rather sweetly. "But then, with the blockage of powers, none of this matters...

...which is, perhaps, precisely the point."

Shayla quieted a final moment, recalling her encounter with the Vong villip, another piece falling into place into her mind. "Perhaps you had a valid point earlier. I do not believe there is anything further I can do here."

[ 11-23-2008 05:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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But it sat there on the fringes, and it led to other thoughts… memories… of why he was here? Of one of the things he sought…

“Shayla…” he blurted. “You were gone, weren’t you? Yes, yes, hou vanished, and took a ship, and we didn’t know where you went. Why -- ”

But that thought was halted in progress as a darker train of thought crept into his mind.

“Why would the Master create clones of his son? Phalomir told us that his father had made a deal with the Darker Realms. If his very soul depended on fulfilling his bargain, it makes little sense that he would try to betray his master.”

Panthar did indeed wonder this, but it seemed that his interest in the subject was a bit deeper than he at first realized. Certainly, Phalomir was his friend, but there were bigger things at hand than solving this mystery.

Yet somehow, for some unapparent reason, nothing else was as important as knowing the answer to this question.

“Do you know what happened to these clones? Where were they?”

--------------------

...determined. "I left to find the only person who might understand."

--------------------

"But, as daughter to the one you are seeking, where these clones are does matter to me," she said at length as she let herself settle back against the cushions of the divan once again.

"And, if I might ask, what is it that.. troubles you, that only Mother can understand?"

She blinked again, lifting a hand to take up a tendril of hair to toy about with.

--------------------

"And why should it matter to you, as the daughter of the one I seek, regarding anything about her all of the sudden? You've made it abundantly clear that you could care less concerning her whereabouts."

--------------------

She bowed her head, reached out, dug a claw into the cloying blood, and annointed her forehead with it. Then she whirled about, wearing the sacrifice in awful parody of her Mother's glyph, reached out her arms to either side, and smiled.

"Clones, no clones," she began quietly. "Vong, no Vong. These things, at the moment, truly matter not, as they are but words spoken by the two of you."

She paused, cocking her head to one side in contemplation, pushing back the rising anger of her other selfness as it infused her being in an uprush of black oil.

"But-- Shayla has spoken of things which do concern me."

She pinned Shayla with a piercing look, her eyes digging deep into the sea-green pair before her.

"She has spoken of things which I know to be true."

By this, of course, she refeerred to the loss of her powers. A loss which was an abomination to her, for it was far more than a mere loss of power.

It was a part of herself that had simply been wrenched away... and she wanted it back.

Her bare arm flashed foward, the amulet upon it glittering darkly in promise of a future that Shayla, though striving to believe she understood, never really could.

Not yet.

ShaRhylla fisted her hand, a clawed finger pointing at Shayla, right between the clarity of her eyes.

"What you referred to earlier is acceptable," she said, now going back to something Shayla had said practically the moment she came into her presence. Something dark and noisome flickered about Panthar; she cut it away with a sharp motion of her other hand.

"Two may yet become Three.. if the third one can be saved from herself. In this, I will lend such assistance that I can, and in exchange for the assistance you offer me..."

She paused for a breath, her eyes flashing like lightning coming over a mountain.

"I can offer you the life of your son."

[ 11-27-2008 11:12 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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She knew what ShaRhylla offered could be done, she had seen it happen before. And what would a mother not do to save the life of her child?

And perhaps ShaRhylla had also tapped into something that Shayla wasn't even quite yet aware of herself, something lurking deep within her being. For, although she wasn't fully concious of it, she longed for the days when she was yet an Adept and Graysith was her teacher...

...and she was a Chosen sister. Never before in her life, despite how anyone else viewed it, had she really ever felt so complete. And at the moment, with her Force and meager All abilities blocked, she did feel incomplete.

At length, Shayla's greeny blue eyes cleared and she again met ShaRhylla's eerie bicolored eyes with her own, completely ignoring all others present, her eyes deepening in determination.

"In exchange for what you offer, and for the chance to reunite with your Mother...

...I will give you my assistance."

--------------------