As Dark Phalomir extended a hand to her, Shayla's mind flashed back to days not so long past.

Days in which she had accepted the hand of another to step out into the unknown, trusting him to trust her...

...and only to in turn have her judgement and motives questioned whether he would ever admit it or not.

And now, here again, she was being presented a choice to take the hand offered or back away, in doing so or not once more trusting that yet another would in turn trust her regardless of the appearance of her actions.

But in that moment, a lightning bolt of realization finally struck Shayla.

It mattered not who trusted her or not, nor did it matter how her actions appeared to anyone. They were what they were...

...and she needed only to be able to trust herself.

Without a word, Shayla let her greeny-blue eyes meet Phalomir's as she accepted his proffered hand, allowing him to lead her out into the unknown beyond...

“You have been here before,” he said. “I know, I can smell your scent within the rocks. It is not often a living, breathing, and lovely creature visits this realm, and when it happens then it is remembered.”

He pointed off to the left, his finger tracing a line to a small white dot on the horizon.

“That is the only bright thing in this realm,” he said. “The Black Tower—ironic, is it not? A thing so bright, so white, and the name it bears is a mockery of its appearance. But the name is not referring to its appearance. But you know this already, do you not? The tower was the home of your friend The Master when he foolishly had his minion steal away the soul of your Lady Graysith.”

The Dark One made a face, twisted in confusion and disgust.

“I do not know why such a thing was done,” he shrugged. “Redheads are not my taste”

He chuckled a little, then a more serious look crossed his face.

“He is a strange being of devious nature – he served a purpose here at one point but his time here is over. It is my time now. I do not even know where he is, nor do I care. I took away his power in this realm and left him a bloody pulp. He can no longer harm you.”

A sound of snarling and gibbering rose from the distance, a terrible blend of madness and horror.

...and you and He left me here to die."

And Graysith as well, came a carefully buried addendum to those words.

Her voice trailed, and she turned to him, her greeny-blue eyes deep as a storm. "Will you do the same to me this time, after you are finished with me and have reunited with Him once more?"

“Him?” he asked. “There is no ‘him’ to be reunited with. I am the once and always Lord of this realm, and I serve no other. If it is the Master you speak of, then waste not another breath on that ghost of yesterday.”

He regained his composure then, and looked again to the Tower.

“If it were my wish, then I would do the same. I would use you as I need and discard you to the winds, snapping your neck and leaving you motionless to live in misery for the few moments you had left.”

He then turned to meet Shayla’s eyes.

...and keeping said analysis completely to herself, for her own personal use. "You said you could give me the connections needed here and then open a doorway to the Elseness to find the Child, and that he was the Ruler of this Realm."

She paused. "Why if you are the Lord here do you need him at all?"

“To the point, eh?” he asked, his eyes now beaming. “Very well, we shall cut our tour short and proceed directly to the tower.”

He turned towards the white object shimmering in the distance. A sound of wrenching metal came from behind, along with maniacal gibbering. It was accompanied by clicks, squeals, and snarls as more metal was torn and tossed aside. There would be no returning back in that ship.

“The child is part of me,” he continued, walking down the slope. “It completes me, provides me with…”

He paused then, and turned to face Shayla. She was above him slightly up the slope. He held out a hand to her.

“With an heir,” he said, slowly and deliberately. More insane gibbering, laughter, snarls, and roars came from the other side of the slope. The sound was intensifying as more and more of the mad voices joined in the damned chorus. Above, high in the darkness, a sinister hissing cry of horrific passion cut through the night and the air seemed to deaden and thicken.

...for perhaps it was at that...

...and let a wisp of a memory pass between she and Jharmeen, of a time before the return of the Sith when she first truly believed she was the Chosen Sister Jharmeen called her. On that day, Jharmeen had sent her away to save her from Roan's anger, and in doing so had perhaps risked her own self.

Now, this, for you, Shayla thought.

And in that moment, she pulled away from that cherished connection, placing a protective block about it before returning her attentions fully to the glowing Dark One. For all he knew, she had pulled inwardly to consider the ramifications of becoming his queen, or she was simply hesitating before making her final, damning choice in those few quick moments.

"Yes," she then responded to him out loud, her voice deep, firm, and certain. As she did, a darkness born from deep within herself and from nothing else, one which had been growing for some time, fell into her eyes like a looming shadow. "And I am here."

She quieted for a moment, her greeny-blues darkening in depth even more as she once more accepted the hand of the Dark one before her and waited for him to lead her to the Dark Tower...

...and to her fate, whatever that may be. Words of her Teacher and Sister, slightly modified, echoed in a deeply hidden place in her soul.

I now go to seek Truth admist Chaos and Fear...

(((OCC: Partially cross-posted to Graysith in Event Horizon in the CSWU.)))

"We shall dance together in the courtyard," he said. "Where you shall see my earnesty."

He waltzed with her then, keeping time with the shrieks, growls and tearing metal. With a final outward thrust of his hand he spun Shayla then caught her again.

Laughing, he turned once again towards the oddly named Black Tower. He held Shayla's hand gently but firmly as they walked. The slope was now leveling and giving way to piles of black rock.

"Another day or time," he said, "and I may--"

From behind a rock came a scraping sound. The Dark One turned his head toward the sound just a rock hurtled through the air and struck him the temple.

A dry, coarse crackle of a somewhat familiar voice resounded from Shayla's right.

As the Dark Phalomior steadied himself, Shayla let go of his hand and turned in the direction of the voice.

"No." she said darkly, keeping her reasons for her actions entirely to herself...

The Master stepped out from the rocks and waved his hand at the couple. The air behind the dark one shimmered, sending a chill across his neck.

"I am NOT your son!". The dark one stepped aside, leaving a wide gap between himself and Shayla. With a speed like lightning he shot forward and propelled himself at the Master. He caught the surprised Sith by the neck and threw backwards towards Shayla.

But his aim was true and the broken body flew through the now open portal. The Master's attention was snapped and the portal wavered then faded.

"Let him rot in his own hell," said the dark one. He walked calmly to Shayla and took her hand once more.

"Loyalty shall be rewarded," he said evenly. Fire sparked in his eyes as he bent down to kiss her.

(((Follow The Master to "Motes in an Electric Eye" in this forum)))

"Not like this," she then uttered softly, her words carrying with them an edge of warning. "You said you wanted a queen, and an equal...

...which I will be."

She paused. "Or is it your intention still to make me a puppet whose strings are pulled by your own hands...

...like she was?"

“Her?” he puzzled. “Not even my queen yet and accusing me of gallivanting with another?”

He paused, thinking. “Or do you mean the human warrior queen of the Sith? If that’s what concerns you, then fret not, my dear. That was not me, so much, but the powers of that which would make me. I am not a simple puller of strings, nor am I a false dealer of paper promises. You are of my utmost concern, be not mistaken.”

His lower lip trembled a bit, and his mouth creased slightly. “Do not presume so much, it does not become you.”

He turned again to the Tower, and took Shayla’s hand.

“The Master has cost us minutes,” he said. “Let us regain them, and I shall you to our Tower. We come home, Queen Shayla and King---”

He paused, then turned to Shayla.

"Only you can decide who and what you are," she said a bit cryptically.

Then, directing her eyes towards the Black Tower and nodding slightly in its direction, she finished with. "What do you plan to do once we arrive there?"

The Dark One thought for a moment, smiling.

“But I must have a name before we return to the Tower. What lies within my own mind? One name leap forward with great resolution – Phalomir. I have been called such, but only by the one who would falsely claim me as a son, so I shall not be called by that despicable moniker. It reeks of weakness and foolishness, a name you would give to a buffoon. No, a name will call to me from the stench of the wind.”

He began walking again.

She wasn't going to dare say what she was thinking. "And what sort of gift must you present?" she asked instead.

"As for your name, well..." She trailed, her eyes darkening and defocusing once again. For a very long while, she didn't say a word and the Dark One remained quiet as the Black Tower grew larger and larger...

...closer and closer. Shayla suspected he was doing so purposefully.

The Tower now loomed, though they had not walked far.

“It is time,” he said flatly. They suddenly stood before the Tower.

The guardian of the Tower stood in their path, unmoving.

Keiran waited.

The guardian did not move.

“Oh please!” said Keiran. “Really?”

The guardian remained still.

“Well,” said Keiran. “It wants to stick to traditions. I have been away for too long, and I must prove myself worthy. Hmmm… you first! Answer truthfully!”

Keiran gave Shayla a gentle push forward. The guardian looked down at her and swung the massive silver spear downward to point at her chest.

[i]You know what the answer is...

...and there is a good chance the Dark One does too.

[b]And so does this Tower, judging by things that have happened at this very place.[b]

Shayla looked the Guardian in the eyes, unwavering, firming...

...and knowing the Truth was the only thing she could offer.

"Jharmeen," she said evenly...

“Acceptable answer” it said. The spear lifted, making way for Shayla to pass.

Keiran winced and walked forward. He placed his hand behind Shaylla and walked with her. The spear began a mighty arch downward, Keiran waved his hand and the guardian stopped. Keiran and Shayla continued.

She then turned and began moving once more. "I don't suppose there is anything foremost in your heart other than yourself...

He paused, his eyes softening a little.

“But you’re right up there too,” he added. “Now let’s go across the courtyard here and get you properly introduced.”

He looked up, then held out his hand upwards to the sky. The inky blackness wavered slightly, then a horrifying screech resounded from above. A winged, dark creature born from the bottom of the pits swooped down towards them Its eyes were a fiery orange, flickering from Shayla to Keiran, then fixated on Shayla. It bared its teeth and dove in a blindingly fast stoop towards her, leaving a streak of fire in its wake.

When the thing was a mere meter away Keiran swatted it with his arm. It continued its dive but instead of beheading Shayla it instead dove into the ground and slid to a stop.

“Go,” said Keiran, grabbing the thing by the head. “Tell them the new Lord has arrived. Tell them to make ready, a queen shall be brought before them.”

The beast rose slowly, then turned to Shayla and hissed a foul breath to her. Fangs dripped with a sticky venom as it lunged at her. At the last second it erupted into flight and winged its way across the courtyard.

She paused then, considering Kieran a bit more carefully, as though she were trying to read something in him. "You still seem certain you know where the Heir is."

She paused, arching her brow a bit. "If he is not, have you considered any alternatives?"

She let the question fall innocently enough...

"Have you so little faith in your own abilities that I shoul need an alternative? If you are to be queen then you must be sure you handle all I ask of you."

He looked at her squarely.

"I admire your eagerness," he said. "I hope it lasts. But you are correct. We should progress to the more important tasks at hand, such as creating a queen and making an heir."

He waved his hand from behind Shayla's back and a chorus of gibbering and growls sounded from all around them. In a moment the space around them was swirling with activity as imps came running from all directions. He swooped up Shayla in his arms and began walk effortlessly towards the door of the tower. Imps followed in their mad shanbling way and winged creatures sped through air.

When the door was reached it flew open and beckoned from a dark ominous hallway.

She was impacted with pain and anguish so deep it made her physically shiver despite herself.

When the time comes, I trust you will do what you must. For now, perhaps I can in this act save you, my Chosen sister.

Shayla's thoughts paused momentarily.

Not that we once were Sisters, but that we are.

Letting this thought travel through that cherished link, Shayla savored the connection for a moment...

...then turned from it entirely. Her eyes snapped alert and she let them fall wide into Kieran's.

"Yes, I am," she responded briefly, simply...

“Then let us begin,” he said, and proceeded through the doorway. He moved quickly through the dark corridor towards a red flickering light at the end of the long hallway. As he walked, empty sconces along the walls burst into a red dancing life and lit the way. A musky odor tickled the nose of the couple and grew heavier as the end of the hall drew closer.

Within a heartbeat after, much sooner than one would have thought possible, the end of the corridor was before them. It was a heavy iron gate held shut by an ornately designed lock. The gate was made of thick black metal that was twisted into grotesque patterns, wrapping itself lewdly around carvings of demons, imps, humans, and other lifeforms, all of them with expressions of pure terror or agony on their eyeless faces.

Kieran reached out and touched the lock and it fell away, allowing the gate to swing inward with a howling moan. He looked Shayla directly in the eyes and walked through.

The chamber inside was vast. Red flames pranced from hundreds of sconces, under which dozens of stone carvings of the heads of beasts protruded from the wall, spewing bright molten liquid from their mouths. This liquid fell into a trough cut into the floor and circling around the entire chamber. Above, flying in circles at the top of the chamber 50 meters above, were a dozen or more winged creatures, obviously female.

A small bridge led the couple across the hot bubbling trough and to the beginning of a long gold and red rug that led from their position to raised dais in the center of the immense room. There waited a pair of large stone thrones, each beset with cushions and fabrics. Standing before it was a large winged creature, vaguely humanoid, with incredibly long claws and fangs that protruded so far they had burst through its black lips and dripped thick green ooze down its chin.

Kieran smiled again and placed Shayla gently onto the rug. He stood on her right and took her hand in his.

From across the room the voice of the creature boomed and echoed.

“Creature of flesh, spirit of Darkness, you come before us to take command of the legions, to assume responsibility for the duties and purpose of this Realm, and to unify the Houses which divided shall bring an end to all. You do this, not lightly, and of your own resolve?”

Kieran straightened, the smile vanishing.

“I do,” he said flatly.

“She-creature of flesh,” the voice from the center of the room again resounded. “You come to us with the one who would rule us, giving yourself to the duties and command of the Realm and to him. You unify the flesh and the spirit, commanding yet being bound, bringing life where only death has ruled, and giving life to rule them. Your power shall be great, as will your cost. Do you do this, not lightly, and of your own resolve?”

...and for whatever was about to happen to her, for she was certain with the words that were being spoken that this would be the case. For perhaps the first time a hint of fear rose up in the depths of her greeny-blue eyes...

...but she was determined and fully committed to see this through.

A few quiet moments passed, but not necessarily moments of mere hesitation...

...but of something else entirely. Shayla closed her eyes, once more gathering her wits and strength about herself, and then opened them, meeting the demonic eyes of the humanoid creature.

He then stepped forward and led Shayla down that long carpet. It was embroidered with grotesque imagery, stained here and there with dark splotches and trails of unpleasant smears from long ago. The dais, the thrones, and the demonic figure grew nearer with every step. The fires in the sconces grew brighter, and the liquid flowing from the walls grew darker and hotter. Wings beat overhead in a synchronized cacophony that now resounded from all directions. Clicks and grunts now joined them, muttered from unseen hosts of imps and other things, until the entire room was ablaze with the mad chorus of all the denizens of the Darker Realms.

The demon held up a hand and all became silent.

Kieran and Shayla had reached the center of the great room and stood within an arm’s reach of the horrific thing. It looked first to Kieran, then fixed its gaze upon Shayla. Dark, piercing eyes jabbed through her own greeny blues, and it exhaled a long icy breath.

“Then it is done,” it rasped.

Kieran turned to Shayla and grabbed her gently by the shoulders. He bent in and brought his face close to hers.

“I now make you my queen,” he whispered. “I grant you the authority and powers of your station, and will now bind you to the obligations and sacrifice it demands.”

...but then an odd admixture of aclarity and determination took over her senses. Deeply within, her soul was screaming, trying its best to get her attention and waving red flags of warning. But.

But.

At that moment she, Shayla the Stronger, Shayla the Determined took the upper hand, reached down into the depths of her quivering soul and, instead of reaching out and slapping the fearful one into submission did something else entirely and outstretched a calming hand.

As the taste of death and darkness pervaded every sense she owned, Shayla at length resisted no longer...

...but instead returned the kiss. Then, after a few brief moments she pulled away gently, her greeny blue eyes deep and unfathomable.

“There is but one thing remaining,” he breathed. “One final step to become one with your new realm.”

He caressed her cheek again, then pressed closer. His left hand moved behind her back, starting low and moving up her spine. His grin turned into a full smile. The hand on her back moved gently, lovingly, up to the back of her neck. There he caressed her, his hands moving slowly to her cheeks, then down to her shoulders.

His eyes glistened as he watched her, then he sighed. In an instant his eyes flashed, the smile on his face turned maniacal, and his hands shot to her throat. The air burst into a fury of screams, growls, and calls from the unseen host of other world denizens, deafening both Shayla and the Dark One. His smile grew even wider as he clamped down upon her throat, cutting off the air from her lungs. He then lifted her easily from her feet in this manner and held her high into the air, her legs flailing.

He gripped tighter with his right hand and let go with the left, holding her high still. Her hands were clenched upon his, trying to loosen his grip. He then grabbed the top of her collar and ripped down, hard, ripping the material from her. The calls of the spirits grew louder still at this, roaring into a triumphant wall of sound. He held her tightly still as her struggles grew frantic. Her eyes were fixed on his face, terrified and desperate. Then he turned to face the thrones and held her over the smaller.

He watched her struggle further until her hitting and clawing slowed. Her hands loosened from his and fell to her side. As a last gasp escaped her the sounds of the spirits was madder still. He placed her gently into the throne and waited.

The spirits went silent.

After a long, quiet moment a slight twitch stirred on Shayla’s finger. Kieran watched intently, a smile reforming. The twitch became movement, and few seconds later Shayla moaned.

Kieran threw his hands into the air in triumph. The room exploded in cheers and he turned to face each wall, hands held high. At last he turned back to Shayla, her exposed skin shining in the red firelight.

For the moment Shayla chose not to analyze this, nor did she truly care to. At length she finally stood from the throne upon which she had been placed in an eeriely gentle manner. Her eyes, as dark as the skies before a storm, grew impossibly darker. Then she began to move away from the throne, uncaring that the scant remainders of the torn pilot suit she wore fell away further to expose even more skin as she moved to the awaiting Kieran and came to a stop just in front of him.

Her greeny-blues locked on his, almost daring them to stray any further. While they were ever so dark in hue, they remained clear, alert, and intense. Deep within, her soul screamed as she uttered her next words.

”Now it is time,” she whispered, one of her hands reaching out to cup his face and pull him down to her so that her lips met his own, moving in even closer to him as she continued, something she was just beginning to rediscover within eagerly awaiting his response.

Kieran growled low and powerfully and pushed away from his queen, and in a lightning swift motion ripped away the remainder of Shayla’s garb. His own followed in a heartbeat, and with the speed and ferocity of a tuk’ata he pounced upon his prey and brought her to the floor. There he took his queen, and soon they were both joining with the chorus of gyrating demons with screams of both pleasure and pain. His claws raked her back, tracing deep valleys of dark red. His teeth sought her neck and he relished in the taste of her blood.

“Flesh heals quickly for the queen," he panted. "Pain is fleeting, enjoy it like sweet memories of the hearts desire.” He then traced his hand across her chest and moved downward, digging his claw into her soft belly. Shayla returned a scream and sunk her own fingernails deeply into his arms. Kieran howled and kissed her savagely.

Deafening roars resounded throughout the great hallway, echoing from the imps and other creatures as they began to fall from the walls and rafters, now spent from their own couplings and exhausted beyond the capacity for saving themselves, and crashed into the floor. Their death screams accompanied the scene of grisly passion playing out before the thrones and as the love-battle between the king and his hapless queen came near to its ghastly conclusion, Kieran stopped and shouted a deep, incomprehensible word. The air before him began to freeze, becoming a circle of strange blue frost, then shattered, leaving behind a dark empty window into nothing. His portal to the Elseness was open.

...for Healer she yet remained...

...Shayla opened herself to the Force, and to something Far Greater than that. She would not fail. She could not.

Sensing out into the Elseness, she sought for qute some time, sensing outward...

...and finding not. Blood still oozing from her wounds...

...and more specifically, from her stomach...

...Shayla's greeny-blue eyes arrowed into his wildly eager and awaiting pair.

"Our child is gone," she croaked, her eyes darkening as she called forth more healing energies to sustain herself. In tandem she grasped his arms with her hands and allowed her fingernails to dig in and draw fresh blood even as her eyes darkened yet another shade. "Something or someone has taken him. Stretch out and sense, and you will know this to be true."

Falling silent, Shayla remained in her vunerable position beneath Kieran, allowing darkness to cloud her eyes even further...

...darkness which grew not from without, or by means of trickery, but utterly and purely from deep within the depths of Shayla's very soul.

“Gone?!” his voice raised now, the annoyance gone and replaced by passionate anger. He gazed through the portal to the Elseness that had been created through the powers of the Tower and the energies between him and Shayla. He focused that anger back into finishing what he had begun with Shayla, his eyes flashing and teeth bore.

“GONE!” he shouted, his rage vivid upon his face. Each thrust was filled with vengeance and hatred, hurt and violence. The portal closed as his attention was now fully tuned to the task at hand, and as a howl of rage echoed through the enormous hall he finished with a final powerful surge, and without thinking he grabbed Shayla’s head and slammed it hard into the stone floor. Her skull cracked with a sickening thud.

He rolled to his side and watched his queen, now staring lifelessly to the faraway ceiling. His rage was subsiding, and his thoughts now turned to the next steps. But for now he waited and watched. He reached a hand out to move a stray hair from her face, just as her eyes again moved and she gasped in a quick breath. Already the skull was knitting itself together.

“Do not fret,” he said reassuringly. “We shall address the child soon enough. For now, relish in the deaths I have given you and know that many more will come. For now you must understand what it means to be the queen. There is no use here for skills and powers, you are part of the realm now.”

After a minute, when the queen’s body had fully recovered, Kieran lay on his back.

“What could have happened to the child?” he asked.

As Shayla passed from death and back into life, the throbbing pain in her head ebbing, she at last heard the words Keiran was speaking to her, as though he were speaking them to one he considered an equal. Deep within, Something chortled and cackled at the very thought...

...and in an instant she regained enough strength to sit up and regard him a bit darkly. "I told you. Something or someone removed him."

She paused then. "How to figure that out well..."

She trailed, the look in her eye darkening. "Perhaps there aree ways in other places...

...but not here."

Kieran turned once more to face his queen.

“Other places?” he asked. “You mean outside this realm? If you know of a way to find him then speak.”

He paused then, frowning, and laid a hand on Shayla’s now healed belly.

“I shall not speak harshly, my queen. This is new to you and you will need time to adapt. But take the time now to feel your new surroundings and the power it gives you. Relish in the vastness of this land and all it offers to you – you are Queen here. Love it and it shall return to you your desires.”

He stared hard at her, drinking in her presence, smelling her skin, her breath.

“And I shall be all that you wish me to be,” he said. “But I sense within you something… a connection, perhaps more than one. You must let these go, my love, there is nothing that ties you to the worlds of the living.”

She paused then, leaning in to lower herself to the ground til her face was mere millimeters from his. "That does not mean, however, that I am incapable of returning the gifts you bestow upon me."

Even as she stated this, her hand reached out slyly to grasp one of the smaller fallen denizens of the Realms. Suddenly she sat up, coolly eyeing the dead thing and ascertaining that it would serve her purpose well...

...and in an action that was effortless she snapped a long, razor-sharp claw from an appendage, paying no heed to the black ichor which oozed from the posthumous wound as she tossed the lifeless creature aside. Even as she continued, Kieran watched her intently. She moved her body closer to him yet, and then simply perched herself atop him, stretching out with her talents simultaneously to bend atoms and create for herself a sleeveless, thin silken gown of a royal purple hue. She gazed down at him from her position, her eyes unfathomable for the darkness which clouded them.

”My abilities and talents can serve you in ways you do not apparently realize,” she then whispered softly. Then, before he could respond, she stretched out with her healing abilities and into his mind, seeking there to find the trigger in his nervous system that would render him paralyzed. Easily she found it, and then she moved in with the claw she had taken, carving an “S” into his chest slowly, taking her time so that he could enjoy the pain. Even as she did blood...

...or rather, whatever flowed through his veins that parroted blood...

...oozed from the wound. Upon completion of the letter, she then turned on it and on Kieran ferociously, using the claw to then stab into his chest viciously, repeatedly, until the letter was totally unrecognizable. When she was finished, Shayla stretched into his mind once more and released him from his paralysis, smiling a darkly as he roared loudly and his back arched in delayed reponse to the pain he had already felt. Only then did she turn to the bloodied claw in her hand, considering it a moment...and then licking the non-blood off before she threw it aside and lowered herself to likewise lick his now-healing wound clean as well. Deep within her being, the portion of her that was still self roiled and screamed in utter agony for what she thought this action would cause...

...but in this she was oh-so-miserably mistaken, for as in the past when Shayla had taken Jharmeen's spirit into herself and the Darkness of the Realms had crept into her being, she needed it not. The darkness which flowed through her blood vessels was most certainly and most definitely that of her own.

Shayla watched coolly as Keiran's wound healed, and as nerve endings regenerated, she blew across it, electrifying the tender synapses. “Now,” she then stated softly, her eyes growing yet another shade darker as that part of her which even still remained howled in realization of what she was about to do. “Let me introduce you to another torture, one which I am certain you have never ever had the pleasure of enjoying before."

Then slapping her old self into complete submission and utterly to the wayside, Shayla sat up long enough to pull the purple gown from her body, flinging it aside. Quieting then, Shayla pressed her body down upon Kieran, reaching for him in the most gentle and caressing of manners, as a true lover would her partner, somehow keenly aware that in doing this she was torturing him in a manner perhaps he wasn't even aware of.

He was indeed confused.

“I…” he began. “I do not know how to feel what you are trying to make me feel. I am only allowed to--”

A gasp overtook him as Shayla touched a pleasure point on his body. He reached up and stroked her hair.

Falling into silence then, Shayla stretched out once more, but only to leave a gentle, almost loving kiss upon his lips before she pulled away, regarding him coolly, reaching to reclaim the gown she had tossed aside only a few moments before.

"How can you know anything of love?" she then asked coolly, an edge to her words, for even as she asked the question she knew the answer, recalling something she and Jharmeen had discussed seemingly ages ago. Before Kieran could answer, however, she changed the subject.

"And regarding finding the child, as I said, we could travel to K'eel Doba and try to access the Great Library...

...or there is the other option I have suggested, which you have yet to acknowledge."

She paused, giving Kieran a piercing look. "Do you know of the Eternal Flame's existence in these Realms?"

Then Shayla’s voice again drew him away.

She paused, letting the words fall into silence for a few moments before continuing. "And as an enbodiment of the Darker Realms, I would have thought you would have some knowledge concerning the Eternal Flame, for it is fueled by dead Dark Lords of the past, of that race which yu term insignificant...

“Do not question my understanding of this realm and what lies within it,” he growled. “This is not a land of the dead, it is a realm of the non-living. This realm is not some mythical existence for the souls of the damned. It is a realm of energies, of flesh and blood, and of unimaginable power. We are connected to your former home, yes, but we are not dependent upon it.”

He softened a little then, and leaned back on his arms.

...at least mostly.

"The Flame is here, in these Raalms," she whispered, her eyes darkening as she recalled her few encounters at the Flame with Graysith, of its dark powers and what they sparked within her. "In its presence our combined powers will be enhanced and strenghtened, and once it knows of what we seek his location will be revealed to us."

She paused, her eyes growing deep, dark. "All we need do is find the Flame's location in these Realms, go there...

...and join our powers."

A small portion of Shayla still tried to cry out in protest. But the greater portion of her which was becoming Self yowled in anticipation as thoughts of such a union combined with the strength of the Flame thrilled through her very being.

“I will find this flame,” he said calmly. His voice was gentler now, and he reached out without opening his eyes and grasped Shayla’s hand.

“I am truly the embodiment of this Realm,” he said. “But even as you are the embodiment of yourself, you are not keenly aware of everything that goes on within you. As a healer I could tell you that a bloodworm has attached itself to your skin. You are now aware of it, but without searching you will not find it. As I am now aware of this flame, I shall search for it.”

He let go of Shayla’s hand and focused. He stretched out with his mind, feeling, searching, and at last smiled again and opened his eyes.

“I have found it,” he smiled. But the smile was not wholly because of this knowledge, but rather for the understanding of what the flame was and what it could do.

A wicked thrill coursed through her very soul as she approached Kieran, throwing her arms to the side, partially raised, palms outward.

"Do what you must."

Much later, feeling much prepared, Kieran and Shayla stood in the hallway once more, facing the macabre scene of the grand hall. He raised his hands outward, palms up, and the entire room burst into flames. The remaining corpses of the winged demons and imps vanished in a cloud of ash.

On the way down the long corridor Kieran paused and opened a side door. This was a room that contained a vast wardrobe of dark, strange clothing, obviously designed for a Dark Queen. He smiled and motioned for Shayla to enter.

Only then did Shayla allow that otherness that was still her a momentary voice. Despite her newfound poise and assurity, she shuddered with terror at the atrociities which had been so recently performed upon her body, closing her eyes in unseen agony. But as these horrors arrowed into her soul, something there reinterpreted them, turning the dark events about for introspection...

...and her shudders receded to something else as she threw her head back and breathed in deeply, her eyes still closed, as if replaying events in her mind, for indeed she was at that. Using these to refuel her very being and remember her purpose, she was unaware of the approach of an eager imp until she at last opened her eyes and looked down once more.

"My Queen," he hissed, bowing slightly.

Shayla knelt, her greeny-blue eyes pinned on the being, her thoughts going to another day in time when she had encountered another one such as this, who had drank of her very blood.

Odd it was, that Dark Lord Roan had a demonic imp, from the Realms, as a familiar...

She dismissed the thought for later perusal.

"A gift for you, my pet," she said silkenly, softly, then offering the being her arm. The imp eyed her in an almost abject manner, and she simply nodded. It needed no further invitation, but moved in, opening its mouth and sinking its fangs into the soft flesh of her wrist, drinking in her life's blood at first timidly, but its actions growing more eager and frenzied as it began to move further up her arm.

Shayla closed her eyes, and that which was yet she once more had a voice. Remember Shayla, remember...

Once more, Shayla threw her head back, ignoring the throbbing pain radiating from her arm for a moment and instead turning her attentions to another whom she was certain yet held sway with her beloved Sister. She allowed a minute or so to pass...

...then, her eyes snapping alert, she reached out with her free hand and gripped the still-leeching imp's neck, much to its surprise. As it released her arm in a gasp, blood smearing its face and dripping from its fangs, she regarded him with cooling, greeny-blue eyes.

"Enough!" she cried, something unreadable flashing in the depths of her eyes as she then stood, ignoring the way the room swam in her vision, her skin pale as blood dripped from her arm. Even so, it was already beginning to ccoagulated, and the fang marks in her arm were already beginning to heal. She stood that way for a few more moments, then simply let go of the imp, allowing it to drop ungracefully to the floor, where it moved away dejectedly.

Only then did she turn to the wardrobe, seeking a bit, and at lenght finding a black gown made of an almost alien, soft and feather fabric. She regarded it for a moment, considered it as a plausible choice...

...then dismissed it entirely, moving instead to one piece sleeveless suit of black and indigo, made of stiffer, almost leathery fabric. Along with it came a hooded black, silken robe, and boots.

This was more to her liking. And it was far more representative of who she was.

She was the Queen, of the Darker Realms, and she would find the child at whatever cost.

And then...?

After a moment more, Shayla let her hand drop and she cocked her head, tossing her long, dark blonde hair slightly before turning away from the mirror. She crossed the room, opening the door and departing it altogether. As she moved, her footsteps resounded in the dark hallway, announcing her immenient approach. Finally she came to the end of the hallway, where Keiran waited.

She looked into his eyes with her clear, greeny-blue eyes. "Well, what next?"

He turned his head, stretching his towering frame into the dark air. He sniffed, then sniffed again, tasting the wind. He cocked his head and stared out into the night.

It was good to be home.

Even if that home was something out of a nightmare.

At first Madadius had found it a relief to be back to his regular, ghostly-impish self; the hours in the realm of reality at first seemed to be almost too much for him, by thrusting the idea of being upon him as it had. As an imp, a creature representative of but the tiniest evil thought, he never had the luxury of being mortal. Under normal, impy circumstances, he never would know the simple joy involved in being, how precious life was, the thrill involved in risking it, the agony of coming close to losing it. No, all he knew was that he waited, plain and simple as that...

Which for some reason was becoming more and more supplanted by memories of the corporeal body he possessed during his brief tenure aboard Devil-May-Care.

And now that budding feeling was gone, and he was back to his normal non-normal state of non-being; surprisingly, this brought a bit of displeasure into his feeble little mind, for even though he was home, and desired his innate connection to home...

He, down in his darkest heart of heart and soul of souls, or whatever passed for them in an imp of the Darker Realms, missed being unique.

Missed being.

An individual.

So upon his sudden dissolution from one realm and reintegration into an other, he began to wonder why, a feat in and of itself for a mindless, Master-directed minion of the Dark. And in wondering why, he began to look about his home with something more of a discerning eye.

He wandered, he gibbered, he drooled, and he destroyed. Only to watch that which he destroyed come back to animation, to see his drool pool poisonously at his feet, but dangerous to none, to have his gibberish lost amidst the howling throng...

And to have his feet ache.

It sparked a grumble of annoyance in his dim little brain; and so, grumbling and growling, drooling and gibbering, he wandered onward through the realm, seeking to do, to be... and in his seeking came upon something Familiar and something Strange.

The odd thing was that the Familiar was somehow strange...

It was the Master... again... here now, but not with Mistress--?? Yet she smelled of Mistress, of Dark; he could sense it running in her veins, taking up her very being, filling her up like a vessel to the brink of overflowing; all this he sensed as they came running out from the Great Ediface they had run into not too long ago, considering that Time, per se, really did not exist here...

Maladius gorbled, and curled himself up into a little, dangerous ball. He dared, again, to wonder why. And with it, this time, how.

Was not Master left back, behind? So, how--? And Master looked like Master, but he did not smell like Master. But he was Master... which made this new Strange now Lady?

Now Mistress?

He hunkered lower, hissing a sudden disapproval. Immediately he shushed himself, hunkered lower, looking about. It was not good to wonder, to object. His was to simply be, and to respond.

But he had touched the face of reality... and now he was confused.

Snarling a bit to himself, he uncurled his deathly length and oozed off, away from the Ediface, back among the noisome dark, there to find a lonely niche in which to ensconce himself.

And to struggle to think.

No matter how it appeared to anyone, no matter what the cost would be.

At this point, Shayla was so enrapt in the goal of reaching the flame that she literally had no idea what sort of time had passed or how far she and Kieran had travelled. What she did become aware of, however, was that they had arrived. Despite the speed at which they moved, they managed to stop effortlessly. The flame, bright and true, by total opposition to its light pervaded Shayla's senses with darkness and despair.

She breathed in deeply, taking its power in without fear and without hesitation as she then began to approach the flame. She reached out to it with her senses, and with her very soul.

"Show me the child," she whispered softly, darkly.

Then she simply waited, throwing her head back, her hand still in Kieran's as the power within the flame amplified the abilities that were inherent in Shayla's core. As she did, a vision of sorts began to play within her mind's eye, of a young horned, red-skinned being, sitting at a table surrounded by books and maps and studying feverishly.

And his eyes were a clear, familiar violet.

With this realization, Shayla let her hand drop from Kieran's, and she stepped back suddenly, suprise and confusion clouding her eyes as they darkened.

"I...I don't understand..."

But even as she spoke the words, something deep within Shayla's being rose up in diametric opposition as something about all of this seemed to follow a strikingly familiar pattern.

Violet eyes. He had violet eyes...

He stood in silence as Shayla backed away, uttering her lack of understanding. He too felt confused, for he had expected to see an underdeveloped baby, wrapped in an impenetrable force. He had counted on this, in fact. All that had been promised to him, all that had been planned, all of was built around the reunion of this child with the Darker Realms. No, not the child itself, but that which dwelled within it.

But this… this was different.

"I do not believe the Flame lies," she said, her voice not much louder than a whisper. "And the how may very well matter, for it also tells us the where."

She paused then, her eyes defocusing and darkening.

"His age has been advanced, and this is done best in only one place I know of: a planet called Kamino."

She paused, shaking her head. "As to who, if anyone teaches him..."

He smiled then, and looked about himself. The Valley of the Dark Lords spread around him, its horrid beauty seeming at home in this dim land. Nothing moved here except the flowing hair of his beloved and flame that danced behind her.

Then something caught his eye in the distance, a movement. They were followed, it seemed. No, not followed. The imp was moving away, as if disturbed from a peaceful resting place. Kieran smiled.

"Our child awaits us," she said aloud, her voice dark and foreboding.

“Our child has waited this long,” he said. “He can wait a moment more.”

Maladius, he called out with his mind. That is your name, I can sense it. Come to me, serve your lord and lady.

But then she said nothing further, as he seemed bent on insisting the demon answer his call...

...and inaction. At length, Shayla decided she had quite enough of this.

"Oh, bother," she growled, the look she cast towards Kieran growing even sharper. Then she turned, sensing outward towards the demon, not caring one way or another that she had encountered him before...

...and not recognizing him anyway. In a smooth motion, she stretched out her right hand, palm outward, and threw back her head, eyes closed. Connected with the Realm, and with all the space that existed between herself and the demon, she made contact with him, pulling him telekenetically towards her and Kieran, to the demon's utter surprise.

As he finally neared them, Shayla's eyes snapped open, and she twisted her wrist smoothly and quickly, her palm now facing the dark skies, open for only a moment before the demon came close enough so she could reach out and wrap her fingers around his neck.

He thrashed, his poisonous tail sticking into her arm, but she cared not.

She had already died, more than once, and was no longer afraid of doing so again...

She pinned the demon with a sharp look. "You will do what your Lord and Lady ask of you," she said succintly.

Then, with another smooth motion, she let the thrashing demon go entirely and, suddenly intrigued by the hot, red blood running down her arm, pondered it a moment before raising it in front of her eyes in introspection. After a few moments of this, she then stretched out to offer it to Kieran, her greeny-blues pinning him coolly once more as she awaited the demon's response to her demand, and her actions...

...as well as for the reaction of Kieran himself.

A portal opened.

“Of course I can open a portal,” he mused. He then let Shayla’s arm drop, bright poisoned blood dripping from the hole in her wrist. “But wasn’t it more <I>fun</I> this way?” He emphasized the word “fun” with a dark sneer and turned again to the imp.

“You will follow us,” he said. “We seek a boy on the other side of this portal, and we need him alive. But there are many others who will wish to stop us, and they, my loyal guard, are yours.”

He turned to Shayla again, her face growing pale with the coursing of the poison through her. The next few moments would bring her no joy, but Kieran knew she would soon recover. With time, such trivial matters would no longer be a bother to her, but for now she would suffer.

And he would relish it.

...and oddly focused. Her greeny-blues regarded Kieran with a vague sort of look for a few moments. Then, being the queen of the realms, the pain within her being began to ebb. She said nothing, and did not even cry out. Instead she allowed the pain to remind her of who she was, and what she was doing.

And of what she yet hoped to do. Ignoring the dried blood on her arm, she cocked her head then at Kieran questioningly, and stepped through the portal.

She had no doubt he would follow directly behind her.

(((OCC: Shayla moves to In Pursuit of Knowledge in the CSWU.)))

All was progressing.

He stepped into the portal.

Kieran pulled his love through the portal, stepping onto the dark, soft ground that was their home. He breathed in the damp ethereal vapors and smiled.

“And so we know now that an heir will be born,” he said, turning to Shayla as the portal closed behind her. “And it shall be the first of its kind, for no other queen has given form to a new life within these realms.”

He paused. Something tingled in the back of his mind, a memory perhaps, or a feeling that perhaps what he had just said was not entirely true. But that was impossible. He would know all there was to know about this land and its denizens. There were no secrets.

Yet why was that niggle so persistant?

“And once that new life has been brought forth,” he pressed on, “There shall be nothing to stop us from claiming both realms.”

...hesitation? Was that it? Well no, not exactly. It was more like...

Doubt.

Regarding him thoughtfully, she stepped in closer to him, her eyes growing deep and dark as the sky before a storm as she connected with his very dark being. Before she could idly wonder if he could sense her connection with him, a sense, one nothing short of the wieght of the worlds, slammed into her very core. It was as though, in that moment, she could feel the pain and anguish of every single soul in the universe.

Gasping in initial shock, her hand flew to her head...

...but then she realized with a start that [i]they[/i[ were actually reveling in the utter pain and agony...

[i]...and that she, likewise, craved to be engulfed in it as well. Unthinkingly she bit her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. Her eyes closed, and face contorted as she continued to sense all this for what could have been moments, minutes, hours, or days, before she managed to realize that there was something she was going to say before this entire revalation.

With effort, she split herself from all that was pain, darkness, and death to once more open her eyes and look to Kieran.

And then her dear Allaria had... disappeared.

She did not know why. She had no idea as to any reason for it. All she knew was that one moment they had been standing together upon a small, wooded hillock on the quiet planet of J'T'Pan, peering out in wicked contemplation over a small Yevetha temple, and the next moment...

She was alone.

What she and her sister had been planning never saw fruition, but would have shriveled beneath the blast of pure anger and pain that then erupted from IllaAnda's dark soul. The Temple and all its occupants, indeed an area with a radius of 50 kilometers from it was suddenly riven from the soil, yanked from the very arms of the planet as with monumental instinct she reached out with the darkest magicks lurking in her Sith blood. In the space of a thought, the entirety was sent hurtling into The Darker Realms, there to provide an unexpected feast to the demons who slavered in anticipation for their release into this self-same reality.

From which she fled with a great cry of anguish, seeking refuge herself in the blessed, blessed gloom of her birthplace.

It was years, as reckoned in the Real Places, before she pulled herself from her birthing pool, slick with blood and flame and refreshed, almost completely renewed... but not quite. The pain of her re-birth shot outward, igniting the demonic imps into even greater bouts of slavering excitement, making them snap and snarl and tear into each other in joyous recognition of her return...

Then one of them cringed up to her, greeting her, welcoming her with what it thought would be a gift.

She thought of tearing it to shreds, each remaining as alive as one could call it in this foul place, but decided energies might be needed elsewhere. So she refrained, and merely ripped into its thoughts, taking them, munching upon them until they dissolved into her own being and came alive behind her eyes. And she saw what it had seen, and rejoiced with it...

Daddy's home!

Behind her, another insistent call slipped insidiously through the atmosphere, one not meant necessarily for her alone, but one seeming to be broadcast for reasons she could not yet fathom. Her flaming eyes slit and she tossed back her head, letting her raven locks tumble down upon her body to soak up any last remnants of blood still clinging to it.

Then she let herself become part and parcel with her beloved home, and on the Winds of Despair sped forth to the point within it from whence the eerily persistent call had come. The closer she came, the louder it rang, before suddenly falling silent itself.

Left behind: the ghostly shade of another call, one born of pain unending, of humility and anguish, of the rending apart of a soul which desired nothing more than the blessed relief of death...

She came back into the Form given to her, and slinked about a broken column, there to pause in dark reflection. The non-stone was cold as ice against her back, and filled her with fiery joy, a joy which grew and grew as she stared out upon the broken, imprisoned form, debating what she should do with him, if anything at all. On one hand he was used, had been used, was nothing but a bit of leftover chattel for the Realms.

But on the other, what a nice surprise she could create out of him for her Daddy.

It wasn’t until Shayla’s question when he could tear himself from his thoughts.

“Master?” he said, somewhat surprised. “Only a master of feebleness. But still, his desperate actions warrant some level of consternation, and dispatching of him should be a primary order of business. After all, he does know a few things that could prove useful later. It does entice me to pluck his brain from his skull and suck it for his knowledge.”

His eyes went to Shayla’s. His dark queen now filled his vision, crowding out the worries and doubts and letting them escaping into nothingness. He stepped forward and placed his hands upon her shoulders, squeezing tightly in time with the broadening of his smile. He pulled back his lips and thrust his head downward onto her neck, biting and sucking the blood as he pulled her closely to him.

At length he threw his head back and yelled into the black air, dark blood dripping from his mouth and down his chin. Shayla crumpled in his arms, steadied by his iron strength. In a moment she recovered and he let her go.

“We shall go to the tower,” he said. “We shall use the power within to locate The Master, we shall bring him here, and I will give him to you.”

At length, she looked directly at Kieran, her stormy blue-green eyes intense. "Indeed,, my Darkest, that would please me greatly. To the tower we should go, and soon. But first...

She trailed, something deep and dark, both of the two within her and perhaps now within her own soul, craving blood. "Let me bestow upon you the kindness you have afforded upon me, my Love," she purred, her eyes growing huge as she stepped out of his embrace. With the mere flick of her wrist, something invisible impacted his massive frame, and before he could react to it he was crashing forcefully against the non-ground of the Realms, his body nearly snapping from the Force-push. In moments, Shayla was atop him, biting and clawing, her human teeth and nails doing quite well to draw the blood her being craved. At length, however, her taste was satiated, and she finally pulled away.

As Kieran recovered, she sat up, offering herself up to his retaliation...

He stopped.

“No,” he said. “In due time, we shall play.”

He stepped forward and took Shayla’s hand, then spun and ran, dragging her along. The tower drew closer with each step, and his own desire grew. Not for blood, not even for his lady, but for the power the great structure brought him. It was his strength, his life.

He slowed, then stopped. He turned and pulled Shayla close.

Her soul, and those within, craved action...

...and to rend and tear. Deep within-- oh-so- very deep within, something whimpered in hapless sorrow.

Her greeny-blue eyes peirced Kieran's emerald pair. "He shall wish for the kiss of death as it is dangled just beyond his reach," she said blackly. Then she followed this with, "Your Queen longs for action, and for blood. And she longs for it now."

“My queen shall have what she desires,” he said. “I shall ravage you a thousand times and rend your flesh with my claws. Your blood shall stain the land and all shall rejoice in your pain.”

His hand went to her neck, his long dark claws extending as he slipped his fingers behind her head. He slowly drew his hand forward, bending his fingers inward so the claw tips pressed into her flesh. As he bent to kiss her again his claws snapped into her spine and continued to extend until they protruded from the front of her slender throat. She gurgled her response.

He smiled and pulled up, yanking her from her feet by her throat. He relished the pain in her eyes and stroked her cheek with his free hand.

“But for now,” he said. “We must go to the tower and locate the Master. It is time for work now, my love.”

...but not quite as much as she had the first few times. She was bored, wanting more. And she would have just that. Rising to her feet, unconcerned about the blood that stained her clothing, she quickly caught up with Kieran as he approached one of the gates in the great wall that made an entrance to the tower. As they continued to near its threshold, she stretched out, mostly with the Darkness that was now part and parcel of her but also with other talents she possessed long before her descent into darkness. They gained entrance into the courtyard with no hindrance, for The Tower already knew her.

And it knew other things as well, and as she stretched out with her talents, It shared them with her. Shayla smiled darkly, reaching out further with her senses as her Darkest turned to regard her.

"We are not alone," she purred, sensing at least two others...one whose spirit was nothing but utter darkness, as though it was darkness itself, and one whose spirit was dangling just a breath before death.

Shayla was intrigued...

...so she stepped closer along the nonwalls surrounding the Tower, sensing about, for the moment ignoring Kieran entirely. It took her little effort to find him...

...once a proud Sith, chained and now dehorned and defanged, his body ripped and shredded to the point that Shayla didn't even recognize who he was...at least not for the moment. His lids had fallen in exhaustion, however Shayla sensed he was far from resting. Barely alive, yet still alive enough to feel utter pain and agony, Shayla suddenly found herself longing to
partake in his torment.

Stepping in, she stretched out her pointer finger and at first lighly touched his bared and battered chest. The touch alone drew a flinch, yet his lids remained heavy, his eyes unopened.

"I would have the Master suffer in such a manner, at my hand," she stated over her shoulder, sensing Kieran's presence nearby, for the moment dismissing the other she yet sensed.

Then, returning her attention fully to the chained one before her, Shayla opened her hand, outstretching her finges, then curled her them and, finding a deep wound, dug in with her nails and quickly moved her hand down. The being groaned, his roar gravely and pathetic...

...and his torn lids snapped open, revealing dull, turquoise eyes. Even so, Shayla recognized them...

...and she suddenly longed with every fiber of her being to torment him further...

...and for the Master to join at his side.

...back to Home, back to the lovely pools of her birthing, back to the place where no mortal might live other than This One who it-was-commanded-to-live...

"Oh, my dear, dear Grampy!" she gushed as she rose up from the non-ground, her eyes as oiled as that from which she spewed. She was brought up short then, her attention diverted to the pair who rounded a handy corner to confront the tormented Sith...

...as well as her.

"Hello there!" she offered, smiling brilliantly, her fangs fully exposed, her dark tresses tumbling about her shoulders, her eyes wide and beguiling...

...and her very being very, very dark.

Shayla at first only slit her eyes in disgust at this distraction. But then they widened with a new intrigue as she sensed outward, not only with her human talents but with those she had gained in her death at Kieran's hand.

The one before her was pure and utter darkness...

...and part and parcel of these Realms.

"Who are you?" Shayla asked simply, seemingly innocently, but the question was anything but.

"I am IllaAnda," she replied simply, her glowing eyes moving between the pair before her only to settle on the chained form of the hapless Sith. Letting her tongue now peep from her elongated canines, she licked her lips delicately, and ignoring the others approached the imprisoned Dark Lord.

"Oh my dear, dear Grampy," she murmured softly, letting her eyes go soft and wide as, utterly ignoring the One so new to her realms she suddenly, and with quite vicious intend, plunged her claws into his stomach and gave a might tug.

Quite suddenly his entrails were... out.

She cocked her head to one side, letting her soft pink tongue now moisten her lips as she watched the life's force within him battle to keep him just that...

Alive.

"Why are you here, in my home?" she suddenly asked, the query going out to both Shayla and Keiran... even though she knew well and good just who the latter was, and why he was here in his current permutation.

Such knowledge is provided only to those truly of the Realm.

She whirled, fixed Shayla with a dark eye, oozed up to her side and placed both arms about her shoulders.

"I like you," she said softly, reaching out now to bestow upon the young woman a gentle kiss... one that grew in ferocity until with a rending tear she pulled off the female's lower lip. Standing back then, she chewed thoughtfully as the wound took it's sweet time to heal itself.

She nodded, and flung her arms out to either side.

...then once more returned her attentions to this one who called herself IllaAnda.

"Indeed," Shayla commented flatly. For she was already dead, and could really care less about dying again.

Still, she did care about something. For this one was not Sith demon, but she was most certainly of the Realms, perhaps another expression of it. A puzzle, for certain.

There was something so very familiar about her.

“She came to be when the Realm decreed her to be,” he said. He stepped forward, past Shayla, and boldly took the dark one’s young head in his hand. He turned her head gently to the left, then to the right, carefully perusing the young one’s features.

And as though it was threatened by the answer.

"Oh bother," Shayla spoke up, the tone in her words actually somehow oily, and utterly [i]disinterested.

It might have actually been anything but.

"Who are you, to come between me and my--"

She cut herself short then, her eyes returning to their normal hue as they flicked Keiran's way. Straightening slowly then, she moved over to his side, and turning round to face Shayla once more leaned sideways into his comforting darkness.

Shayla rose, cocking her head at IllaAnda, and met her piercing gaze. "I am your Queen chosen by these Realms to rule, and chosen by your Daddy to reign at his side."

She paused, eyeing the quiet Kieran, whom she felt was way too silent regarding all of this. She shot him a piercing look. "Since you will say nothing, My Lord..."

With the flick of her wrist sent IllaAnda's sailing suddenly until her body hit the non-stone ground. Before she could recover Shayla was upon her, her fingers around her throat, pressing in with great strength.

It seemed important.

“Daddy?” he asked again.

He closed his eyes, unaware that the sounds behind him had subsided and silent footsteps had sidled behind him. Images took shape in his mind – dark, swirling and delectable. He saw a body – curvaceous and innocent, ripe for the plucking. So young, so beautiful, so…

His eyes snapped open. He spun around and took a step, stopping abruptly as his body pressed immediately into IllaAndra.

So angry... so proud... so...

Helplessly unaware...

Blood began to ooze into her eyes then, and her moist red lips curled into a smile of innocent viciousness. Slowly she began sliding toward the glowering Shayla, who, despite all her glowering, unbeknownst to herself, only became weaker and weaker, not only quite obviously to the Darkling Daughter, but indeed to the very Realms itself.

Oh, this one is amusing; she does not understand; bereft of the lip which has given me sustenance she still spouts pointless yammering, annoys my Daddy, and because she does so she indeed so makes me want to laugh...

She came up to Shayla again, and placed her arms on the woman's shoulders, her hands now playing with her silken hair.

"Halfling?" she finally answered, sensing her Daddy in this new form might not be as forgiving to her as he had been in his former one, but refusing to remove her gaze from it's connection with Shayla's. "Oh, I don't know; what does this mean, anyway, 'halfling?'

"Do you know?"

She peered more deeply into Shayla's sea-green eyes, searching into their shadowy depths, knowing the question that she asked was meaningless, at least as far as she herself was concerned; looking far down into what might be left of the woman's very soul, digging deep, looking, searching, hunting for the last speck of remaining humanity that might be yet hiding there.

She was hungry, and could in fact use a little something to eat. Humanity was a savory morsel; at least those small bites of it had been that she had managed to taste here and while she and Allaria had been out and about in the other dimension. Something in her sensed that same, weak humanity yet struggled to exist within this female; if her Daddy wasn't going to do anything about it, and if this blonde pretender didn't accept the fact that she was dead and kept trying to hang onto it, well...

She, IllaAnda, for the sake of her Birthright would most certainly -- and quite eagerly -- close the covers of this particularly sorry book and free the female of her remaining chains, thus releasing her to the pure glories of the Dark Realms.

In that same moment, Shayla eyed IllaAndra blackly, sensing the threat...

...and finding herself uncaring. For she who now existed snorted in derision at the old self, seeking instead for the True Power death held.

Nooooo.....

Shayla responded ot IllaAndra by leaning forward, and whispering into her ear.

"Do it."

Deep within, that remaining shred of humanity trembled in terror, hoping for its call to be heard, and not just by those who sought to destroy...

..."Our link, it is back!" she exclaimed, not ignorant to the questions such an exclamation would raise, as cryptic as that announcement appeared to be. With anybody else; by now her easy familiarity with Lord Aelvedaar assured her that not only was that comment superficially understood, but also in relationship with everything that had transpired in her life pertinent to and leading up to it this very moment.

Such was the strength of the Link they had shared since she first discovered his presence in the Great Temple, when that temple was under the not-so-tender auspices of Darth Wicked.

"She is in great danger!" she followed with, albeit unnecessarily. Indeed the Dark Lord of the Sorcerers could feel Shayla's terror as easily as if the link the two women shared included him as a third member.

She gave Aelvedaar an agonized look, unclenched her fist and positioned the fingers thereof into that unique pattern needed to open a Portal... but his time into a different brand of improbability. Something made her stop; she cocked her head a bit to one side, reaching back along the slim tendril snaking between that which was real and that which was not, sensing out, pushing aside the sharp thorn-ridden daggers of fear that she could see through Shayla's eyes that which was tangible about her, differentiated from that which was distorted by the tumult of terror.

Here eyes smacked into another pair, a pair of brilliant turquoise...

A pair which felt somehow... natural to her.

Quickly she yanked back...

...and whom she longed to be with once again even now, as in the past, a past that she had never been able to let go of, a past which she blamed herself entirely for losing.

And it was she, after all, whom she had done this all for anyway. There had been the vision of Graysith, with a babe in her arms, stepping off the side of a cliff as Phalomir's hands rose in triumph. But it was at this very moment that the last shred of what was Shayla saw fault in her interpretation of events. For as it had been with Anakin Skywalker, whose actions to protect his wife had indeed lead to the demise he had forseen instead, perhaps the babe in Graysith's arms had not been one born of her and Phalomir after all...

A jolt shook Shayla's very being, a jolt that she somehow knew could be felt across the link she yet shared with Jharmeen. But it was, perhaps, too late. For She who was in Control sensed this as well. And, staring into the darkening eyes of IllaAnda, the Shayla that was becoming wanted the Power now offered...

...especially considering He was merely standing there, doing absolutely nothing but querying stupidly about the Halfling.

What did She matter anymore, anyway? And why didn't he know about her? Shouldn't he?

Shayla's greeny blue eyes darkened, slipping away from IllaAnda's to cut through Kieran.

"The Halfling is the daughter of Graysith..."

She trailed, a black smile forming her her lips as one arm reached backward, pointer finger extended, to indicate the chained, barely alive form behind her. That unworthy, nearly unrecognizable being groaned, perhaps sensing and fearing what was to come next from her lips. "...and Dark Lord Ankrist Roan."

With nothing more than that, she turned her attentions back to IllaAnda. "Well? she asked her, her eyes darkening even further as she tossed her head to the side, her dark blonde tresses falling back to expose her neck, as though she was offering it up. And perhaps she was at that, for what was buried deepy within her had sensed a pull in the last remaining shreds of a connection that she had with the the Other...

...Shayla! My Adept; oh my dear Sister -- in danger!

For a moment she remained thus, her knees pressed into the cold stones of the corridor, one hand holding her there, the other clamped to her temple, letting the surprising and otherwise welcoming knowledge that the Link was back, it was no longer broken, she had connection with her beloved Sister again fight battle with rising, gut-wrenching panic that Shayla was in the greatest danger of her life.

Moments passed while the battle raged. Then she jerked her face up, her flaming hair flinging about like some fiery nebula, and rose to her feet like the warrioress she knew she was going to have to be.

Again.

"I am coming, my Adept," she whispered to no one. Then with no further ado she reached out with her talents and rent open yet another portal through the very interstices of space and time, and taking a deep breath, stepped through...

... and stepped forth into the only place in the entirety of this miserable realm which held any true meaning for her. A weird sort of non-wind lifted the tendrils of her hair as she stood there on the non-rock, high above the non-ground, where she had found ShaRhylla to wrest her from the hands of The One who dared masquerade as her first and greatest love, Darth Wicked.

She knew fully well that her actions then hadn't destroyed the Thing, but had merely incapacitated it long enough for her to flee back to reality with her daughter. She wasn't stupid, after all.

Oh, but I am!

Stifling a gasp of anger directed at none other than herself, she quickly reached inward and snikked off the Link which had so suddenly and inexplicably opened up between herself and her Adept. Then she knelt, hunkering down, waiting to see if there was any reaction to her momentary slip-up.

Curse me for my error! she berated herself, for in her distress at discovering Shayla to be in dire danger she had forgotten to close up the Link before stepping through. Now, although she knew they hadn't been joined long enough for the Evil holding Shayla to get bearings on her position, there was a possibility that it had been given notice that she was here.

She drew in a strengthening breath, knowing the battle ahead was going to be a dangerous one. Yes she had retrieved ShaRhylla from this hideous place... but only by taking the Evil by surprise. Again, she wasn't stupid; she knew that by her previous actions she had more than likely only succeeded in angering it, and teaching it.

K'aandon alone only knew what it might be capable of now...

So be it.

Still hunkering there upon the non-rock she let her senses stretch out, quiet little tendrils of calm in an otherwise horrific place, seeking with a gentleness she knew its inhabitants wouldn't recognize, let alone respond to. Those questing little tendrils reached out, finding ghoul after ghoul, slavering beast after slavering beast, all minions to the Evil, all brought into being by the simplest of evil thoughts or deeds back in the dimension that Man terms Real.

If only I could show them...

Snipping that momentary wandering thought in the bud, she continued sensing, reaching out, trying to find the one living thing in this place of dead, the One Living Being within it she loved as much as she did her daughter and her Lord: her Adept and Sister, Shayla.

But no living being was to be found...

Shivering there, she pressed on, and at length slipped from the rock. There was at least one place she could go to where some sort of answer might be found, and that was to the Tower.

A single, slim, slivery questing tendril diverted its focus from life to non, from flesh to stone. Finally she found it, incorporated the direction into her very being, and then like some migratory creature following the simple beauty of magnetic field lines slipped from the non-rock and began her shadowy, stealthy journey to the ominous Tower of Black...

...the sense of anyone familiar snicked into oblivion once more. Shayla shrugged, dismissing this thought...

...her interests primarily on something much more enticing at the moment. Bored with the waiting game she had been playing with IllaAnda and Kieran, she finally decided it was time to act on her darkening desires...

...and turned to creep back toward the surrounding wall, moving in upon the barely-alive being chained, hanging to life by a thread Shayla knew would remain.

She smiled blackly, and lowered herself to his level. While he may not have been able to see clearly, Shayla knew he could yet hear...

...and she wanted him to know just who she was. She leaned in and whispered darkly into his ear, her heart blackening.

"This is for my dearly departed son..."

And in that instant, her hand jerked forward, fingers extended to then lay upon his chest, directly above his heart. And with her own physical strength, combined with that of the Realms and of her innate abilities, she began to rend and shred...

One slender hand crept upward, grasped a length of her raven tresses, toyed with it a little. She nudged against Keiran... only to be apparently ignored. Drawing away a bit, she looked up into his face, saw the lack of awareness skating over its features, lurking in the bottomless pools of his eye.

"Oh, not that again!"

She humphed to herself, for quite often the Evil would depart in this manner. To where, and for what purpose, she had no idea; Entaris never made her privy to his little "spates," and neither, she believed, would he in this permutation.

Bored herself, she pulled laconically away from the supportive blackness, and followed Shayla's scent. Coming upon the great courtyard wall, she found the female hard at work upon the hapless Dark Lord Roan; having rent the flesh away she was now in the process of ripping muscle into shreds, the intensity in which she rent and tore and ripped spilling over into a growl which oiled from her lips.

IllaAnda let her smile ooze greater.

"Oh come, we can have more fun than this," she announced her presence as, stepping forth, she approached the animalistic Shayla. Holding out her hand to her, she turned slightly sideways, nodded her head outward.

"Come with me," she enticed, visions of the fun and games and terror and death she and Allaria had produced during their short visit to Tatooine dancing before her eyes... but stopped. Those eyes narrowed, squinted, and sudden knowledge flooded her being.

"You cannot leave this place now, can you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side again as she leaned against the noisome non-wall of the ruins they were in.

"A pity."

Her response was quite simple, and innate. Her greeny-blue eyes arrowed into the other's. For the idea of being chained to this dimension at Kieran's beck and call appealed to her as much as mynock milk.

"Of course I can!" she replied, giving the tendril of hair between her fingers a flippant little toss.

"So can my... Daddy. So can our pets. And so you should too.

"Unless..."

Sliding forward she approached Shayla, came up to her, reached out and before the young woman knew what she was about yanked up her hand, took it to her mouth, and ripped off one finger, gore and all. Letting it then drop, she chewed thoughtfully, contemplating on the juicy morsel, only allowing a minute portion of her awareness watch as that finger rapidly healed itself on Shayla's hand.

She swallowed, cocked her head, and nodded.

"But of course you cannot leave here. You are not of our delightful home."

Taking a step back, she stretched out both hands on either side of herself, encompassing the entirety of the Darker Realms in that one gesture.

"I am born here. Our lovely pets are as well. There have been others, long gone. Daddy is our home.

"But you..."

She came up to Shayla again, cupped her chin in the palm of one hand and drew her face close so that they peered deeply into each other's eyes.

"You are like my mother. You are not of here, you are for here. As he will one day be, should he ever become tired of hanging on a wall and decide to join us.

"Daddy likes him, you know. And I think he--"

...as well as with others. If of course, that had even been him at all...

...for she was also aware that there was a doppelganger who had acted as the Dark Lord for some time.

But not before the conception of ShaRhylla, apparently, for if she was like Shayla, as IllaAnda had spoken...

...she was of Sith and humankind only, as the Halfling had at least once wondered.

Shayla cocked a brow at IllaAnda. "And if he is liked, then why is he in such a demeaning position now, unless he has been found to be untrustworthy..."

What it was...

The movement sharp and sudden, she released Shayla's chin, moved away to come to a halt before the hapless Dark Lord, stood there staring up at the torn and broken body... and let herself become filled with rage, sheer innate rage, rage inherited from her father, but most of all rage against his stubbornly unbroken and defiant spirit.

"We should just take you..." she whispered, before suddenly regaining her former aspect and turning round to face Shayla again.

"He is here because he doesn't like us!" she glowered, her hands now fisting at her sides, her eyes returning to oil-shot pools of blood... but not really seeing Shayla standing there at all.

"He does not deserve the bliss of death," Shayla growled, her eyes once more looking to the disgraced Dark Lord. Then she turned her eyes back to IllaAnda, whose look was still dark.

"He was allied with you once," she stated then, clearly recalling that he had the demonic familiar from the very start of his introduction into the Sith Temple. She wondered what had changed...

"Perhaps it was due to... Her," she whispered silkenly, letting the final consonant continue in a drawn-out purr. "But perhaps it was due to... Himself."

She darted a look Shayla's way. Waved a delicately clawed hand toward the misery hanging on the non-wall.

"Thus reflects the... gratitude given to those who... persist in refusing our offerings."

Now she turned fully away from the broken form, her eyes returning to their prior turquoise hue, and smiled sweetly upon Shayla. That delicately clawed hand now reached out and laid itself directly over the young woman's heart.

Her dark smile sweetened, deepened.

"You understand, don't you my..."

She paused a moment, cocked her head.

...but that pathetic business was summarily slapped into silence and submission. Shayla returned the sweet smile IllaAnda directed her way look for look.

"Of course, My Sister, she purred.

That which was within, although choked into some semblance of submission, let out a brief, heart-wrenching moan.

Daddy…

No, she was jesting. It was a ruse, somehow, like the vision of the Halfling. This… ShaRylla? The daughter of this pathetic living being that hung from the wall, and of some other insignificant being.

Graysith

That name was also familiar to him.

Feelings of longing, of knowing, of… love? No, that was not possible.

I am Kieran. I have come into being from the Realm, from the Darkness, risen from nothing into the Lord of the Darkness. The power within is mine, none other’s, and all that I am is from my own spirit.

Yet a quiet, insidious chuckle seemed to echo within his mind. Then a clear, distinct whisper that was clearly not his own followed in echoing mist.

“Vessel”, it inked. “Only a vessel…”

Kieran closed his eyes and bowed his head forward. All thoughts of the flame-haired stranger named Graysith, all thoughts of the Halfling, and all lingering doubts of who he was and why he was here, were set aside. A darkness filled his soul once more, a power older than time, weakened but recovering bit by bit. It still did not have complete dominion over this body, but that was a temporary problem. The Master did not deliver the true vessel, but this would make do for now.

His eyes opened, blurred by a shimmering darkness that glistened in the non-light.

“My Queen,” he called forth. “And my daughter,” he said, slower, his arms reaching out. “Come give Daddy a kiss.”

Stepping away from IllaAnda then, Shayla slithered to Kieran, a sticky-sweet smile growing on her face. Reaching out, she cupped his chin in one hand, her greeny-blue eyes arrowing into his, and into the very Darkness of who he was.

And yet She Who Was sensed something, something she recognized, deep within him. Again she scratched and scrabbled and tried to gain a foothold within the black soul that was Shayla now...

Shayla slapped such senses into submission.

"But what are we going to do, my Darkest Heart?" she purred softly. "There is a time for everything...but what about him, the one who would call himself a M---"

But before Shayla could finish her words, at long last She Who Was Within finally found the strength...

...and an avenue...

...to do something.

Shayla released Kieran's chin, her hands flying to her abdomen, and screamed, great pains taking hold of her small form as sweat suddenly beaded on her brow.

"Noooo..." Shayla moaned, crumpling to the ground as she sought for comfort from anywhere...

...and as She Who Was Deep Within did just the same, stretching out and finding the Only One who Truly in this moment could save her...

Jharmeen...

Oh, Zackary, how I failed you. I wasn't strong enough....

...and how I fail you even still.

There, on the non-ground of the Darker Realms, Shayla convulsed, her heart pounding, sweat pouring from her body. She groaned, and it was as though every muscle in her body was contracting.

And perhaps that was precisely what was happening. And as it did, that which was Shayla felt the life....

...yes life...! that had been developing within her slipping away. For while it had been partially of the Dark One, that which had been developing was also partially she, Shayla Stargazer Petrolu...

She who yet lived.

And it was She who once more op[ened the link with one Jharmeen Jhin'Darr Qutaro, the only Sister she had ever known, while simultaneously taking hold of the human body which was hers, to rid herself of That which linked her to this awful dark place.

As the contractions lessened, two unformed sacs of flesh lay on the ground in a pool of blood, and the tension in Shayla's muscles finally slackened.

And she that was within pulled fiercely on that Link, knowing that Time was of the Greatest Essence...

He stared at the lumps on the ground. With a slight quiver, the masses went still. Ichor dripped into a pool of dark liquid which glistened in the non-light. He took a step forward, then fell to a knee. He looked at Shayla, still trembling and fearful, a distant look on her face. He placed his palm on her forehead and stroked her hair back.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would you do this?”

A thought to him suddenly, not entirely his own but vivid and sure.

“It was her,” he hissed. “It was! The flame haired witch has come to claim what is mine once again. That which was given to me freely, that which is mine to command and control, and SHE wants it!”

Furious, he stood and in one swooping motion pulled Shayla to her feet by the hair. He flung her effortlessly through the air, to land unceremoniously onto the dangling form of the former Dark Lord. He snarled and turned to night, roaring his anger and pain.

“My HEIR!” he cried to open skies of the Realms. “My queen, and now my heir! Come to me, witch! Face me!”

His voice boomed into the Darker Realms, shaking the fabric of atmosphere that permeated all.

Phalomir worked the controls as the ship plunged into the otherness that was the portal. On the other side it emerged, piercing into a nothingness that was all too familiar to the Dark Lord. On this side was nothing but pain, suffering, sadness and maniacal chaos.

And it had nearly been his home.

“We are here,” he said flatly.

The vastness of eternal darkness stretched before them, lending only an endless stream of unknown landmarks to confound and deflect any attempt to navigate this wasteland. Yet Phalomir knew what he sought was here, out there in the ethereal ocean and unreal substance that was the landscape. All that he was, past and present, though a wild tangle of conflicting memories, held one constant that would not waver. And she was here.

“Jharmeen,” he said softly, gazing into the void. He glanced at ShaRhylla, his strange ally, daughter of hate and love, and no stronger a soul would there ever be.

And ever present was the dire possibility that her presence here was being announced to the denizens of this frightening place as a complete oxymoron, a shining beacon of light amidst the darkness and deathless lethality which owned it.

She couldn't help but shiver, contrasting her present predicament with her former time here, when she had come, yes all hell-fire and righteousness, to claim her daughter. A small whimper she couldn't quite totally suppress rose up within her; quickly, she reached out carefully to grasp yet more of the non-reality of this place, padding the cloak of Darkness she had already enveloped herself within as a means of protection against an the timeless Evil of which it was made. Love made her strong, but experience told her yet again how incredibly lucky she was to have succeeded in bringing ShaRhylla home at all. The two factions waged a war within her heart, one screaming for her to fling off the cloak, charge ahead full-force, and by the sheer courage of the action once again win the day.

The other, more sensible, screamed just as loudly that she hunker low...

And think.

So she drew the cloak more tightly about herself and, using every ounce of strength and ability she had, reached out again with that tendril of goodness yet covered by Night, carefully and quietly seeking out her beloved Adept and Sister once again.

And came to a sudden, jerking halt, both hands flying to cover the scream trying to escape her lips in response to the Primal One that tendril suddenly crashed into. It took a moment to force that tendril onward, oh so gently but persistently, so that she could finally see...

Shayla. Laying on the noisome non-ness, laying at the feet of Darkness and it's progeny, a female who looked familiar, while that darkness seemed...

...all to familiar to her as well.

And beside Shayla, laying equally still, two tiny forms, in which sparks of life were quickly fading.

No! No-o-ooo!

Reaching out further, now with her eyes instead of her senses, she saw a shadow on the horizon: tall and spare, broken and black.

Her destination.

With a start she recognized the correlation between what her eyes and what her senses were telling her:

That Shayla was there.

Common sense reared its inconvenient head just in time to keep her from rushing in with the audacity that angels fear to use, and obliged her to stop and think once more.

Undoubtedly the Darkness is already aware of my presence. If I am lucky, however, it may not yet be aware of my actual locality. Perhaps if I act quickly enough...

Drawing the cloak about her more tightly she closed her eyes, reached out with all her talents, felt the Glyph on her forehead raven up the electromagnetic spectrum, bursting outward and upward in sheer love-fueled glory...

...knew it had been seen, couldn't help but be seen...

...and felt the utter strangeness of the molecules in her very own body suddenly breaking apart, becoming freely fluid to twist and turn and snap and recombine...

Leaving as final product herself, transformed into the semblance of one of the demons of the Realm.

Exhausted, she used her last strength to cover the Glyph on her forehead, which had gone from a brilliance of gamma-burst intensity to sullen blue. It hunkered in quietude, giving her a precious second to rest and recover.

The Love for her Sister thoroughly blanketed by Night, the Glyph hidden beneath it, her body transformed, she let the rest of the enveloping cloak drop so that all but the Glyph residing in that body would be visible to the Dark. A small amount of her strength was yet left; she used it to coat that body with a thin veneer of non-ness, so that the Life which flowed through her would be likewise masked.

She fervently hoped.

Then, bringing forth the image of Shayla laying quiet and helpless, bringing forth the image of her own daughter playing at being Queen of this place, bringing forth the betrayal of Recinis, images of everything she could possibly remember that had brought anger welling freely up from her soul, she let it flood through her just as freely, giving her a new kind of strength.

Wanting to cry it out, knowing she should not, she cried to herself:

Shayla, I am coming!

Then letting that anger fuel itself into blinding rage, held just beyond the reach where it would begin to poison her heart, she bounded onward, gibbering and drooling, yapping and snarling.

Seeming for all intents and purposes to be nothing but yet another of the uncountable representations of every evil action or thought created in the Universe which men term real.

But all she said aloud was, "Yes."

Before she could even determine just how it was she was supposed to acquiesce to the Dark Lord's command she found herself following it, as something deep within her burst out, reaching, seeking, feeling...

...Wanting...

Deep within her soul something nickered slightly, just the slightest feathery touch of something beyond certainty and assurance and self-confidence. Something somehow deeper, something which seemed to assure her that this was right, and in being right flowed easily from her, as easily as drawing breath.

Something somehow allowed her, begrudged to her... because she:

Was Her.

None of this reached actual consciousness within her. All she felt was an initial jolt of surprise that this ability came at her slightest thought, followed by a surge of elation so great, so powerful that her eyes widened in fellow recognition of it.

Power is my being, and the elation driving it my soul!

She almost threw back her head in animalistic joy of it all, by the sheer familiarity of it...

But stopped as a face wafted up from somehow distant memory, a face torn and bloodied, sunken and hollowed but yet somehow unbeaten, a face belonging to He whom she sought.

Whichever he is, HE is my FATHER!

THAT alone gave the kernel of brightness and loyalty and righteousness and honesty she was born with, mere years yet somehow eons ago, the strength to withstand the steady encroachment of The Dark, which quietly and insidiously beat at her and beat at her, recognizing her yet howling for the way their own One Selected had been fouled to them. It/they wanted her back, felt it within her that she wanted to be back, yet could not quite gain total entrance into her body or soul, not as it used to do at any rate.

And thus, in her reaching out to find Ankrist Roan, the Dark Lord of the Sith Warriors, ShaRhylla began fighting what could be the most important battle of her young life...

And didn't even consciously know of it.

At length-

"There!" She stopped, reared back, pointing toward the forward bulkhead even as her eyes opened to fixate upon a point in non-ness only she could see.

"He is there!"

No response from the witch. No shriek of rage, no resounding proclamation of self-deluded righteousness and right to revenge. His own rage, his own need for revenge, had taken full flight within him and even as he stood panting to the darkness of the Realm , the dark intelligence within him hissed its commands.

He closed his eyes, reaching out to the denizens of the Realm. Telling them all, together, at once, that foreign life now walked among them. Every imp, every cacodemon, every night-winged fury would prowl and sense what did not belong and report it.

Kieran turned to Shayla, his eyes afire. She did not meet his gaze, but stared at some distant speck beyond him.

“Look at me,” he said coldly. Shayla did not obey. He lowered his head and walked towards her, hands crumpling into fists. Towering over her, he looked down upon her suddenly small form, and hesitated. She continued to stare outward, not recognizing his presence. His demeanor changed and he knelt before his queen, taking her limp hand.

“I do not blame you for your weakness,” he said. “I sense within you now the cold spark of the other side, the evil calculations of the one who would steal you away from your rightful place. You must fight her, my love, fight her with every ounce of your strength. You belong with me, you spoke the words and took freely the new life I offered. You took the Realm and your place within it. You gave me a name, you gave me your flesh, and I know you would not betray me. So now, I ask of you, take my strength and fight this witch!”

Shayla did not respond. Kieran continued to look into her eyes, still vacant. He sighed deeply and looked to the strange witch child IllaAnda.

She shrugged, let her hand drop and tossed her head.

"This is the Queen you've chosen now, Daddy?" she commented, now reaching out with a slender foot to nudge the prone body. "She certainly seems to be weak, for all her blatherings... and not to mention for all the supposed strengths you've given to her."

Her eyes cemented to Keiran's, seeking to reach into his very emptiness, searching deeply, trying to find...

"You've changed, Daddy. What has happened to you?"

She only laughed then, as his anger intensified, letting forth a burst of rage which dropped a passing imp, coming to his command, like a stone. "Oh Daddy, you've always known how to amuse me!"

With that she glided to the fallen imp and as if she was doing nothing more than plucking some lovely flower picked it up and plucked off its head. This she popped into her mouth, munching on the little morsel even as she tossed the remains aside to disappear into the miasma which was the Darker Realms.

"Oh bother, I don't know."

At last responding to Keiran's outburst, she wafted back to him and contemplated the fallen form of Shayla again. Something of the blonde woman's hair reminded her of a day long ago, or was it merely moments that had passed since she and her blood-born sister Alaria had wrought such havoc on Tatooine? Something about this woman's golden hair brought back vivid images of the golden sands which owned the miserable little town of Mos Eisley, but was yet a town in which at least some of the inhabitants rushed to the aid of others should the need arise.

She knew this, she had witnessed it firsthand.

Her delicate nose wrinkled in disgust.

"These beings care about each other, and you know that makes them weak, Daddy," she mentioned as her toe found a stronghold against Shayla's side. With scarcely any effort at all she rolled the unmoving woman over and continued to stare down at her.

"Well, it should. Maybe it does something more. Maybe that's what you have to fight, Daddy. But then, maybe I'm wrong."

Throwing her head back she let a musical laugh escape her throat and began to dance, pirouetting and whirling against the noisome black, presenting herself as a complete oxymoron to anyone watching who actually realized just who and what she exactly was.

Kieran smiled, a grisly sneer of blood soaked teeth. Perhaps this queen he selected was not who she presented herself to be. She was obviously not worthy to the mother of the heir, her body was not up to the challenge.

Is yours?

That voice again, whose was it? That dark whispering… bah, it mattered not. It was just a voice, voices could not hurt, could not command, could not control.

Let her come. It will All be right.

He knelt once more to Shayla and took her chin in his hand. He lifted her face to meet his, and leaned in close so his lips were near her ear.

“I give you that which I never had,” he said. “A second chance. You chose me once, chose to be my queen. If you still make that choice, then follow me. If you do not, then wait here, and your witch will find you. But beware, you shall always be a part of me, you shall always belong to this Realm.”

Kieran stood and turned back to IllaAnda. The smile returned, broad and sinister, and he walked to her. Without looking back to Shayla, he took the hand of the spinning child and brought her to a stop.

...they enticed with furious feriocity.

But She who was within was strong.

Still, without, the darkness that was overtaking lashed out uncaringly, and Shayla's body, having just miscarried and then been flung into the Tower, arched in a great spasm of exquite pain.

She screamed, and the Darkness roared in a hideous sort of glee.

You shall always be a part of me, you shall always belong to this Realm...

She that was within scratched and scraped once more, refusing to release Her teetering grip. Then another piece of what Kieran had spoken fell into place:

The witch shall be here soon, and the reunion should be most entertaining...

The human portion of Shayla's flooded with horror.

Oh noooo....

...she was here, and they knew it...

Find what does not belong, it thought. Everything here belongs here. What could not belong here?

It moved along nonetheless, looking at everything. Every stone, every dark pebble, every creature that passed on its own search for the unknown, it looked. Nothing did not belong. Was it searching then for nothing?

A shape passed in the path ahead. It was huddled, a hood of some sort sprawled over it so the face could not be seen. It yapped, it snarled, but something was not quite right. It walked in ways that others did, but not quite right. It lurked in the way others did, but not quite right. He fell in line behind it, trying to mimic the strange gait, the almost rightness of it. Others paid it no attention, they were bigger. But he was small, and he noticed.

This is not belonging, he thought. A smile crooked in the corner of his deformed mouth, and a voice he did not know existed drew breath for a cacophony that would alert every denizen to the presence of this wrongness. He completed his breath, and held his clawed hands in a cup to strengthen his warning.

But as the first hint of a sound escaped his cracked lips, a new sound shuddered from behind and up. It was definitely something he had never experienced in all of his days, however many that might have been. It was a cold, metallic, howl that forced him once again into silence and compelled him to turn and face the source of this terrible atrocity.

He turned in time to see the large beast flying above. It was shaped strangely, with no flapping demon wings, no barbed tail, but instead was simultaneously round and rectangular. It gleamed in the dark light, and seemed to glide upon the insidious winds with no effort. It passed directly overhead, then glided beyond.

All thoughts of the strange lumbering wrong creature vanished from the impling’s small mind. Replacing were thoughts of terror, uncertainty, and an urgent need to tell the new old master of this flying thing. He sprung forward, knocking into the strange creature and sending it crashing to the ground. But he continued forward, doing his best to catch up with this new thing, to warn the master…

One who seemed not to be altogether fleeing so much as scampering toward something. Or someone...

Quickly she gained her footing, hunched and hunkered, lidding her eyes now to hide their brilliance, straining with all her might against the Glyph on her forehead which automatically sought to protect her from the rampaging evil of this hellish place.

I cannot be discovered... this one, he cannot run...!

Instinct told her that in that collision something of her reality more than likely impacted the fleeing imp. Yet why was he not attacking her? Running to reveal her to The Dark...?

Oh no!

This was a risk she couldn't take. Once more grasping upon every scrap of anger she yet maintained for every betrayal against herself and her loved ones throughout the insane years following her break from true humanity, a break which bound her more and more tightly to a race who should be dead, she simply let them coalesce into a trembling knot of pure hate which catapulted her body into a lightning flash leap. That leap, enhanced now by that wondrous power now so innate within her, covered precisely the distance she needed to intercept the madly fleeing little demon.

She landed on him, growling and yowling and spitting, ignoring his flailing claws, ducking to avoid the poisonous saliva which drooled and sprayed from his hideous mouth, now rolling over and over and over on something that was more the physical embodiment of nightmare than it was ground of any sort, her own claws reaching and seeking and finding and digging deep. They came to a ratcheting halt with her taking the high ground; instinct took hold of her heart and she had her teeth in the dark little thing's throat before she was even aware that she was ripping it out. She clamped deeper and deeper, chewing now, twisting her slender mask of a head, reaching through...

And finally succeeded in completely tearing off the thing's head. In another reflexive leap she was off of it, spitting and swiping the ichor from her face and mouth, gagging on the putrescence of it all, willing the precious Life in the All to keep her alive even as she watched the non-life of the imp drain into the noisome black and become part of it.

It would return again one day, that she knew. But for now this one was gone; hopefully her whereabouts hadn't been revealed to The Dark itself. Leery of the direction in which her thoughts were taking her, she hunkered low, looking about herself, looking forward to where the thing had been running and then back, in the direction it had been running from...

A jolt. It had been careening from something, something that managed to make a demonic imp startled, something it was afraid of. What would possibly make a demon react in that manner within the haven of it's very own realms?

Something was dwindling in the dark. She squinted, peering; then her eyes widened in amazement.

A... a SHIP?!

The darkness within her melted away in an instant. From where else could a ship have come if not from the universe that Men term real? Here were those of her own kind, perhaps someone who knew her; how else would they have gotten into these realms unless...

The All. Death can bring one into the Darker Realms if one is unlucky enough to have caught its eye, but no one simply flies from one dimension into another unless they have the ability to do so.

"Oh Dear Khaandon!"

The whisper escaped her lips, warped for the fact the words were being uttered by a physiology unused to such. But words they were, words yanking her into a sudden surety that she knew who was aboard that ship.

Utterly ignoring the rolling oxymoronic aspect of the non-ground beneath her feet, she took off as fast as she could lope, then canter, and finally gallop... and at length she was nearly flying as though hell itself was hot on her heels. Slitting her eyes, she now relented to herself, let her Glyph now take over her very soul, let it fuel her, fire her, let it lend supernatural speed to her clawed feet...

And sped hell-bent for leather, chasing the ship that had come from nowhere, praying that her own heart wouldn't initiate the final betrayal of the myriad she had experienced, even as she knew she was right.

It is him, it is him!

Onward she sped, the speck in the distance becoming gradually larger, large enough to see well enough to recognize that yes indeed it was a ship and not her imagination or a demon's dream, faster and faster she ran, wanting to change her form but remaining hidden, hiding the Glyph as best she could, panting with the effort this was costing her. Reaching out with her talents, she fairly willed the ship to slow, to come to ground.

Still she ran, wondering if she would even be noticed by the One who was piloting that ship.

He knew that the Roan he had faced before was not the Roan they now sought, but that did little to soothe the knot in his stomach. That Roan had been a beast, and he knew in his heart that he had not seen the last of him, once they reached the tower.

The Tower. He had been imprisoned there by his father… no, by the Master. His father was dead, and whatever that thing was that walked in his father’s shell was certainly no relation. If not for Jharmeen, it was impossible to tell what would have happened.

Ah, Jharmeen. She too had been held here, at least her spirit. When Thoran had betrayed them all at the command of the Master and stole her spirit away to here. Phalomir had been able to return the favor and bring her home.

Jharmeen. Would he ever be reunited with her? He still did not know if she was well, after sending her off with K’Kihl to get medical attention, he had been drawn into one chaotic path after another. He had to see this through, though. Something in the Temple wanted him to see – wanted both of them to see – the truth behind Roan. Whether it was Googly Eyes, or the Temple, or something else in the Sith worlds that sent them here… perhaps it was even the All, or Jharmeen.

He could see her face in his mind, a gentle fog surrounding her and then clearing, bringing her image to crystal clarity. Her smile warmed him, simultaneously washing him with love and breaking his heart with aching. He reluctantly tried to clear his thoughts, to focus on the task at hand, but her image persisted. Her eyes grew narrow, her smile straightening into a determined line. She called to him silently, words stopping short of sound but still projecting an urgency. Again he tried to shake himself back to the moment, his hand tightening on the control stick. But the image returned in vivid crystal, and suddenly he felt compelled to heed it.

“Do you feel that?” he asked ShaRhylla. He glanced to her, the skeptical yet cautiously curious look on her face told him that she too had experienced something. “I’m sorry, it is just for a moment, but I have to turn around.”

A second ticked past; she kept her violet eyes peeled on the ship, watching as it came closer and closer... and then something off to her left captured her attention and yanked it away.

From the surrounding hills and rolling peaks, small and drooling black forms were descending upon her position as well, forms whose dim yappings and proclamations came to her ears like the very knell of Death.

She jerked her focus back to the ship, shivering, knowing they would attack and that Dark Minions in their millions quite simply had the combined mass to hold the ship aground by simply clambering atop it and sitting on it.

A choice had to be made.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her head, seeking outward for living familiarity, seeking inward into her heart of hearts, finding and sending forth in joyous announcement, I am here, my love it is you and this is I; come no closer to this horrible landscape lest the minions of this realm destroy you in their masses!

She then utterly relaxed, let the Glyph burst forth and in that eruption utterly annihilate the guise she had been wearing. The brilliant ultraviolet blue flash quickly descended down the electromagnetic spectrum then, until it reached the sullen indigo which represented the Glyph's natural resting state, and in that darkness was clearly revealed a slender figure, hair of fire framing her face, one dressed in a simple black Sith one-piece martial suit.

One ready for anything. One which took a few steps back... and a few more...

And then, reaching out into her soul for the guidance of that with which her Dark Lord and adoptive Father had endowed her, ran forward and leapt up.

Up and up, impossibly up... her body slammed against the hull of the descending ship, her hands groping, flailing against the metal, seeking, trying to dig in.

And then fingers found purchase on the slenderest of threads: the small edge of the hatch which lay flush against the hull.

In that one moment, she proved if nothing else to indeed be sister to Galen Jhin'Darr Danner.

Jharmeen...she was here...

With effort, Shayla...the Shayla that should be... pushed the Darkness back. With the greatest of efforts, she succeeded, and eyes which had been vacant began to once more come to life. And within the ruined courtyard, those greeny blue eyes began to look about, and her mind began to register coherent thought once more. Simultaneously, in her heart of hearts, that Link she shared with Jharmeen, once closed, now reconnected.

She is here. She has come for you. But you need to do something too, Shayla Stargazer...

And it was in that moment that She Who Was Also a Pilot registered the sounds of flight. With sudden hope dawning, Shayla's greeny blue eyes looked upward, and she caught first sight of the ship, and of the scrabbling imps...

...and though the image wasn't perfectly clear due to the distance, Shayla swore she saw someone jump upwards and cling onto the hull of the ship...

My Sister...

The words were felt, and even more than that as, somehow knowing that now was indeed the time, Shayla that Should Be grasped with great furiousity to that Link, giving what minimal strength she could to it.

You can be Whole...

Knowing that she couldn't make it from the Tower to the ship unseen, however, a brief moment of despair welled within. But She Who Should Be wouldn't allow it.

Fight, dammit. Fight!

And then, turning to something else entirely, something she hadn't in oh-so-very-long, Shayla stretched out, not to just that which was the Force, but to that which she had just begun to truly learn about, the All, and closed her eyes, pulling towards that Link she shared with Jharmeen, and to the very fabric of Time and Space.

She had only been successful in this once before, in a time of true desperation.

Such as now...

But that one, single time, she had been successful...

“Help me!” he called to ShaRhylla, and darted for the ship’s waist. He stopped himself at the hatch controls, first hitting the pressure switch and then the gangplank extender. The hatch opened from the top, extending outward slowly. As soon as enough space had cleared, Phalomir thrust his head and should out to take account of the situation.

Jharmeen hung to the side of the ship, precariously gripping the edge of the hull where the hatch had been sealed against it. There was no time for a smile, as the imps below had gathered in a flock and had begun to hurl stones, black balls of non-earth, and even themselves up towards the ship. Some were coming unbelievably close, propelled by the devilish powers of these creatures. As Phalomir extended his hand to grasp Jharmeen’s, a stone caught him in the temple, sending a blinding flash of pain across his vision. The shock and the shift in balance as he added Jharmeen’s weight to his own, dragged his torso across the ship’s floor and out the hatch. He flung his arm backwards to catch the side of the hatch opening.

Now grasping Jharmeen in his left hand and the ship in his right, he blinked away the trickle of blood from his eye and called out.

“Jharmeen!” he cried. “I am glad to see you are well!”

He looked to the open hatchway and caught ShaRhylla’s eye.

“I am going to swing you to the hatch,” he said. “ShaRylla is here to make sure you make it. Are you both ready?”

And in that moment, what she had been doing here in the Darker Realms seemed to slam upon the Shayla Who Was with full impact.

“I give you that which I never had,” he had said. “A second chance. You chose me once, chose to be my queen. If you still make that choice, then follow me. If you do not, then wait here, and your witch will find you. But beware, you shall always be a part of me, you shall always belong to this Realm.”

Shayla shuddered inwardly and without, realizing for what was probably truly the first time that she was, in fact deceased. Dead.

And realizing that no matter how many deaths she died she would continue to remain, in one fashion or another.

Being part and parcel of the Darker Realms, Shayla's body--as it was--had begun, once more, to regenerate despite her recent miscarriage. Having been thrown to the tower, she had fallen with great force against the non-ground, perhaps having broken something...

...and yet it did not matter, for that too was regenerating. Placing her elbows to the ground, Shayla pushed herself up, ignoring pains which radiated through her abdomen and up and down her spine, and turned to look at the de-horned, dishonored Dark Lord Roan who was hanging there, mostly dead, but still alive...

...and in that moment, Shayla made a choice.

After all, someone had once pointed out that the opposite of Love was not hate, but it was rather Passion and Apathy that were the true turning points. And while she might be part of the Realms now, being part of this Darkness most definitely did not mean she did not care. After all, hadn’t she said what was truly foremost in her mind not all that long ago, before she had been made Queen? Or maybe It was longer ago than she realized...

Shayla's eyes riveted away from the miserably hanging, disrobed Dark Lord to the non-skies above where a ship was incoming, a mass of demons gathering and nearing...

...Jharmeen hanging precariously as he who would have appeared to be Dark Lord Phalomir reached out for her. And whether or not she herself survived was no longer of concern to Shayla.

For Sisters they always would be. And as a sister, she would give her life.

And there were things that she knew that Jharmeeen deserved to know, and needed to know.

Shayla reached out via the Link she shared with Jharmeen, depositing a memory, along with the knowledge she had: a memory of a pale red young being in a bubbling, active growth tube on Kamino, his genes altered, his age being regressed...

Jharmeen's child.

At first, even Shayla wasn't sure why she felt Jharmeen needed to know this, but that uncertainty quickly faded.

For Jharmeen, like she, had lost a child...and more than one. No mother should outlive her own offspring...

...or be lead to believe she had when perhaps she hadn't.

And the implications of what was being done to Jharmeen’s child were, in a word, terrifying…both in light of how it would make a mother feel as well as in light of why someone would want to remove the Sith genes from a child at all. And, uncertain as to whether or not she would ever be able to leave the Realms again, Shayla knew she had to impart what she knew to someone who still had a chance.

After all, Keiran was interested in the two fetuses she had just lost, and not on the child they had left behind on Kamino. And she was tied here, and to him…

…and to this Realm…

"I find you most pleasant to gaze upon as well, My Lord," she returned, if a bit breathlessly. "Now, if you would indeed be so kind as to act upon your words, I would be delighted to be welcomed aboar-"

A sudden intrusion, assailed both her body and her mind. The scrabbling impact of the snarling demon against her foot was quickly dealt with by a resounding kick, one which sent the thing sailing off to disappear amidst the millions of its brethren who roiled and tumbled not far beneath the ship.

But the other, the one in her mind...

"Shayla," she whispered, swallowing. "My sister, but--"

Cruel images of a young being held in shining, laboratory ransom slammed against her eyes, effectively blocking all view she had of Phalomir. The ensuing shock eliminated all awareness of the Dark Lord, who carefully but with alacrity - upon seeing how close Jharmeen had come to being bitten by the demon - began swinging her more heartily, gradually building up the necessary momentum to bring her aboard the ship.

"My child..." This time the words were merely mouthed. Then the glyph rocketed alive, blindingly white-hot, sending energies born of sheer anger slashing outward in all directions, lasering downward and eliminating at least 500 of the drooling imps who slavered and howled directly beneath her.

"MY CHILD!"

If not having already revealed herself to the Evil dominating the Realms, she certainly did so now. Shrugging off that knowledge, she merely reached out with her free hand, grasping the travesty of whatever non-matter it was through which they were flying, and ionized it. A large bolt of energy flashed into Phalomir's arm, striking the bulging muscles of it, and causing an immense contraction. His fingers grasped reflexively tighter as his arm responded with one great spasm.

Jharmeen flew up and into the open hatch of the ship with such momentum that it spun his body about as well. The two of them slid and tumbled into the ship, trying to gather their collective wits even as the hatch closed with a decisive whoosh behind them. The engines roared; that and centripetal force told her they were arcing upward and away. She scrambled quickly, trying to gain her footing.

"Shayla, she is nearby!" she gasped, finally standing upright on the still tilted deck.

"And, oh my Lord, my child! My child by Recinis; it is on Kamino! Shayla sent this to me by Link... THE LINK!

Turning away, she closed her eyes and returned a message to her own Chosen Sister.

"We are here, we have come for you. I brought forth others from this place, I can do so again, my Sister! Fear not!"

With that, she opened her eyes, turning to find that the great Dark Lord had managed to regain his footing as well. He looked down upon her slim frame, dried blood marring his handsome face.

"Oh, Phalomir!"

Thanking the stars, he realized that ShaRhylla must had regained the controls and was moving them away from the horrific mass of demons trying to take them down. A ship of metal and ions most definitely did not belong in this realm, but neither did beings of flesh and blood.

Such as Shayla…

What in the world was she doing here? If she was being held in this terrible land of eternal darkness then there was indeed no time to lose. He took pause however, with Jharmeen’s words coming to their full meaning in his mind. His face drew blank for a brief flicker of time, then the scent of her hair brought him back to the bliss once again. It was unfair, to be away from her for so long, not knowing if she had survived the wounds which sent her away to begin with, to desperately search for her in a vast galaxy, only to find her in a wasteland dimension not even of real space, with no time to properly reunite.

“My love,” he said, forcing the words from his lips before his heart could stop them. “I have waited so long for this moment, to know that you made it to safety with K’Khil. But I can wait longer to learn what happened, for we must pick up Shayla quickly if she is nearby. And we will speak of your child when Shayla is safely returned to us.”

He reluctantly unwrapped his arms from her and stepped back. His mouth twitched and his hand unthinkingly shot out to take hers, and together they stepped to the cockpit.

"Of course I can," she deigned, ending with a little snort. Then she turned back to the console and deftly moved her fingers across the controls in front of her. Her tone one as if nothing untoward had happened at all, as if nothing untoward had ever ever happened between them, she directed another comment behind herself.

"You are looking well, Mother."

She never even removed her eyes from the forward window, which now was showing her something new slewing in from one side, coming up from an angle as she banked the yet flyable remnants of Devil-May-Care through the non-molecules of the non-atmosphere of the horrific realm.

The Dark Tower. The Black Tower.

The tower which, somehow, was nothing more than the embodiment of certain destinies, soon to find fruition.

"There it is." She scarcely breathed the words, then followed with ones more strongly stated.

"Your... sister is down there, too. I can sense her as clearly as I can see you, Mother."

ShaRhylla allowed herself one quick twist in her seat to cast a glance at the pair before her: her mother and He who she knew she would have to one day call father.

No. Father he would never be, could never be. That worthy, the one who owned her very heart and soul, lay ahead.

One for whom she would take on this entire Realm, and all the evil within it, to make him whole and well and bring him home with her.

As for Dark Lord Phalomir?

He wondered at the child. She called him “Daddy”, though this puzzled him. He knew of no children, save the aborted lumps now decaying in the distance. He certainly would have remembered this one. Yet there was something very familiar about her, bringing a simultaneous sense of longing and dread.

No matter. His focus must now lay with his queen and the witch who was coming to claim her. He had expected – no, hoped – that Shayla would turn from her sullen, remorseful thoughts and rejoin him. But instead she had merely stood, looking to the sky. But he could hold her no ill will, he had given her the choice. That which you hold dearest should always have the choice to leave you.

It appeared her choice had been made. He sighed a distressed breath, and glancing once more to the useless imp child, he stood. Shayla was still looking upward, and he followed her gaze to the dark sky of the day. An object, the ship that carried the witch, was now descending and seemingly on its way to pluck Shayla from her life here. She had chosen, indeed. But she had chosen poorly.

Kieran stepped upward, so he now stood atop the stone. His Sith body was strong, immense with bulging muscles that he assumed drove the lady Sith mad with lust. He brimmed with Sith majick as well, making this body the perfect specimen to host the powers within him. This perfect body, with that perfect essence, never before had there been such… perfection. And surely such perfection could easily lift and hurl a huge stone towards that imperfect machine which now closed in.

He stretched out with his feelings, finding another Tower stone that had fallen eons before, lifted it with his majick, and hurled it into the air, towards the ship that he had once piloted out of this realm. Now this ship was infested with a witch, an incomprehensible evil that stood accused of atrocities against his realm, his queen, and himself. He was the defender now, the perfect power, the pure. And he would cast the first stone. He smiled and watched as the huge stone arced its way towards the ship.

The word was out of Shayla's mouth before she could really even think. Likewise, she was able to stretch out and send the huge stone arcing towards the Devil-May-Care back to the non-ground of the realm with enough force that it crumbled. Keiran whirled, the look in his eyes full of anger...

...and something else...???

Suddenly, something deep within Shayla rose up, and she was conflicted.

True opposing forces were not Love and Hate, but Passion and Apathy...had she not just thought this to herself...?

Keiran was looking anything but apathetic.

No, Shayla. He's been using you, as a potential incubator, no less...

...what in the worlds are you thinking...??

What if she remained on this course towards certain obliteration? Kieran feared for her, truly. If she were to go with the witch, then all hope was lost once more – no heir, no future.

And I am trapped in this useless body even longer…

The voice, once more!

Kieran grabbed his head and snarled. “Be SILENT!” he roared. He clenched his teeth and shot a hateful look to the oncoming ship. He would not do battle with his queen, but he could not let this witch so easily descend and take away his most cherished possession. As long as Shayla remained, the hope of an heir also remained.

Remember Kamino…

Ignoring the voice, Kieran lifted his head and called outward, once again channeling the connection to these realms. “Arise, my legions! Heed my call, my generals and lieutenants! Arise, fly! Bring down this alien machine and rip asunder all within it!”

Her own hand was squeezed tighter yet by her Dark Lord's fingers, which seemed to hold on as if grasping a line of life. The Glyph on her forehead swelled suddenly into brighter life, as an eerie sensation of trepidation suddenly assailed her. That trepidation was joined with a bit of her own as she realized it was coming from Phalomir; with a little jolt she suddenly realized that this moment was more than his helping her save the heart and soul and very being of her beloved Chosen Sister, but rather seemed to be some strange sort of homecoming in his eyes. A small shudder thrilled through her, one that she squashed as quickly as she could; the Glyph responded by hiking it's energies a bit higher in wavelength and frequency. And as for her daughter...

ShaRhylla sat piloting, stone-still in her seat, every muscle in her body rock-hard, wire-tense, absolutely unmoving, unspeaking, her bi-colored eyes riveted to the strange monument that they would be upon in mere moments. Her physical aspect hardened further, and she trembled, leaning forward just the tiniest bit so as to rivet her gaze on something small and dark and incredibly, terribly dangerous.

Jharmeen caught it too, freed a hand and pointed to the forward viewscreen.

"There!" she exclaimed suddenly, indicating a personage standing atop a pinnacle of rock, high above the miasma of non-ground, his being casting no shadow, reflecting no light, yet being easily revealed to all as he turned his head and looked straight at their ship.

Straight into their souls...

She closed her eyes, sensing the yowling of his minions, sensing the confusion in her sister below nearby, sensing the dark and the soft, silky seduction of it, of the power it could offer, of what they could be if they would only simply land and open up freely...

"NO!"

She ripped her hand from Phalomir's, grasped him by his chin, turned his face to hers so their eyes met. With her other hand she reached out and gave her daughter an awakening rap on top of her shining crown of flaming hair.

"It begins! Do not lose yourself; fight this!" she cried, supplementing her words with another rap to ShaRhylla even as the hand upon Phalomir's chin removed itself to lay firmly along the strong planes of his face.

Something caught the corner of her eye; with effort, she turned from Phalomir, leaned forward over ShaRhylla's shoulder, and stared down upon the non-ness which roiled with millions of the demonic imps. Even as she watched, more popped into being, created as yet another evil thought in universal reality brought it into hideous life.

To rear it's slavering face upward, snarling silently and drooling, as seen from their vantage point. To raise great wings, and to fly...

Her blood iced.

"ShaRhylla!" she cried, now grasping her daughter and shaking her from her strange reverie. "He is sending his demons to take down this ship! I can do nothing against them from its confines!

"Set it down!"

Her greeny blue eyes, turning somewhat unreadable, looked upwards to the Devil-May-Care, her heart longing for something she hadn't had in oh-so-very long. She stretched oust across the Link she shared with Graysith, closing her eyes for a brief moment to relish it and to give herself resolve.

Kieran observed none of this, however, for his focus was now purely on calling to his legions. Shayla's eyes opened, and her greeny-blue eyes turned to regard him, analyzing something that was niggling deeply within her...

...and something she sensed in him. For a moment she tilted her head sideways, looking him up and down measuringly...

...wondering. Shayla steeled herself, knowing the only thing she could possibly do, and then took one step, than another, closer to Kieran, approaching him. And while his mind was clearly not on her, she had a suspicion he was yet keenly aware of her just the same.

"And what am I to you anyway, other than a means to an end?" she asked, still approaching, even as her senses stretched forth to him without deceit.

For truly she wondered...

But still he heard her. She, with whom he had returned to this land. She, who was to be his queen and follow his rise to greatness with and without this realm. She, who would carry his heir.

She, who had secretly longed for the return of the witch into her life. The Master, as useless as he had become, did offer a wealth of information about that one. And yes, it was suggested that the most direct means of stabbing into the witch’s heart was to take the one she called “sister”. But that was not the whole story. Not now.

“Are we not all a means to an end?” he called out, his eyes opening to regard his queen. “You should ask the same question to yourself, my love. What was missing from your life, what was it you so desperately needed, what void was sapping your soul so greatly that you so eagerly accepted what I offered to you? I made my terms most clear, and turned you into a special being – not alive, yet not dead, but powerful and beautiful beyond anything else in this realm. And still you question my motives?”

Imps were now swarming in droves to face the oncoming ship, squadrons of winged demons descended from the non-sky, but Kieran turned his mind away from the chaos to focus on his queen.

Now unflinching, she uttered merely one word.

"Ow."

With that and a carefully arched brow, she turned back to the control panel, and swiftly brought the battered ship down to the only place that wasn't roiling with demons:

Smack inside the ruined yet still walled courtyard, from which center the oppressive miasma of the great white tower rose.

There she wasted no time.

Giving the Dark Lord a somewhat derisive glance, she quickly opened the hatch, and then powered down the ship.

"The beasts will swarm us anyway; we will not leave this place unless we are victorious," the logical part of herself that was her Mother explained simply.

"Besides, we have other means of egress we might summon."

With that she gave a resounding war whoop, and recklessly shot from the corvette, racing down the gangway to stand at its base, there to greet the non-reality about her as the old, familiar friend that it was.

Somewhere nearby, her father awaited her. The Tooth of S'slaan firmly grasped in one hand, her sword in the other, she tilted her head back and allowed his name to rip from her lips in a roar that was more of a challenge than a call.

"My daughter is correct, we must make haste and depart this ship if we are to have anything in the way of an upper hand," she exclaimed as she moved past the Dark Lord. Her trailing fingers brushed his own in that passing, sending a message of love and connection and unity that all the denizens of the dark could never, ever break.

Not anymore.

Panting with the rush of adrenalin coursing through her body, she came to a halt next to her daughter, who was standing at the end of the gangway, well-armed. She smiled as she flanked her, now letting the glory of the Glyph erupt with the message it had strove to release ever since she returned to this dank and horrible realm.

I AM HERE.

Standing beside her flesh and blood, she sent out a signal, not trying to hide the connection any longer.

SHAYLA, WE ARE HERE. I AM HERE!

The thought raced outward, and she tensed, waiting for the Dark Lord to join them, that together they might remove her Chosen Sister from this place along with the father of her child, hopefully in the process finding some means of closing it off from that which men term real that its horrors might never impose on the universe again.

"I had just lost my child, and I had been promised that..." Shayla whispered darkly and then trailed, her greeny-blue eyes arrowing into Kieran's. Simultaneously she took a few steps backwards toward the tower once more, while still managing to pin him with her eyes. "You offered me the chance for another."

She paused, both in speech and in movement.

"But I have failed you."

From which part of her that final statement came, Shayla was uncertain.

Phalomir glanced in a quick circle to access the situation. They were truly trapped in this courtyard, with a gibbering horde of imps bearing in around the eerie white tower, and more of them flying in from above, now starting to circle the area. The open gates lay ahead, but too far. There was no possible route that would lead them to the figures at the gate before being swarmed.

He shot a look to the tower, gleaming menacingly in the darkness of the sky. It’s terrible irony sticking out like a beacon all of the evil within this land, giving meaning and power to the beasts that threatened them. He could not help but recall the torturous captivity he spent in this tower, being prepared as a sacrifice to something incomprehensible save to the Master. Even then he was aware of the power that this tower held.

Wait, yes! The tower itself held power. But not only that – it provided power! That was why the Realm would not let it remain in ruins, why the tower reappeared nearly as he remembered it after he had seen it broken in the past. This could be the answer!

“Perhaps this ship is not outlived its usefulness!” he exclaimed. “Quickly, run for the gate and do what you can to free Shalya and Roan! I will distract this army and give you a chance!”

Not waiting for protests, Phalomir rushed back into the ship and dashed for the controls. Not waiting to close the hatch, he throttled the ship into motion and screaming for the sky. He aimed for the swirling mass of winged demons, and using his long reach he slammed onto the firing controls. Not bothering to wait for the computer to target, he held the firing mechanism down with one hand as he navigated wildly with the other. Demons exploded in the air as the foreign energy blasts hit them, leaving trailing puffs of red and black non-smoke in their place. There were too many to continue this course of action, so Phalomir swerved the ship starboard and began a wide arc. The demons fell in line behind, in a large terrifying cloud of beating wings.

Phalomir pushed the ship downward now, peppering the imps below with sprays of energy. Chunks of ground spewed upwards as more and more puffs of greasy smoke materialized where imps had once been. Phalomir strafed the gathering horde and pulled up to buzz just above them. He could hear the thumps as imps jumped to the ship, banging hard enough to rattle the cockpit. An imp charged and leapt from the ground at such a great velocity that it smashed into the cockpit and burst its head through the hull. It screamed in rage but could not free itself. The horde scattered somewhat, retreating like the cowards they were upward into the surrounding hills. They would not stay away for long.

Phalomir heard scrabbling and screeching behind him, and looked back long enough to see that two imps had managed to jump to the open hatchway. He snarled and returned to the controls, pulling up heavily and taking the ship into a steep climb. The imps screamed and grabbed for purchase. Phalomir checked the aft screen, showing the winged armada of demons in hot pursuit. He sucked in a deep breath and turned sharply, setting a collision course with the tower itself. He locked the navigation and turned to the still open hatchway. Two imps were clinging for dear life, much like he and Jharmeen had done only moments prior. A look of confusion crossed one imp’s face as it saw Phalomir regarding it.

Kieran stopped, his attention grabbed by the strange sight in the sky. The ship was now twisting and turning in the air, firing at his winged demons. Destroying his winged demons!

“What treachery is this?” he shouted, pointing into the sky, all his attention focused on this horrific sight. His rage swelled, his fingers flecked with electricity. Glowing red eyes now watched the ship bank hard, strafing the imps along the wall and forcing them into retreat.

“NO!” he cried, thrusting his arms forward and letting loose with a fiery blast of electricity. In his fury he missed the ship and incinerated dozens of imps. He gathered himself for another blast as the ship arced upwards, over his head, and he turned away from Shayla to follow the ship’s course.

"We- we shall deal with your father when time allows," she panted as they raced along. "But now we have before us a more pressing engagement!"

The Glyph on her forehead roared into even more violent life, fueled by determination laced with love and perhaps just a bit of the strange powers encompassed by the dreary darkness of the white tower, which loomed off to her right. Reaching out with yet more of her talents, she released growing tightness in the muscles of her legs, doing the same for her daughter, allowing the incipient cramps building within hers from her long healing stint on Bespin to dissipate, adding extra flexibility to the younger flesh of ShaRhylla. At inhuman speed, they flashed toward the distant gate, and quickly gained it.

There they paused a precious second to take stock of the situation.

Off to their left and down the tremendously long stone wall, nearly as far as the adjoining, tangential one, and perched on top of a large, white boulder was the Dark One, the One who would dare take the form of her beloved Lord and Master. On the non-stone of the courtyard floor in front of him stood the quiet form of her Beloved Chosen Sister. Jharmeen's eyes darkened to see the travesty of it, the Glyph began to raven even more electrically but was given respite of sorts when she noticed something more:

The false Phalomir was staring upward, behind her...

She whirled in just in time to see their ship slam into the non-ness of the mysterious white tower, and explode.

"NO!" she screamed, letting ShaRhylla's hand fall from her loosening grasp.

"Phalomir!"

There was a sudden motion, the feel of her daughter's hand upon her shoulder, and from the corner of her eye she saw her outstretched arm, one finger pointing to a small figure which was rapidly plummeting toward the roiling non-ground of this vile place of non-life.

"PHALOMIR!" she allowed herself a final shriek, before taking a firm grip of her emotions. Reaching out, she allowed the stored energies that had been steadily mounting within her to explode outward, lashing out into the roiling masses of those millions of demons who had not yet taken flight. They fell, stunned utterly senseless, forming a carpet of gargantuan proportions on the non-ground over which they had been running. Pushing with greater strength, she manipulated them into a great mat, one most disgusting to be true, but one that was not only directly below the falling Sith Lord, but was also thick and relatively soft and...

Bouncy.

Knowing Phalomir would be able to take matters from there, she turned about and glared down the wall to her left, there to see the form of the false Phalomir yet watching the fall from the sky. It was as if he was simply entranced by the sight.

Clenching her jaw, she tilted her head down, and continuing to glare at Keiran from beneath thundering brows, began to move toward him and Shayla, her daughter by her side, their steps growing faster and more determined with every passing second.

...and perhaps really didn't want to...

...as she then stretched out her attentions to Graysith, who was nearing the gate in the courtyard wall.

And THAT was the moment the ship hit the tower, and quite simply exploded.

Behind her, she heard Jharmeen's shriek.

Her heart--for even in death she most certainly had one--flew up in her chest...

..and her attentions turned away from Kieran, atop the white non-stone, for at least the moment, and looked in the direction of her Sister.

"Jharmeen..." she whispered, as if in that moment some sort of spell broke within her. But on the heels of that, worry shot up in her very heart of hearts, and her eyes jerked back to Kieran. No matter, for he was still bellowing orders at imps.

Shayla took a deep breath, and turned from him, both literally and symbolically...

...and began moving towards Jharmeen, her senses yet extended...

...her soul now clinging to the Link as a life line.

And perhaps it was just that.

That was first thought that raced into Kieran’s mind when the ship exploded into the tower. But the white brick that rained down from the fiery cloud quickly pushed aside that thought and left him in a momentary shock. He felt a stabbing pain rip through his chest, as if a very part of him had been seized by an unseen fist and squeezed into oblivion.

The tower! What have these malicious Cretans done to my tower?

The witch must have known, somehow, that the tower was a center point of the Realm, at the same time a beacon and transmitter. Kieran could feel the spirit within him screaming, overcome by rage and agony. The tower could return, but for now the beast within him was beyond reach.

Beyond reach.

Kieran stepped backwards, feeling oddly… himself. It was a strange feeling, somewhat empty yet at the same time gratifying. Suddenly a wave of emotions ran through him, giving him pause and causing him to double over briefly. Thoughts leapt into his suddenly clear mind, the roiling rampage of the spirit within pushed aside to deal with its own problems for the moment. He looked around, frantically seeking her. There!

“Shayla!” he cried, his worry rasping in his throat. “Shayla, no!”

The witch was running for her, her long flame red hair trailing behind like a hungry snake. Shayla was running towards her, surely entranced by an evil spell. Summoning his strength, fed by love and worry, he bolted after her.

“Get away from her, you WITCH!” he cried as he fired furious sparks through his fingers. He was taken aback by the lack of strength that the lightning held, but lightning it was just the same. Not boosted by the power of the Realm, merely Sith majick, it was still formidable enough to smack into the witch and send her to the ground. The woman running with her, most certainly a lesser witch of the same coven, stopped and shrieked furiously.

But Shayla continued to run, even faster now. The spell was not yet lifted.

“My love, stop! This is a trick, she has cast a spell on you! Don’t do this, I can’t bear being without you!”

Around them, the shrill calls of the imps heightened, then subsided. They too were affected by the loss of the tower, their powers diminished. Many of them stood in confusion, not knowing what to do. The commanding hold over them no longer driving their thoughts. It was if the master was suddenly no longer in control...

Shrieking with outraged affrontery, the young Halfling glared at the distant Sith figure, then reached a pearl-clawed hand to assist her mother to her feet. She didn't even stop to ascertain the well-being of her parent but immediately turned her hate-filled eyes back upon their prey. He remained dramatically motionless atop the strange white non-rock, something seeming like tears shining upon his features as a blond, sea-eyed young woman came flying their way.

The Halfling snarled, and took off running; moments later joined by her mother. Both sharing direction, but with entirely different ends in mind.

The All lent wings to her feet as Jharmeen flew toward her Adept and Sister, who was doing her part in shortening the distance between them. Behind her, the false Phalomir merely stood quietly atop the white rock, now staring at his hands as if baffled by something. ShaRhylla merely slitted her eyes and tightened her grip on her Tooth, her sword now taking the place of her mother's hand in her grip.

Events transpired quickly then.

Jharmeen and Shayla finally met, collided into each other's arms, with the Teacher and Elder crying unabashedly as she held her young pupil - who had endured so much, who undoubtedly had grown so much - then pulling back to stare into her face, seeking whatever sorrow or pain she might find there that she could eradicate it.

Simultaneously, her senses expanded outward, slamming against something white-hot with unmitigated rage and hatred...

It was not Keiran. It was her daughter.

"ShaRhylla, no!"

Her voice echoed out carrying tones of new despair as sudden understanding slammed into her. In but a fraction of a second, the world flipped upside down.

Rhylla was by now yowling like one of the very Beasts of this Realm, filled with nothing but the primal desire for death and the sheer delight in instigating it.

In her arms, Shayla was quaking, nearly sobbing... yet somehow... blank.

And Keiran...

Her eyes widened, and she sensed further, forcing the tendril of her being into his own, daring to break through defenses which suddenly melted before her like butter in a hot sun.

This one was no Dark Terror. This one was but...

A Sith.

Who could be twin to her beloved Phalomir.

Another raw emotion ripped into her, staggering her. She fell somewhat against Shayla, then stared in disbelief from her Chosen Sister and back to the suddenly diminished Keiran...

"Who truly loves you!"

That utterly oxymoronic realization nearly sent her to the ground. How could this happen; how, in this Realm, could this even have been allowed to happen? It simply could not be; the Darker Realms would not let it, could not. For it was anathema to it's very non-ness.

But it was indeed true.

She could feel it...

A quick shake of her head, and she brought herself to her senses. She reached a hand in Keiran's direction.

"ShaRhylla, no!" she cried once more, but this time the words sprang from an entirely different source.

"Stop!"

Tears filling her eyes, she reached out her hand just so, and sent a blast of that which was within her directly into the halfling's back, not injuring her but sending her, senseless, to the non-cobbles of the courtyard, mere meters from her intended victim who yet seemed to be in utter ignorance of the impending, if but temporarily extinguished, threat of her.

Then taking Shayla by the hand, she ran quickly to her fallen daughter, and knelt beside her. A quick appraisal prove her right: ShaRhylla was only momentarily stunned, and would quickly be back to her old haughty self.

She then flicked her eyes upward, locking them upon Keiran's stricken form.

"Who are you?" she breathed, sensing no immediate threat from him, but not being stupid enough to drop her guard.

...did he really love her, in his own twisted way..?

She frowned.

And what about you...?

Her greeny blue eyes turned a bit stormy, even as ShaRhylla began to rouse slightly on the non-ground. And that was when, with a start, Shayla realized she didn't want anything to happen to him....

...What...????

And then Jharmeen's final question registered in Shayla's mind, even as her eyes rose to look to him, atop the Temple wall, confusion yet blinding his eyes.

She blinked, letting her gaze be yanked from Keiran to her Adept. Her jaw, ready to drop, now did so, and she blinked. She worked that jaw silently, willing words to come, trying to think of what to say, what to do...

For again it seemed as if the world had once more taken a strange sideways shift, on then to flip upside down once more.

She rose from ShaRhylla's side, sensing her daughter's movements as consciousness began to coax her from her sleep. Stared at Keiran, then to Shayla, then to Keiran once again.

This couldn't be happening, couldn't be!

Could it?

A wave of anger-laced confusion washed outward from her.

"Phalomir, oh my Dark Lord! Where are you? We need your assistance!" Letting a little breath of relief rush from her for the fact that it yet existed, she sent the entreaty flying across the Link she shared with him.

Then she focused her attention solely on Shayla.

It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and that all truths and untruths can be revealed through their shining irises. Seeking nothing other than the truth, she sought out Shayla's own soul, sending a glance wide with surprise but filled with determination winging into Shayla's sea-green pair.

"Is- is this truth, my Sister?" she breathed in the merest wisp of a whisper. "What I sense you feel about...

"Him."

She nodded fractionally toward the rock upon which Keiran was standing, The Glyph on her forehead was thrumming with restraint, ready should he attempt any attack toward any of the three women. But this was something which desperately needed to be discovered, that she would know which actions to take against the clone of Lord Phalomir.

"He- he-" Reaching outward into her Adept's being, she couldn't help but recoil against the little kernel of utter cold she found deep inside her. It wasn't born of hatred, or rage, or any of the darker emotions. That would not have sent her reach backing rapidly into the welcomed familiarity of her own self. Rather, it was born of something else, something she'd recognized in loved ones more than once...

"He killed, you, oh my dear, dear Adept and Sister!"

It was all she could do to keep her head from bowing down in utter grief. She knew she had pulled her daughter from these drear Realms, and with the All had managed to bring her out from death and into life again.

But did she have the right to do this, if indeed there was some mysterious bond between the pair? And indeed, could she find the way to implement the changeover once again?

She could only swallow and stare into Shayla's eyes, and for just one tiny moment allowed herself to become a little girl again, wishing with all her being that Phalomir would come riding over the hill to rescue them all.

At her feet her daughter stirred slightly, growling.

He rolled off of the unmoving imp and checked his surroundings. His joy was short lived, however, as he realized that he had fallen on not just one, not just two, but a whole a pile of imps. They were not moving much at the moment, but some of them were stirring slightly. Not wanting to be around when they came to, Phalomir checked for the direction of the gate for which Jharmeen and ShaRhylla had headed and broke into an all-out run.

His long, powerful Sith legs carried Phalomir quickly away from the imp cuddle pile. Behind, he could hear the fire still burning from the explosion. Around, he could still hear the gibbering of imps, but it was somewhat different than when they had landed. Now, there was less of a concert of evil and more of a low-ley rumbling, like a crowd of restless teens trying to determine if the authorities had the strength to stop them. Why that analogy popped into his head, Phalomir did not know, but there it was.

As Phalomir drew closer he prepared himself for battle. He could see Jharmeen and Shayla, standing together before a large Sith that rivaled his own size. His first thought was it was the Master, but this Sith was too large. A form was on the ground, not moving – ShaRhylla! Anger flared in Phalomir’s eyes as his pace quickened, and truly it no lingered mattered who this Sith was. He was a threat that had to be dealt with. Then the voice of his beloved filled his mind, frantically calling for him. We need your assistance!

Lightning flared from Phalomir’s fingers as he ran, his blood boiling. He closed the distance in seconds and leaped, clearing the startled ladies and plowing directly into the Sith figure on the stone. The two tumbled off, the Sith pinned below Phalomir and striking the ground with a sickening thud. Phalomir used his momentum to spring to his feet, turned, and prepared to unleash a blast of Sith magick into the stranger.

The Sith had rolled to his side and was struggling to rise. Phalomir did not wait, but stormed to the Sith and wrapped a powerful arm around his throat from behind. He lifted the struggling Sith, keeping a tight choke hold from behind. This Sith was incredibly strong, perhaps as strong as Phalomir, and certainly as tall. But Phalomir had the advantage at the moment, and no intention of letting it go.

...such a thing truly did not exist, no matter what Kieran was telling her, or perhaps even feeling himself.

Could he in fact feel anything at all? He was filled with the Darkness...but he was also once a living being like she herself was...

...once.

Shayla shuddered a little despite herself, her greeny blue eyes still locked on Jharmeen, the logical portion of herself fighting with the feelings. She had been here for so seemingly long she felt entwined in this place, damned to never leave...

...and that's what he wanted.

And those who truly love know how to let go...

...just as She is trying to determine if she needs to do now...? a little voice niggled within Shayla, her eyes widening as she continued to gaze at her teacher and she who chose her as Sister...

...but that's when Phalomir busted through, lightning flaring as he leaped over she and Jharmeen to knock into the very hapless looking Kieran, bringing him to the ground. As Kieran struggled to rise, Phalomir took him by the throat, clearly having no intention of letting go. The clarity Shayla was beginning to feel with Jharmeen began to shift once more.

And then for a blinding moment, reality dawned on Shayla. Twice Kieran had been asked who he was...

...but the truth of the matter was Kieran had absolutely no clue who he was. Her mind shifted back to another time, seemingly ages ago, when she and the Master had made a deal, the Darkness inside she and Jharmeen at the time...

...and the Master having brought a clone...somehow unbeknownst to the Darkness?...instead of the genuine article.

Only said genuine article was now here...

She Who Was Shayla rose up now in sudden stark terror and fear, a reality dawning. She couldn't to put it into words...

..and she didn't want to. Deeply within, a kernal that had been buried...but never truly gone...stretched out to Jharmeen, depositing her knowledge regarding the Master's use of the clone as a stand in for the true Phalomir, praying that Jharmeen would understand what was now alarming her so.

They had to get out of this place, now, even if Shayla could not...

"Who are you!" the great Sith mimicked her very words as he grappled with the dark one.

"Who is he?" she breathed. Then fury gave her voice full throat.

"Phalomir! Turn him around! Look in the face that which you combat!

"But oh my love, take a care!"

This last entreaty came in response to memories suddenly unleashed by information flooding into her mind from Shayla, dire warnings given to her by he who was known as The Master, when she was recovering on Bespin from the physical ordeal she had endured when trapped, sans All, on the forested moon of Endor.

...but perhaps not for the reason the logical portion of her mind would have liked. The Shayla that Was, the one buried deep within, pointed out that perhaps now was the time that she could get away from this darkness, starting with Kieran's defeat.

After all, he was the one who brought you here, to be a Queen, but not to be by his side, in truth, but merely as the incubator to an heir.

Even though her mind thought such things, and She Who Was warred with the darker portion of Shayla that had emerged something else rose up unbidden, from a place between both the Dark and the Light. Somewhere perhaps buried even more deeply within, Something Else practically laughed in derision at Shayla's unconscious effort to seperate the Darkness within from She Who Was.

Shayla's greeny-blue eyes defocused, turning even stormier. Memories collided within, logic and feeling at war with one another.

Passion and Apathy, not Love and Hate, are truly two sides of a single coin. He may have been initially using you, but he may very well now also love you. He's confused, he doesn't truly know who he is, doesn't know what is truly going on here, that he may too merely be a pawn, and he doesn't want you to leave him...

...and you, Shayla Stargazer? What do you want?

Before Shayla was truly aware of what she was doing, her feet took wings and she hurried to Kieran, who was still held in a vise-grip by Phalomir. Something white-hot, whether it was Force or something of this Realm or something else entirely, sparked unbidden from Shayla.

"STOP!"

The word flew from her mouth as energy flew from within her soul and outward, taking everyone by surprise, especially Phalomir. He stumbled back with the strength of the blow, and Shayla rushed to the wounded Kieran's side, lowering herself and covering him with her body.

Still, a portion of herself went out to Graysith, her Teacher, and the one whom he loved. Whatever was happening now, this would never change, and Shayla knew it both logically and deeply within.

Within her mind, she stretched out to the fallen Kieran.

You need to stop it too, and Think. Answer them...if you can. Who are you?

No matter who brandishes what awesome power.

Thus it was that when Phalomir came roaring in to slam his doppleganger to the non-ground, her eyes flamed red in hate-filled effrontery. The brief concern slewing from her mother in turn churned up merry delight in her dark soul, a delight born of those darker and more hideous than what one would normally think. Wispy contradictions of how oxymoronish the simple term "delight" really was rose up behind her eyes, bringing memories of delights born in blood and darkness and hatred and...

Killing.

The very word ripped through those lovely, hideous memories, letting loose another remembrance. She paused, looked to the four: Shayla panting like an animal over the body of the fallen Keiran, Phalomir in the process of regaining his balance, a look of complete surprise crossing his rugged features, and her mother...

Her mother flicking a look about them all, concern crossing her face in dark, leaping shadows. This provoked a bit of a frown in ShaRhylla.

She forgets...

Drawing herself upright, she placed her hands on her hips, the Tooth of S'slaan pointing forward threateningly toward them, whether by design or not who was to say.

"Oh dear, so he killed her, how tragic!" she exclaimed, a mocking smile lighting on her face in reply to that which had brought this knowledge to her. "But does it matter? Here she lives again! And oh my goodness, beware Phalomir! Indeed, turn your prey about, that you can see his face. The face of one who does not deserve the Gifts of the Realm.

"For he has never, truly touched it."

Now shoving the Tooth into her belt, she whirled about, dismissing the now twice-shocked group as utterly as one truly Queen of this place ever could. The others were indeed but playthings, pawns of the Realms in the Games it so loved to play as it endeavored over and over, unceasingly, throughout endless Eternities to figure out exactly who it was. What it was.

So it could be. So it could WIN.

But she. She herself WAS touched by this place. Truly caressed by it's glory. Bound further by her daughters. Both coming not merely via death... but death created by the Realms itself. Not by doppleganger, not by avatar, but...

Pure Darkness itself.

As she had been, via Entaris, He who thanks to the curiosity of trembling scientists had provided the shell into which Darkness itself could find embodiment. No amount of love poured back into her being could ever completely erase his velvety touch.

Her back to the group prevented them from seeing the sly little grin now creasing her features.

"I must find my father!"

Secure in her safety by virtue of familiarity, and using her inherent powers only as a matter of convenience, she disappeared.

((Follow ShaRhylla into "Thus Spake Zarathustra," in the Jedi and Sith Temple forums, thank you.))

A glow of blood hissed forth from her eyes, and she cocked her head to one side.

"Coming Mother," she said simply, and just as simply...

Disappeared.

((Follow IllaAnda into "Thus Spake Zarathustra," in the Jedi and Sith Temple forums, thank you.))

She blinked again, took another step backwards, the Glyph on her forehead now flaring into life at the sudden influx of emotion now rushing into her being.

Hatred and love. Light and Dark. Passion and... empathy.

Serene assurance and... confusion.

She cast a look at the place where seconds ago her daughter had stood. A sob caught in her throat. Swiftly then, her head turned and she pinned her gaze on the form of her dear Adept and Sister, who lay atop the Dark One as though her very life depended upon it.

Indeed. All two sides of a quite singular coin.

A great sigh heaved from her very soul, and her gaze lifted to Phalomir.

Her love. Her assurance. Her...

Rock.

Who looked every bit as stunned as she herself did.

Nothing, that is, save the lone echoing call…Who are you?

Kieran sat up with a grunt, hauling Shalya with him. He held her closely and immediately turned his back to shield her from the enemy figure standing behind her. He leaned his lips to her ear.
“I am Kieran,” he whispered. “And I will protect you.”
Kieran stood quickly, allowing Shayla to slide gently to her knees, and spun to face his attacker.

Confusion and doubt again surfaced, giving the enemy time to spring to its feet and turn. Phalomir snarled and prepared to once more engage in battle, his eyes darting upward to lock with his foe.

His own image.

“What?” he managed.

Before him stood a Sith, exactly like him. Different garments, yes, but every feature – the horns, the coloration, the face, even the very tattoos of entitlement – were the same.

“What treachery is this?” he shouted. “What villain has brought this abomination upon us? I destroyed you! I destroyed all of you, back in the Master’s vaults in the Temple! Speak, you vile mockery, and strep away from our beloved Shayla!”

But the thing did not move away, and in fact it backed a step closer to Shayla.

“I don’t know what tricks the Master is playing here,” it said. “Or maybe you were sent by the Darkness. But no matter what, I will not let you harm her. Take your witch and return home, you foul thing! Leave us!”

Lightning crackled from the other’s fingers in a warning. Phalomir stood ready, his own Sith magic casting a fiery glow from his fingers. His eyes narrowed. This was not a mere clone, not one of the things that Phalomir had discovered hidden away in the Elseness. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The clone’s eyes narrowed as well, but more in suspicion. “I am Kieran,” it said. “Named such by my queen, destined to rule these realms with her by my side.”

The clone glanced around and smirked slightly. “And I suggest, whoever you are, that you take my advice and leave now. As you can hear, my minions are stirring and will tear you apart at my command.”

But something in the clone’s eyes gave Phalomir pause. It was unsure of itself, seeming to struggle with something internally. Phalomir could sense the doubt, and in fact felt a sudden unease as he realized the change in the distant calls and gibberish. No longer was there a feeling of coordinated menace, now that was replaced by just… menace.

“I think you may be overestimating your hold on these creatures,” Phalomir said. “But no matter, clone, step away from Shayla and I will make your death quick.” The flash of fire in the clone’s eyes caught Phalomir by surprise. It did not attack, though, but instead reached a hand back to help Shayla to her feet, all while shifting its gaze from Phalomir to Graysith.

The word slipped from her lips with the force of a zephyr, light, soft, quiet. Yet somehow it managed to slice through the escalating tension like a hot knife through butter.

She followed its utterance with a raised hand, as with steps equally soft she approached the threesome and came to a halt at Lord Phalomir's side. For a moment strangely timeless in this place that held no time, she simply stood there, staring back and forth from the suddenly hesitant Keiran to her oddly-acting Sister. For indeed, Shayla was acting in a manner most atypical of her.

Sudden understanding struck a hammer's blow upon her. Reflexively she reached a hand to Phalomir, fingers lacing into his for strength and assurance, before she turned her gaze back to Keiran once again.

"It is not up to you to say what she will do," she said in gentle reproach, her Glyph fading in intensity to match the tone of her voice.

"It is hers."

She kept her look pinned to his until she was certain he had understood her every nuance. Then she stepped a bit to the side so as to see Shayla, for the young woman was entirely eclipsed by the hulking form of the muscular Sith.

She took one, small step forward, her grasp leaving Phalomir's, and came to a halt. Timelessness passed.

"It is your choice, my dear Sister," she finally breathed. Nothing moved but her lips in giving voice to her thoughts; it was as if she did not want to give Shayla any suggestion or impetus as to what the the young Adept should do.

It was her choice...

"I heard your call. We came," she continued, yet standing in stony stillness. We- we hope to bring you to..."

She paused a moment, her eyes going vague as she searched for something deep inside of herself before continuing:

"Life. But he can bring you to love. Both are a rescue, each of a different kind. But only you can be minister of it."

Another hammer's blow struck, just as before, this time carrying with it complete and utter certainty of the words she had just spoken. This was a Crossroads.

But it was not hers, nor was it Phalomir's, nor even Keiran's. The choice as to which direction to turn belonged solely to Shayla. And she'd be damned if she said anything to sway her in either direction.

She had been here for a seeming eternity with Kieran, and she had no idea at which point she had developed the feelings she was now certainly having. Certainly they had come slowly, over the course of time...

A course of time in which she had felt very much alone. After losing her child, leaving Erik, and needing something to fill the great expanse of an aching void that yet filled her soul.

And now She Who Understood her most had come.

Shayla looked to Jharmeen, her eyes still clouded with thought.

She is willing to let you go. But is he?

Her thoughts paused for a moment, as Shayla shifted her eyes to look briefly up at him.

He might love you, but here you are confined, seperated from the others that you love...

...seperated from life..

Unbidden, a tears clouded her eyes. Shayla looked to Jharmeen, her eyes wet yet clearing.

"I want to live..." she said softly, wishing it were that easy for her to will the child she had lost to life, and yet the two others she had now lost as well. "There is much treachery afoot..."

And only in life can you truly help your Sister.

At that thought, Shayla turned to Phalomir, who was still looking darkly at Kieran, his intent fairly certain to her. "But please Lord Phalomir, don't hurt him." Shayla paused, reality slamming into her.

Indeed, the strength was not there. Nor was the darkness speaking to him. It was not gone, not entirely, but it was diminished to a speck.

So what to do with this witch and her minion? This thing that dared call Kieran a clone. The witch spoke so very eloquently, so very subtly hinting that Shayla should leave him. So very carefully playing her, telling her she would be rescued. No, witch! Yours is no rescue! All you offer is to bring her to—

Life?

What did this mean? What COULD this mean?

The touch of Shayla’s hand brought him back to the moment. She was looking at him, eyes brimming. And now Shayla was speaking. But the words were strange, echoes of the witch, wanting to live. Then speaking to the intruder as if she knew him… Phalomir? Something stirred within, but his feelings pushed all aside.

She was choosing. She was choosing to leave him. Choosing life.

But that must mean, what? That staying with him would be death? He looked at his own hands, red and soft, unused. He then looked back to Shayla, her face showing the difficulty of this decision. A choice was given to her, and she made it. But what of him? What was his choice? Could he not choose for her to remain?
He doesn’t know

Kieran stopped all other thought. He looked at Shayla sharply this time. She was speaking to this Phalomir, this mockery, speaking to him, not to Kieran. Again something twitched deep within, a sharp stab this time, but he remained focused on Shayla.

Kieran was a clone of Phalomir, that had already been stated. Kieran had heard it. But he really didn't know it. Not yet. Either that or he didn't want to believe it.

So Shayla answered his question with another question, her greeny-blue eyes peering into his own. "Are you certain you remember nothing of your past? Not of your time with me, but before that, before I even came to be with you? What of your beginnings?"

She quieted with nothing more than that, arching an eyebrow, pushing him to think.

So long? Really? How long was that? What was there before Shayla?

“I gave you a life…”

Visions… ripping into her flesh with his claws, his teeth. Tasting the sweetness of her blood, her life force. Passing his claws deeply into her body, seeking out her heart, replacing her life with his power…

“I… I… Before you…”

His heart sank. He had nothing, no memory of his time before Shayla. But there must have been something, how would he know how to speak? To understand basic concepts? To use his lightning? There must have been something, someone, before. Someone to train him, to make him ready, to prepare…

“… a clone.”

The itching within him twitched once more. He ignored it. He fought for memories, even of recent events. Everything was fading, dwindling. All but the image of what he had done to her. To Shayla.

He was a clone. A mere copy created by the Master, as a substitute for the genuine article...

As time ticked on, the implications of this grew even more alarming in Shayla's mind. She let a tendril of this ebb to her Chosen Sister, sensing that time was not on their side.

Or on Kieran's, for that matter.

Shayla reached up and grasped Kieran's chin in her hand. "You are who you choose to be," she said simply, releasing his face and letting her hand fall back to her side.

Insert involuntary shudder here...

...dead, Jharmeen had remained silent. But the niggle Shayla had sent her way, combined with slowly dawning self-understanding on the part of the Dark One prompted her now to speak. She stepped toward him now, raising a hand toward him, struggling to withhold the pity for him that was now flooding through every cell of her being.

For a long moment she merely stood quietly before him, looking upon him, trying to put feeling into words for the sake of one who more than likely had never known any feeling other than hatred and rage and anger... save for those first tentative buds of lightness which she was suddenly determined to nurture.

She chewed her cheek, pondering her words.

"Your destiny was poorly engineered," she began at last. "You were created to give embodiment to Evil. It does not live here in this place; it is this place, which exists outside the universe of love and living beings.

"But-!" She held up a hand, palm out. "You are not of the dead; you live. Yes, you were doppleganger of my love, of Lord Phalomir, Dark Lord of the Sith Armorer Clan; I was told by his..."

She paused a moment, closing her eyes as final doubts raised themselves to then waft away into the darkness around them.

"By his father. He created you, and others in your likeness, to be tools for the Evil which had found home in your form."

But it was not good enough. For some reason, the clone was not good enough. The reasons behind this were entirely unknown to her; all she knew was that the sharp niggle of concern that Shayla had sent her way had been anything but frivolous. To the very heart of her being she knew her love and Lord, the true Phalomir, was in great danger, and remained in danger the longer they remained in this place.

This of course she kept to herself.

She took another step toward Kieran, her hand still raised, seeking to assuage his confusion.

"You are not evil; it merely possessed you. You have the likeness of the Dark Lord of the Sith, but your own being. Your own thoughts, your own experiences, short and horrific as they may have been. We..."

She paused again, shooting a look toward Phalomir, hoping he would not balk at this.

"We can bring you from this terrible place, into the Realm of the Living, so you too can have a life of your own."

Phalomir looked at the clone again, this time with a different understanding.

“My father, the Master,” he said. “You know of him, I can see it in your eyes. He is a vile, deceptive, manipulative liar, and I don’t know which of his stories to believe. But I destroyed a series of clones in the past, failed attempts apparently at creating you. I know this is sudden, but what Jharmeen says is true. We can take you with us.”

Kieran’s eyes welled, the impact of the sudden realizations and the even more sudden offer of friendship seemingly too much for him. He lowered his head into his hands and fell to his knees.

He heard in his mind, in a blaring instant, a mix of cacophonous laughter and gleeful jubilance. A flash of heat between the clasped hands of the two giants, a momentary flinching of both Sith, as if something was suddenly shared or passed, and then nothing.

Nothing.

The feeling returned to Kieran as quickly as it had come. Phalomir looked at him with concern, but when the rigidness left Kieran and he was able to remove his hand from its twin, Phalomir’s expression turned more lighthearted. Phalomir, in fact, winked.

Kieran was no longer sure what had brought him to this realm of darkness. He remembered that he done awful things, but he no longer recalled what they were. The relief was immense, and he welcomed the shoulder clap from the Dark Lord.

“Let us take him home, my love,” said Phalomir. “Let us take them all. This meeting was meant to be, like a grand plan coming together. Let us not waste it, a new dawn awaits.”

In the distance, a slobbering yowl wafted into her ears.

"But my love," she replied, her own voice now filled with consternation, torn as she was between getting her love away from the danger the Darker Realms presented to him, and fearing for the safety of another.

...and of the other being that had been here with her and Kieran, before the others had arrived.

Shayla's look darkened, troubled.

"Where would she have gone?" Shayla asked, knowing that the question was seemingly inane, but also knowing that a being as strong as ShaRhylla wouldn't just disappear.

“Of course,” he said. “We cannot leave without ShaRhylla. I must have not realized she had left. We came here to find Roan as well as Shayla. One goal has been accomplished, perhaps she is in pursuit of the other at this very moment. I remember some details of the vision, perhaps that can help. Do you still share a link with her? Perhaps you can locate her?”

Phalomir also came to realize the distant sound of imps was no longer so distant. He surveyed the approaching hoard and could make out the snarling faces of those in the front ranks.

For there was something amiss. Of this she was positive. Phalomir would not have put thoughts of ShaRhylla off to one side as easily as he had, that was not his character. For it was her firm belief that he believed she could truly return to them, to be completely cleansed of this horrid non-reality and become daughter to them if not by complete bloodline, then by...

Acceptance.

A whisper of non-acceptance wafted from Phalomir into her heart, and for the merest of moments she allowed herself to frown, quickly underscoring that frown with worried thoughts of her daughter.

Then she proceeded to act.

She knew they had to follow ShaRhylla, just as they knew the greatest foe was yet to be revealed to them. She knew they had to confront this foe...

Only who exactly this foe is, and where he lurks has yet to be revealed.

That was the last surface thought she allowed herself on the subject. Taking all the love she felt for the great Dark Lord, she molded it into a tiny kernal, hoarding it away in her deepest soul of souls as she had years ago with Darth Wicked, there to protect it with...

I WILL SEEK NO PROFFERED CRUMBS!

The slavering Beast, who hunkered now, great scything claws rounding the little kernal, keeping it from her and her from IT until the time came that it was safe to release it again. Drawing strength now from that Beast...

Step back now. Farther. Farther. See the power, see All correctly, grasp the power to USE IT CORRECTLY..

She created within herself another, broader kernel of love for Lord Phalomir. This she wrapped about the slavering Beast, knowing IT was there just lurking, waiting for the time that the false kernel would crumble and release it to destroy that which they came to destroy. And in that destruction truly save the body and soul of ShaRhylla.

"Come, my Lord," she smiled up into her Lord's eyes. Nothing but love was presented in hers, yet as she peered deeply into his for that moment it was to come up against a strangely familiar wall.

Not allowing herself to react in the slightest, she turned from him then to sense out into the Regions for the flicker of life which was ShaRhylla.

...only to stop short before saying anything. The truth was, she had been so focused on the Jharmeen and her sudden realization that ShaRhylla had disappeared that she really hadn't been paying attention to anything else that had been going on. So, expecting to see a look of hesitation or confusion on Kieran's face, as there had been up until then, she was struck by his look of utter relief.

Shayla frowned slightly. Maybe he thought...

"I am going with them," she said, stretching out a hand...and a tendril of herself...to gauge his reaction to this, knowing how he felt about Jharmeen.

Not that it mattered. Jharmeen had Chosen her as her Sister, and she in turn Chose to be the Adept. Nothing would change that.

But when Shayla reached to Kieran..she was impacted by somethinng she couldn't quite put her finger on. In the past, they had been connected, for while he was living or not he was a part of the Realms, as she was in Death. But now...

Shayla knew he had to make a choice, as did she. For her, the choice was almost instantaneous, not even a whisper of a doubt.

"If you're coming, now is the time," she said simply, turning away from him to follow behind Jharmeen, and to assist in whatever way would be required.

She was lovely. Her golden hair flowed in the non-air of the strange atmosphere, and the sideway glace she threw to him flashed greeny-blue eyes that stirred his interest. Whatever he was doing here, he hoped it had something to do with this woman.

He looked down at his own hands, seeing he was different from her. His appearance was more in line with the large fellow walking up ahead, the man who had offered his hand. That one had large horns protruding from his head, and Kieran’s hand went to his own head and grasped his own horn. He then noticed the powerful arm before his eyes, and flexed his bicep.

He returned his arm to his side. Again he looked to the woman walking beside him, and again felt a strong attachment. He decided to act on this, testing his instinct. He sidled his hand to hers and took it. Her initial reaction was not to pull away, so perhaps there was something to this feeling. He smiled, looking ahead now to the other pair. The female said something about finding someone else. And now he was a part of this search. For whoever it was. But it didn’t matter, he felt good. Like something that had been bothering him was now no longer as problem.

“I think we’ll find her,” he said. “I have a good feeling about this.”

For Kieran, once appearing so evil and hateful... actually sounded as if he had every good intention not only for the path they would take, but for every member of the group now treading upon it.

He sounded... GOOD.

She managed to stifle the gasp of outright astonishment that rose within her, letting it lend fuel to her feet as she hastened to where he had fallen. Shayla, strangely, didn’t seem to be making any reaction to this sudden happening at all.

That can be addressed later. But now...

She reached out a hand, laid it softly against the broad chest of the doppelgänger. It lay icily dormant beneath her touch.

“He- he is dead,” she said quietly, then rising to her feet, the movement given impetus by the strange consideration that followed so closely upon its heels.

For how could one die in this place of the dead?

A tiny part of her rose up in logical affrontery; pushing with all her strength, she squelched it. Hid it behind the normalcy of concern and confusion as expected in the situation they suddenly found themselves in.

She stayed quiet, but merely turned up loving eyes to meet those of her Chosen Sister, and her love.

The truth of things was far from that.

This couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t be. And the strangest thing Shayla realized, in this moment, was that in all that she had done here with Kieran, at some point he had become no longer her captor, or even her companion or equal...

....and that she had feelings for He that- at least in those moments- was Dark.

For another incomprehensible second, Shayla seemed to have no reaction whatsoever...

...then in a flash, she was on her knees, at Kieran’s side, cupping his face, shaking her head.

”Nooooo...”

Without even thinking of it, Shayla stretched out...

...not to the Force, nor to the All, but something else entirely. For while Kieran’s body was by all outward appearances dead....this was the the Darker Realms. And he was connected to it...

..as was she. For in her death, He had made her Queen of this Realm.

She knew him...

No longer seeing anything without other than him, Shayla’s heart broke to see his lifeless eyes.

Noooo.....Kieran....

Closing her eyes, she stretched out with her senses, seeking, searching...

And so she came.

Suddenly here, she simply took a step, one foot in the rubble of white, the next beside that of the fallen Kieran, her mother, the one who seemed to seek to be her father...

... and the young sea-green eyed one who was OH SO VERY CLOSE to something she was yet unaware of, to something that whispered to her words of enticing seduction, to someone who could be her own Chosen Sister...

Ignoring her - (???) - mother, shooting a haughty glare at He-Who-Held-The-Form, she came aside the young and shaken woman who seemed lost in grief at the side of the fallen Kieran.

Smiling, she held out a hand to her.

Let her work her plan, let her appease these women and their senseless caterwauls. That’s what will come next, you know. They’ll sniffle and cry, fawn and pout. And at some point they’ll try to do something with that lifeless corpse. Oh yes, that shell is no longer needed. A useless clone of perfection, no longer necessary and in fact a potential problem, but this… this is not acceptable. Allow this, before the blonde realizes her power.

Phalomir knelt and placed his hand on Shayla’s back.

“I do not understand,” he said. “What has happened? And what do you mean, ShaRylla?”

Shaking her head to herself, her posture straightened even further.

“You have no power here,” she snarled in reply.

“Begone!”

She then turned a slyly seductive smile back to Shayla.

....that something at first being the words of the now-present ShaRhylla.

Yes. He does love you. And you love him too, Darkness and all...

Within, a kernel of Shayla’s self raised a hand in warning....

...but was very unsuccessful in stopping the line of thought- and realization- now slamming into Shayla’s very being. Only the touch of Phalomir’s hand distracted her from those thoughts...

...and she opened her eyes to look into his. Another flag of warning waved, for something about his actions was oh-so-very not Phalomir. Shayla didn’t let a hint of this show on her outward features, and she kept it buried deep within. Instead she looked towards Jharmeen, knowing her Chosen Sister could sense what she felt.

Her Chosen Sister...

Shayla’s response to Phalomir was a simple pulling away from his hand on her back. Her eyes remained on Jharmeen, but turned distant, and the revelation within continued.

She did love Kieran. And here, in this place that she had first come to for other reasons, perhaps something had changed within.

No not perhaps. Something indeed had changed.

Shayla’s greeny-blue eyes cleared, and she considered Jharmeen.

You can be whole....

Deep within Shayla’s soul- but not nearly as deep as it had been- a door beckoned to be opened. A door which had remained locked, and hidden away for far too long.

You are dead, Shayla Stargazer Petrolu. But like Kieran, you most certainly are not gone. For in this place of Darkness and Death, you have life....

...and remember what you have learned, at the teaching of Jharmeen, no less. The opposite of Love is not hate; there is much more than the mundane training that the opposite of Good is evil....

...for remember the blanworm. What is good to one is evil for another.

What is Light to one is Darkness to another.

Passion and Apathy...

Now there was the truth of it all.

Shayla now got to her feet, her greeny-blue eyes shifting to regard ShaRhylla. Something deeply within Shayla’s soul considered the young woman, and something else entirely.

And eerily enough, something deeply buried within Shayla Stargazer Petrolu settled, sitting back and folding her arms, and cocking her head, waiting for her to realize the truth.

You can be whole....

Shayla turned to Jharmeen, seeking understanding...

....and somehow realizing it would be there.

“My Sister....” she said softly, the words quiet, but full of meaning. For the barest of moments, Shayla’s eyes shifted slightly to Phalomir...

...and then she turned to ShaRhylla, extending her hand....

...and taking her already extended, waiting one. “My Sister...”

...and application thereof.

She sees the blarnworm truly, now. The decaying apple never shone so brightly for her.

She... understands.

The hand that Jharmeen had begun to reach out to her beloved and always Chosen Sister slowly dropped to her side. The very smallest of smiles curled the edges of her mouth, and her long lashes hid the fire of her brilliant eyes as she closed them, nodding only once in response to Shayla’s action. Then she firmed, straightened, and remained silent, now casting a somewhat haughty look of her own in the direction of her daughter as she waited to see what that impetuous Halfling would do next.

On her forehead, the welcoming warmth of her Glyph began a warning rumble, holding back impossible energies which would only to readily be released should subsequent actions from ShaRhylla warrant it. Silent as a stone, she simply waited.

He was kneeling, his hand outstretched as if it had been reaching for something. He felt a trace of something within, some residual slime of foreign – something. Instinctively, he called upon his Entitlement for protection should another blackout occur, and vowed to see the physician should he return to K’eel Doba.

She could read it in the eyes of the ridiculous Dark Lord, who was standing about looking like a gandyrak stricken by headlights. She could feel it in the deep trembling of the hand holding hers; quickly she gave it a squeeze, as if assuring the young blonde that yes, everything was going to be all right.

But most of all she could sense it in the very demeanor of her mother, as revealed by the ravening wonder sitting there upon her forehead. Being inherent with the All herself, she could not help but know on a level deeper than that felt in one’s bones, in one’s very soul, that when that Glyph ravened...

It was not at peace.

Well! she thought to herself then. Let me resolve the issue for them... now and forever more!

Her smile exploded into a full-blown snarl of victory as with cat-like grace and dianoga quickness, she yanked on Shayla’s hand, whirling the young woman about full circle until she came to a halt next to the Halfling’s hot body. Her other hand reached down and down, fingers spread in dark entreaty to the noisome non-ness roiling at their feet... which suddenly began burbling and bubbling like oozing tar seeking discharge from Hell itself. The very being of the Realms, that which was Entaris, that which, dormant, now screeched for embodiment...

And ShaRhylla, filled with Darkness given to her by it, filled likewise with the only thing that could both assist and destroy it... chose to assist.

The oily ichor rose up, twining about, tendrils winding about tendrils, now reaching her fingertips, winding up her arm, writhing in a fiery, burning embrace of love/hate once lost, now found. Her snarl widened even more, her young throat giving forth a bursting animalistic roar of victory, of territory, of ownership as with a sudden jerk she moved her arm until a lazing tendril dripped from it...

And touched the still body of Kieran.

In a blink, the entirety disappeared. ShaRhylla’s arm was again as whole and glistening white as the rest of her flesh, a stark oxymoron in this place of death and drear.

Her eyes flashed as she watched the blackness completely cover Kieran... then absorb into him. It did not merely “take over” his senses, or his blood or his heart. It simply took him up into itself, the two becoming one, the dead suddenly finding sensation again in strange non-life, a being of black, his soul assimilated by and transforming into her own beloved...

”Entaris...” she breathed.

The arm holding Shayla loosened, thrust her forward, the momentum of the motion causing her to fall and land directly atop the awakening Kieran.

“Sssseeee?” The words hissed between sibilant lips.

“He loves you. Now, show him how much you love him, my dear sweet Sister.

“Take your time. We have eternity.

“We’re all dead, you know.”

The blan worm...two sides to every coin...

From where she had been thrown atop Kieran, Shayla recovered quickly and rose with a surprising amount of grace, considering the suddenness and force of ShaRhylla’s movements.

For the moment, Shayla turned from Kieran...

...her greeny-blue eyes falling into the violet-ringed turquoise ones of ShaRhylla. She cocked her head, considering.

Shayla was indeed dead, and part of this place, just as ShaRhylla had said. But ShaRhylla...

“And shall you show him as well?” Shayla asked a bit strangely. “Or will you control him? He is the very being of this place...

”Now, why would I wish to control him? He is part and heart of me, he made me, and the daughters between us!”

Now she took a step closer, and another and yet one more. Out of her peripheral vision she could see absolutely no movement coming from Dark Lord Phalomir, no movement from her mother other than the Glyph ravening up the electromagnetic spectrum into shorter wavelengths than before. She snorted to herself at that.

How pitiful, to have to wave a banner about like that. But of course, she did not come by the wonderful All naturally, as have I. She had to have it... branded upon her.

And therein lies a great and fierce weakness.

The fools, for not seeing this!

Another last step, and she brought herself up short directly before Shayla. Looked her straight in the eye, long and hard and deep. The piercing arrow of that gaze struck something equally hard, deep within the young woman.

She recoiled as if from...

Life itself.

“You lie!” She whispered in a voice of ice, taking yet another backward step as she did so.

“You do not love him; I am giving him to you, for us, but you rebuff me.

”YOU LIE!”

With a fearsome yowl she raised a hand to strike, fingers clawed, ready to unleash that which was within her, that which Entaris had taught her, that which with blood and the soul of this place had brought into being her daughters... but stopped. Slowly she lowered her hand, then held it out to Kieran, all the while never letting her eyes leave Shayla’s.

“We’re going to have such fun with you... Sister!” she snarled.

”With all of you!”

“No one controls me,” said Kieran. He placed his other hand under Shayla’s chin, firmly yet gently, and pulled her close to him to stare into her eyes. “I am here, returned.”

Shayla’s dubious look did nothing to dissuade him. “And I love you,” he said silkily, his smile broadening. He stared at her for a brief moment that seemed to last an eternity, then shot a glance at ShaRhylla.

“I love you all”, he smiled, returning his attention to Shayla. His eyes flashing wildly for a second, and he brought her face violently to his. At the last instant he stopped, then kissed her. It was a kiss both fervent and desperate, yet filled with a longing and desire that brought about an almost corporeal air of tenderness and passion about them.

He pushed Shayla back gently, still holding his hand below her chin.

“Forever,” he smiled. His fangs glistened as the smile broadened, a wet drop of blood falling from one and landing on his bottom lip. He turned his head to ShaRhylla.

He seemed quite friendly, but something about this whole ordeal set alarms blaring within Phalomir’s head. His senses as a Sith, a Dark Lord, and protector of his people told him something tremendous and terrible just occurred. The hairs on his neck stood up, his lips curled back into a snarl and exposed the deadly fangs he himself possessed. His claws unthinkingly extended as the heat from his brow rose and evaporated the sweat from his brow into steam.

He felt he was not alone. Something, from somewhere deep inside him, a lurking presence such as he had felt before with Panthar and Thoran, yet somehow much darker and powerful, snarled in unison. Anger billowed forth in waves of pure hatred, adding to Phalomir’s own fury. He felt ready to burst.

“NOW!” came a voice from within, blending with his own frantic thoughts. He had launched himself forward before he even realized he done it, clawed hands thrusting forward to the neck of this imposter, this unnecessary duplicate, this artifact of an age long gone. This was HIS time now!

Kieran let go of Shayla and ShaRylla as the huge Sith Lord flew at him. The impact created a resounding thud that sent Kieran flying backwards, with Phalomir landing with a crushing thump on top. Phalomir sat on the imposter’s chest and struck downward with all of his might. He landed blow after blow, delivering punishment that would have caved a human’s head. After a while he slowed, then stopped. Panting, he looked down to his handiwork, blood dripping from his clenched fists. He stared at the bloodied, dead version of his own face.

Kieran’s eyes flung open. Before Phalomir could register this, Kieran’s arms flew up and his open hands pounded into Phalomir’s chest. Phalomir flew backwards into the air and landed on his back 20 feet away. When he opened his eyes, Kieran was standing over him, smiling, his face as clear as it was moments before.

He is Keiran no longer. He IS Entaris, if that entity could ever truly have been assigned individuality. For how does one do so to the very embodiment of evil? One does not; one simply accepts it as a focus, and if one is wise one knows when it is time to face it and fight...

... or make a strategic retreat.

Now was that time.

She flew to Phalomir’s side, avoiding physical contact with the oozing embodiment yet standing over him, a patronizing smile planted upon his features. Dropping to her knees she placed both hands on the great Dark Lord’s shoulders, tugging at them, entreating him to move, to be wise now, to be a Dark Lord of the Sith.

“Come, my Love; it is time. We must go from this place, and quickly.”

Before her fallen love could respond, she dragged him upright, her hands sliding down to grasp his own to yank and tug until he stood, swaying, on his feet. He turned his head down to hers, blood and sweat dripping from the hard planes of his face.

For the briefest of moments, before Keiran or the Dark Halfling...

For now she knew in her very soul that her daughter was indeed lost...

...could react, she turned her head and shot a look deeply into Shayla’s eyes.

The Apple. Remember the Apple...

She dared send no more. Unwilling to remain there one moment longer, she merely loosened one hand from its grip within Phalomir’s, raised it, and with forefinger and little extended just so, thumb curled like this, she made a twisting motion with her wrist which this time ended with her arm jerking up in a great, swooping arc.

The Glyph on her forehead ravened, reaching out to beyond the non-energies inherent in this place of non-ness, by-passing them entirely, until at length it came into contact with something other.

Something... usable.

Now brilliant energies flashed blue and violet, searing the darkness, reaching the remnants of their destroyed ship, finding that energy yet enclosed within the remaining molecules of reality, and using that reality opened a portal. It writhed into being less than a meter from her; giving her welcome access to the portion of the Universe that sentient beings term real.

A final look at Shayla... and dragging the still-quiet Phalomir along with her, she stepped through.

The Portal winked closed in their wake with a little snip of finality.

((Follow Graysith and Phalomir into ”A Rose So Sweet” in the “Jedi/Sith” forums (cross-reference to “Motes in an Electric Eye” for future information), thank you.

As both Jharmeen and Phalomir and the portal the former had opened vanished, Shayla turned back to ShaRhylla...

...and then back up to Kieran’s gloating form. As far as she could tell he didn’t even seem ruffled by their departure...

....at least for the moment. Shayla considered him for the barest of seconds, knowing without a doubt that the reanimating of Kieran’s body didn’t mean Kieran was back. Far from it.

Shayla then turned to ShaRhylla, who smoldered in the combination of both Darkness and Power, her connection with the Dark empowered in incomprehensible ways by her inherent All abilities.

Something deep within Shayla’s soul poked and prodded for her attention at this thought, and she heeded it. Regarding ShaRhylla, she knew that at one time she would have been shaken to have been left behind...

...but that Shayla was gone. She had died, choosing a life of balance, of understanding that being Whole meant keeping the Greater Good at the forefront. Knowing that there were two sides to every coin...

...and being willing to act on that.

But there was the act of “darkness” for that of the Greater Good....

...and then there was Darkness for nothing other than Darkness’s sake.

“He’s not my Kieran,” Shayla then said simply, the comment perhaps seeming strangely unattached to all that was happening, and all that had happened. “And you are not the only one here with connections to more than just the Realms.”

Saying nothing more than this, Shayla opened herself up, not to just the Darker Realms, but to that which she had been taught by her Teacher and Chosen Sister. Stretching out then, her heart and soul connected to the Realms, she sought until she found His very soul....

...for in the space of time that she had been here, with him, she knew him.

Having found him, she remained connected to his essence, then stretched out into That Which She Had Been Taught, a picture in her mind’s eye of her dear Teacher and Sister.

For there had once been a time, when she needed it, that she called for the Apple. And plunk....

Twice.

Then, something black and oily moving about behind her eyes she moved closer to her new... Sister.

Slowly, she bent down and retrieved a small, round object. She smiled to see it was the color of blood.

“An apple,” she said, her voice flat. Holding it up, she turned it about to expose the little blarnworm upon its other hemisphere. The little thing busily dug and chewed its way into the apple, the skin and flesh of it around his tiny form brown and bruised.

“Oh look,” ShaRhylla went on as she considered its small antics. “This one shows... Perfection.”

A sudden pause, and she jerked her eyes directly into Shayla’s again.

“Or so one would think; I at least approve. But others?”

Slowly she rotated the fruit in her hand until its shining, unblemished side presented itself to the other. Her lips crooked, exposing a fang. One brow lifted... and exposing the other fang she lifted the apple to her lips and took a large savory bite from it.

Blarnworm and all.

“Is it still perfect to you, Sister mine?” Her smile vanished and she threw the apple to the non-ground then, dismissing it with a boot of one dainty foot.

“My mother tried to teach me those same silly lessons, you see,” she went on in a matter-of-fact voice. “Balance and all that, making the All come running to your beck and call. However, what she didn’t tell you is that although the wild tuk’ata may come running to meet you...”

A deep responding niggle hit her from nowhere, perhaps of guilt. With more than a bit of surprise she realized it was emanating from Shayla, and took the time to focus briefly upon this. Particulars aside, she then knew into her deepest, darkest soul that This One had once gone so far to attempt the Blood-bond, as if she too were Sith.. In a flash her talents followed that slender tendril even deeper into Shayla’s memories, saw exactly how her connection had been made, then drew back with a little smile.

Perhaps she had mastered the beast... but no true bonding of the blood had occurred. For she had not allowed it to occur; she had tried to force it into reality.

Her smile grew even broader and she continued on as if nothing had happened at all between them.

“You need more lessons,” she said simply before retrieving the apple, raising it to her lips, and utterly devouring the remainder of it, the eyes she kept pinned upon Shayla’s both sugary sweet and the oiliest of black at the same time.

....and how she utterly missed the lesson Jharmeen had been trying to teach. Now she simply watched ShaRhylla coolly, unruffled. It struck Shayla once more how similar ShaRhylla’s actions were to her mother’s...

...and her attention shifted to the words the young woman was speaking.

“Yes, I do,” she responded.

Having acknowledged that, something in Shayla’s very heart of hearts simply ached as she recalled how, after she had lost Zachary, she simply wanted to return to Jharmeen’s side and learn from her once more. But she knew that this desire was due to more than just her eagerness to learn...

..but also because she knew Jharmeen alone would understand her pain. For she too had lost a child, and more than one....

She let her memories flow freely, openly for others to see in as well.

They had searched so long for ShaRhylla. She had been switched to the womb of her Aunt before birth, to separate she and Jharmeen so that if harm should come, it would be to only one of them. But then Maladius snatched her and took ShaRhylla not to her mother, but instead to the chrome-eyed Vong. She had been “found” by her father, Dark Lord Roan, only to then have her age altered.

She had only been an infant for the barest fraction of time, and was alone from the beginning. She had never been a toddler. Had never been a child.

What kind of life had she known, truly? For she had been part of the Realms and the Darkness for the majority of her still very young life.

Shayla said nothing of all her thoughts though, at least not for the moment. Instead she chose to travel along a different trajectory all together.

“Me? Teach you?” She took on an air of extreme surprise sprinkled liberally with a good dose of confusion.

“Now, why would I do that?”

She whirled away from Shayla then, just in time to hide from her the dark smile coming now to her face. Her back to her Sister, she nodded toward Keiran.

“You should have stayed with Mother, but I suppose he might teach you.”

Now she whirled back to face Shayla, her features inscrutable.

He taught me well, after all...

Until ShaRhylla had disappeared from them, she had been working with them. Why the sudden change?

Shayla knew she should have realized this sooner.

She said she was going to find her father...

Shayla’s greeny-blue eyes locked onto ShaRhyllla’s bicolored ones. “Did he teach you of what he intends to do with the Sith?” she asked. Pausing for a moment then, she continued. “And did you find your Father?”

“That soul is not here,” he said, turning to the two women. “Nor is he whom she thought was her father, but she knows of that disappearance already.”

He took a step forward, his pencil thin lips parting into a slight smile. A strange sense of melancholy played upon his face.

“It has been some time since I last walked with… feet,” he said. “And such large feet. I was aware of my existence, of that which transpired here, yet my interest in it grew dim. And now you have brought me back into a physical form. Tell me truly, why would you do this thing? Is to be a teacher for this one, my love? Is it to avenge your true father? Is it reclaim that which is already mine? Or did you just miss me, my Dark Heart?”

He shot a cold look to Shayla.

To be whole.

With not a little effort, however, she stayed the motion, forced the desire back, covered her fangs in a pretty pout. Then rising up on her tiptoes, she placed that pout against his ear.

“Your memories of this place, it’s meaning to you... grew dim?” she whispered, letting a drop of disappointment leach into the words. “Your Queen, chosen by you, given to this place in willing consent, has become forgotten?

“How could you forget, my Dark Heart. For I have never forgotten you. I even destroyed my own father for you; but...”

Now she pulled back, sent a quizzical gaze deep into the turquoise eyes behind which it hid.

“He is not; that is truth? He told me he was not; but if not he, then... who?”

The tiniest sliver of that which Men term real, of that from which she had sprung, from that humanity fought a final time to gain a foothold in her soul...

...only to be roughly pushed down and away.

“I wanted to please you,” she pouted, her voice barely registering. “But it matters not. I have given death to that one, twice, and in this place where he is now bound firmly by it and our desires. What matters is that you are here, with me again! Your form matters not; it is enough to be able to feel you, my Dark Love. And actually...”

She paused, pushing off of him a little to peruse him up and down.

“I find this form more pleasing than the one you wore when we first met. It is...fun that you bear the visage of he who my mother loves... if indeed she is my mother!”

Suddenly tossing back her flaming head, she laughed, the sound wild and eerie, a banshee screaming into the night. She flung out her hands in accompaniment, now pirouetting about in a motion so swift and unexpected it sent nearby imps into paroxysms of annoyance. Gibbering, drooling, gabbling and howling they came flying to investigate only to join in with her dervish as they recognized her, soul to non-soul.

Suddenly she stopped, her attention taken up by the quiet form of Shayla. Planting her hands on her hips she now moved to stand directly in front of her. Grudgingly, she had to give the young blonde credit for not flinching.

But then, wasn’t she supposed to be some kind of queen here? Isn’t that what the imposter once inhabiting the body of Her Heart had given to her? Of her own free will?

The chance to rule. To be Queen...

“You are no Queen here; you will never be.. For that which filled him...”

A delicate fist shot out, one finger pointing at Keiran.

“...had not the power to bestow this upon you. There is no power here but HERE; you never did see that, did you? You should have chosen more... wisely, BUT...!”

Letting a creeping dark smile slice her words into silence, she glided back to mold herself against Keiran’s body again.

“But not all shall be wasted. Did you say something about torment, my love? Oh what joy we can share with her!”

Raising her eyes to his once more, she batted them prettily, now letting her lip curl once again to expose a single, glistening fang.

Of the deal the Master had made with the Darkness, to give It his son in exchange for the power to defeat the returning Yuuzhan Vong. Of how she had been connected once with said incoming Vong as a Nexus of sorts, via the Darkness that once was implanted in her.

Of potential betrayal and playing of both sides by the Darkness....

...and of the longing for an Heir; one who was both Darkness and All inherent.

With ShaRhylla back here now, willingly, the Darkness certainly had what It needed for that. But what was this the Darkness spoke to her, Shayla Stargazer, of torment? She expected as much from ShaRhylla, who reveled in the Dark....

But then, something deep within Shayla slammed home.

Love and hate were not polar opposites, for clearly one could love the Dark; ShaRhylla certainly did.

And so did she.

But Darkness, as ShaRhylla had so poignantly noted without really realizing it, had as many different facets as did love. Love could be friendship, concern...

...and passion. And Darkness could be passion, lust, and anger. The Darkness that had taken ShaRhylla as His Queen, in the form of Entaris, was one facet...

...while the Darkness that had taken she, Shayla Stargazer as His Queen, in the form of Kieran, had been another.

It was as if....

Shayla didn’t let the thought follow through, at least not on the surface.

“Perhaps I am no Queen at all,” Shayla acknowledged to ShaRhylla, although her eyes never left those of the Dark One. She wondered if Kieran was in there at all any longer...

...but whether he was or not, she knew she had fallen in love with him Darkness and all...and that His Darkness was not the same as the Darkness ShaRhylla loved.

How she longed for his Darkness now...

She let her eyes rest on the Dark One....no, Kieran’s form a moment longer.