... real. It was like the Master really saw me in the vision. But then, this is probably something we should discuss with the entire group, in the morning...

...which will come possibly sooner than any of us would like. First and foremost I wanted the two of you out of that lounge, while we still could get out of there. Secondly I wanted two other people to hear what I thought was possible...

...so that we have more than one avenue to warn others of the possibility..."

She paused, her look darkening. "...just in case something should happen."

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

A shadowy man holding out an axe... he, no, wait, someone elses hand took it, then drew it back and struck the heads from the bestower....

His body wrenched too the side at a new stabbing of pain, another image comming too him.

Armored hand raised victorious, goblet in it as the sith about him roared in unison at their victory over.... who?

Rykouagnin let out a gasping scream as he tumbled from the bed, cat-like in his landing on hands and knees as he let out a stream of vomit onto the cool stone, gasping and choking.

Something seared into my arm.... no my mind.. my very body! Gods the pain...

He cried out almost pitifully, as he fell onto his side, arm laying in the bile as he began to shake and shiver, further foreign visions chasing through his mind as he trembled...

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

“Well,” he said. “I know that you have some pretty wild abilities, with that levitation stuff and all, so I couldn’t completely rule out that you had some sort of weird vision. But even warned, how the heck can we prepare ourselves for the Master? I mean, come on, he’s got some weird black stuff all over him now, that was supposedly meant to go inside of Phal? What is up with that? It’s hard to fight what we don’t even know.”

Panthar scratched at the wound on his hand. He reached under the violet soaked bandage and pressed.

“If we had a way of knowing what that was in the first place, maybe we could determine his motives and have a way of predicting his next move. But then again, is it him or Roan that we need to worry about more?”

Panthar pulled his hand away from his injury, and a fresh spattering of violet blood spilled down his hand.

“Oh, dang it, why won’t this thing stop bleeding?”

He looked around and hastened for a porcelain pot on a stand in the corner. He began to unwrap the bandage as he held the hand over the pot.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you see anything I can use to wrap around this th—“

Panthar’s eyes widened as he thought he saw a thin black tendril ooze out his wound, then spurt back in.

“Um…” he started.

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

He rolled away from the wall, another vision, that of crossing blades with a muscular and heavily armored sith came too his mind, before he stood up, roaring at the demons the only he could see about him.

Looking too the pane of glass that was a mirror, he saw only a beast with blade rearing too strike. Crying out, he summoned his own blade too tear the mirror from the wall and break it into thousands of pieces.

He scored the walls then, stabbed the matresses, before letting go of the magic, and slamming himself into the walls too escape the pained frenzy that tore through his mind and ravaged him.

"GRAHHH!" he screamed as he stood upon the cot, staring at the chipped red stone he saw before him, watching as it contorted into a visage of his brother, mocking him and taunting him.

Rearing back his head, he brought it too slam against the wall, blasting himself past stars and planets into the deep black void of a dreamless sleep...

[ 02-02-2006 12:11 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Rykounagin ]

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

...something foreign to him, yet familiar at the same time. She paused and hesitated, frowning...

...then realizing something she should have already. "You know," she then spoke up," that wound should be healing fairly well by now. I spent some time working at healing it through the Force. Something is making it continue to fester...

...as if there is a foreign body there or something..."

Frowning even more deeply, Shayla stepped into a nearby washroom in the suites and emerged with a soft cloth which she place on the wound. Blood began to soak the cloth, so Shayla stretched out with the Force, channeling its energies to the wound through herself...

...and coming against something dark and odious, and something which she quite suddenly knew she knew well, for at a time she had felt it within herself, back when Entaris had planted his seed of despair deep within her.

Her eyes, which had been closed, snapped open in shock. "It...it's..." she started, stuttering, "...like something, or rather someone, I've encountered in the Darker Realms, and I'm not speaking of the Master. He once planted the seeds of despair deep in my soul...

...and while we've heard nothing of him as of late, the tar-like substance which engulfed the Master reminds me very much of him..."

Trailing at that statement, Shayla's look darkened further. "This is not good..."

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

"Um..." he started. He looked down at his hand.

"I think there is some of that black stuff inside me," he said faintly. His eyes returned to Shayla's, pleading.

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

...I think you are going to need Jharmeen's abilities for this. But, considering this... Thing appears to be inside you, perhaps it is wise that you not stray far. Perhaps it is best you sleep the night on the couch in our suites...

...and Erik and I can take shifts watching you til morning. With something of this nature, I don't want to take risks."

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

“But I’m not sleepy, really. I haven’t been tired for quite some time, and I was going to find out if they got to those vials on the ship that we came here on. I’ll be all right, really.”

Panthar held the blood-soaked cloth in his hand and pulled it tight across the wound. He tucked the end under the cloth on his palm.

“So, thanks anyway, but I…” Panthar turned for the door, the motion of his spin seeming to send the inside of his head into motion as well. He paused with his hands out from his sides as balance.

“I, um…” he continued. His body seemed to be dawning upon the realization that it was indeed tired. He felt a tingling in his arm, then his balance seemed to completely depart and he stumbled for a chair near the door. He plopped into the chair and stared blankly at Shayla.

“Yeah, well, like I was saying…” Panthar trailed off, his vision going blurry as his eyelids became suddenly like stones. “Maybe I can… just…. stay… h—“

Panthar slipped into unconsciousness, sprawling over the chair. The blood stopped dripping from the bandage and began to slowly clot.

[ 02-03-2006 11:33 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Panthar Dantares ]

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

...and I owe you for wandering away while you were sleeping, after all."

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

She paused, chewing her lip. Then she frowned once more, looking at Erik again. "What in the Fates were you doing in that lounge anyway? Something has been bothering you for some time now, and I'd like to know what it is."

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

"Oh?" was all she said, softly, as if cuing him onward. He looked to her. "Shayla, we encountered the Master, and he was coming at that little ball of nothing we thought--correctly--was the three of you. I don't know what happened, except that I sensed a threat to you...

...and somehow..."

Again he trailed and looked down, but this time he then continued. "I Force-pushed the Master enough to send him sprawling backwards."

He looked up again, his brown eyes locking with hers. "I've never done anything like that before. Never had the ability. It was as if my feelings for you drove my abilities..."

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

Looking to her, his brown eyes somewhat distant, he nodded, and walked with her to the couch where they sat and she snuggled next to him.

"Get some rest," she commented, placing a hand in his. "We are all going to need it."

He didn't say anything but merely nodded, squeezing her hand a bit before leaning back on the couch back and closing his eyes. She didn't figure he was going to sleep much, troubled as he seemed...

...but Shayla hoped in time he would come to understand something of himself that she already accepted.

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

Deep in his mind, he knew he needed to stand up and make his way to the ship, to finish the job that Phalomir had set him upon. But sleep had overtaken him, and he wondered at the sudden fatigue that came upon him. He then realized that he was dreaming, and very much aware of the fact that he was dreaming. He struggled to wake himself, but his mind and body would not obey.

In his dream Panthar sat alone on a stool in bar. It was a place he remembered from Sullust, the Blue Asteroid. The place was empty except for him and the bartender. He held a drink in his hand, and music played softly in the background. He looked to the bartender.

“Look,” he said, “I know this is just a dream, so pass me the check so I can get on with waking up.”

The bartender looked at Panthar and shrugged. He wiped a glass with a rag he took from the bar.

“Come on,” said Panthar. “I mean it now. This isn’t right.”

Panthar pointed his finger at the bartender, then noticed that his hand was not hurt. In fact, it was not even red. He felt his face, smooth and free of horns. He was suddenly so happy he almost cried.

“I’m back! It’s my old face, my old body!” He stood happily, then paused, his hands going to his sides.

“But no, it’s just a dream,” he said.

The bartender looked up and sighed.

“Look,” he said. “If you’re gonna drink, then drink. If you’re gonna mope, then head on down to the other bar.”

Panthar stared for a moment, then sat. He continued to stare at the bartender, not sure what was happening.

“Hey,” he said at last. “Why can’t I wake up?”

The bartender paused again and sighed. “All right, look. I’ll level with ya. I’m just here to keep ya busy until morning. Now, there ain’t no way you’re gonna wake up until the boss says it’s time, so ya might as well just kick back, take a drink, and wander off into la-la land.”

Panthar sat quiet for a while longer, staring at the drink in front of him. He looked up after a time.

“Maybe Shayla needs me to—“

The bartender threw his rag down on the bar and looked at Panthar with an intense anger. The walls behind the bar began to melt into blackness, as if a thick ooze was melting them away. The bartender begin to change, growing a set of long horns and turning the color of midnight. Panthar stood, backing away, then turned and ran into the growing darkness.

Outside, his snores stopped, replaced by a fitful tossing and turning. He spent the rest of the night in a maze of twisty turny passages, all alike, with the breath of something dark and sinister just behind him. Nothing would wake him until the coming of dawn.

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

The air was damp and cool, as morning came filtering into the swamp. The bed made an unusual addition to the water, grasses, and tangled trees, and Phalomir mused to himself over it. His eyes were drawn to the grove that surrounded them, and for a moment had a feeling of déjà vu as the vision of a very young boy flashed in his mind. He blinked, and returned to the view of the trees.

One of the trees seemed to have an infestation of strange white spiders…

He paused, staring at the tree and its inhabitants. Something very familiar took hold of him, as if a message was struggling to reach out of the depths of his memories. He closed his eyes, trying to free his mind from other thoughts so this one may surface. White spiders… there is a significance… he had heard Jharmeen mutter such words at one time, but there was something more… something in his own past… was it spiders? Or something white, spider-like, something… deadly.

Jharmeen stirred on top of him, sending her hair spilling over his face once again. Phalomir opened his eyes as Jharmeen rose sleepily, supporting her small frame on his chest. He beamed at her, brushing her hair back over her shoulder.

“Good morning, my lady,” he smiled. “Your face serves as the sunrise in this misty place, and your smile is the heat of the morning.”

He raised one eyebrow.

"But perhaps you could tell me just where we find ourselves this day?"

[ 02-12-2006 02:48 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Phalomir ]

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

I blinked slowly, looking at the red blurs of my hands. What happened last night? Was all I could wonder, trying too gather memories, faint visions and the like.

I could see familiar flashes of people, ShaRhylla, Roan, and...

Some that were not so familiar.

Reaching out with my mind I began too find memories that seemed like they should be familiar, but that I knew were not mine. How did these come too be?

As my vision cleared, I saw that my hands were covered in red, aching slightly. Perhaps I got into a fight and I do not remember?

I reached down too the sheets of the cot and tried too whipe my hand off, still looking at the other red one, then brought it up.

But it was still red!

I tried again, and looked, still red, with no signs of liquid upon the sheets. Perhaps the blood had dried?

Walking too the basin, I realized that my entire body from what I could see was covered in the red. Could a fight really have gotten that bad?

I went too the small water basin at the side of the room and tried too wash my hands clean, but too no avail. As I frantically rubbed at my arms and hands, I began too realize I was seeing things in a different light.

Not only did things seem too be smaller -or perhaps I was merely taller?- but I felt more... thick. Seemingly stronger in build, but what could cause such a thing?

I let the water rest, the ripples still distorting the image it sought too reveal. I shall see the truth of this.

After a few moments of pause, it became still, and I looked into the liquid too find a sith looking back at me.

I whirled, but no one was there!

I turned too look back in again, and saw that same sith. I raised a hand slowly and waved it slightly, as the reflection did perfectly.

It took a very, very long moment for this too sink in. What the truth was. The truth I did not want.

I let out a roar, and smashed the rinsing bowl the side, shattering the porcelain and letting it's accursed contents splash over the stone.

"What foul sorcery is this?!" I cried aloud, striking at the wall and finding a deep set of scratches where I had struck it.

I cursed and yelled and growled threats for a time, until slowly, what seemed like a red haze came over my vision, but not that of blood lust... something... different.

When it passed, I found myself laying upon the stone floor of the chamber, cool and silent. With fear, I raised a hand too see, but it was pale and unblemished, save for the ever-present tattoos.

CHOSEN

He let out a sigh of relief, and rolled too stand up. "Just a dream..." He muttered, stretching slightly as he began too walk too the door.

"Buisiness is required today... very very important affairs." He nodded, and took the last step towards the door, but froze as he felt something cool beneath his foot.

Looking slowly too the ground, he saw trembling and wet beneath his foot, the water from the basin, and the smashed porcelain not too far from.

[ 02-07-2006 05:35 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Rykounagin ]

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

"If I said we were yet in our chambers, would you take it as the truth?" she quipped with a smile, now raising up and pushing off of him in earnest. She rolled off of the bed and onto the incongruity that was the grass that bed nestled upon, landing lithely upon her feet and then rising up in a great stretch.

She then shook herself out a bit before stepping out toward a grove of gnarl-trees, one that had caught her eye in the early morning light, one particularly thick with its attendant spiders.

"You would be wrong; this is the place where a mage once came to seek answers... as did I. This is the swamp world of Dagobah."

Coming up to the nearest gnarl-tree she paused a moment and held out her hand. One of the white spiders paused a moment in its miniscule meanderings before it then scurried obligingly toward her. Climbing upon her palm, it paused a moment to wave its pedipalps at her, before suddenly scurrying off to gesture frantically at its mates in turn.

Graysith smiled at the antics, but her smile was laced with a touch of sobriety. Well she recalled the lessons she had learned during her own self-imposed exile upon this misty, watery world.

Every one. In excruciating detail.

And the spiders continue their unceasing tarantelle...

[ 02-07-2006 11:19 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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

“I can feel the strange power of this place,” he said quietly. “It pulses within the land, and seems to grow as if part of the trees, the grass…”

He looked at the spiders marching their way up and down the tree, each one believing what it would about the existence of things outside the tree, uncaring at how easily their world could be manipulated. The strike of lightning, the driving force of a storm, the touch of a hand to an axe… So many outside forces could shatter their existence, yet they continued on to live the lives they had built. What else could they do?

“It seems to impose questions I had never thought to ask,” he continued.

“My lady, did you find your answers?”

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

The vision of the spiders was shoved roughly to one side as in her mind's eye she watched the four entities so pivotal in her life, Darth Wicked, Dark Lord Roan, Lord Aelvedaar and Lord Recinis, now parading there.

Each with a gentle smile of love on his face.

Each holding weapons of death behind his back.

Her vision fogged as sudden tears welled up, not spilling over onto her cheeks but remaining just on the trembling verge of doing so. She remained frozen both in body and memory, waiting until those tears dried and dissipated entirely.

"At the time, I thought I had."

She gave her head a sudden toss, flinging her hair in a flaming nimbus about her head as she whirled almost angrily away from the spider-infested tree.

"These little things have no notion of what they do, as do others of our acquaintance," she said, a new undertone of darkness creeping into the statement.

"We must hasten back."

An arm raised, a Portal was ripped in the spacetime continuum. She made no move to enter therein, but remained standing where she was with her back still presented to the Dark Lord, who yet stood in silence beside the tree.

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

And where he was.

It had been so long, so damnably long since they had been given a moment of peace. Or rather, since Galen had been given a moment of peace. He had been dead for a couple of years, away from it all...

...but what unknown troubles had that mysterious and unknown time wrought?

Cracking an eye open, Terrin found things just as they had been left the evening before. Galen lay nearby, and Darra was off in another room within the same suites as well.

Darra. In that mysterious time while he was gone, her age had been altered. Galen had not wanted it, and that had not been part of any bargain made. Nor would it ever have been.

Unconciously, Terrin sighed, but then something within him waved a reminding banner for his attention.

What had happened, had happened...

...and was in the past to learn from. Second chances are rare, especially in this circumstance.

Make every moment count.

Feeling Galen stir beside him, Terrin turned her way, brushing her short red hair from her face with his hand and kissing her gently then simply looking into her eyes, swimming in the moment.

"You deserve a thousand lifetimes of quiet, peaceful mornings like this...

...only with no place to go and nothing else to do," he commented then quietly, saying nothing further then.

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

If only the moment would last forever...

Smiling up at him, I let one hand creep up to lay alongside the hard planes of his face. All that we had been through, all that I had been through, indeed, all Darra had been through in her abbreviated life paled before the hell that he had been through. For no matter what terrible, horrible things had been thrown to Darra and I by Life... it was by Life. And where there is life, there is always hope.

But death--

A little shudder raced through me and I pressed my hand against his cheek a little harder.

"None more so than you, Flyboy," I said softly before craning my neck so my lips would once again meet his. Another moment passed that I wished would spread out into eternity...

...but when I allowed myself to fall back against the pillows and satins it was with a bit of a frown crossing my features.

Mornings of peace, with nothing to do and nowhere to go...

The thought, quite out of the blue, was suddenly about as appealing as the milk of a mynock. I cocked my head a bit to one side, letting my eyes arrow even more deeply into Terrin's, seeking what I was fairly certain I would find lurking therein.

"But--"

I stopped in mid-word, catching my lip between my teeth. To speak the words I was about to just sounded so...

Ungrateful, somehow.

But faint heart ne'er won a podrace, so I drew in a big ol' breath and pressed on.

"What are we going to do, love?" I asked him, straight from the hip.

"I understand exactly what you mean, but do you think you'd truly be happy going back to 'same old, same old'?"

Sighing a bit, I pushed him away so I could sit up. Pulling my knees up close to myself, I wrapped my arms around them and placed my cheek against them, staring off into the vague fuzziness of middle space.

For sure as Khaandon made lil green worrts, I knew that after about a month or so of said "same old, same old," I'd be chomping at the bit like a racer in the gate. And the thing that was suddenly scary was the fact that I honestly didn't know what Terrin would want.

So much had happened to us during the majority of the time we were in fact, an "us"... I couldn't even judge how Terrin would react, because we had hardly ever had a moment's peace.

[ 02-12-2006 08:33 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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

"I wouldn't go back to the same ole' for anything," he replied. "After all," he then continued, a bit of mirth creeping into his eyes, "The same ole' doesn't allow me to go around sporting my Sith robe wardrobe..."

He trailed, his look turning completely serious then, "...and doesn't give me the opportunity travel the galaxy and life's road with the woman that I love. Absolutely nothing in my life holds a candle in comparison to the time I've been with you."

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

"Thank you," I whispered, knowing how strange the words sounded, knowing as well that Terrin knew precisely what I meant in uttering them. Another soft moment tiptoed by before I drew in another breath and broached the query once again.

"When all this is said and done," I began, waving a hand to indicate our Sith surroundings.

"What are we going to do?"

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

I look through my hosts eyes, the facade I wear now is most confused. But I shall wait... wait for the right time...

CHOSEN

He tried too forget what he had seen, assuming he must have done it in the night while awake and... merely forgotten

He wound through the passages towards his Fiance's chambers, not sure what time it was, but judging by distant sounds of varied activity, suitable.

Thunk, his palm found the surface of the door, and he stared at the panel of wood before him, beyond the chamber where so many things had occured the night previous, where hate had become... love?

Perhaps too strong a word, but, descriptive in an odd way.

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

The sound echoed through her chambers, crept up to nestle with her amidst the royal satins and silks and furs of which her bedding was made, whispered into her ear to then tiptoe along the corridors of her mind.

There it cleverly entwined itself within the dream she was experiencing at the moment. It jarred the dreamscape harshly, like a gong, incongruous to what events had been repeating within her head, an oxymoron in and of itself.

She was stricken with it, surprise gaping her mouth into a round be-fanged "o," her inner eyes blinking even while her physical ones scrinched closed more tightly.

"Mmmph!" she garbled, wriggling into her bedding, burrowing down in the attempt to evade the strange sound which had the audacity to try to awaken her.

[ 02-12-2006 09:25 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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

...my heart tells me that it's simply not possible, or logical. And quite honestly, sitting on the sidelines after everything that we've been through does sound completely unappealing. We know that there is probably more turmoil to come to this galaxy, and that the Vong are in all likelyhood going to return..."

He paused, frowning at the thought. "I can't sit back and do nothing knowing that. And there's Darra's best interests to consider as well."

He trailed, his look thoughtful for a moment. Then, a smile crossing his features, he finished with, "Gods know that Jasyn would be furious if we took him away from his beloved Sith brandy..."

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