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....

[ 04-23-2020 01:55 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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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.

[ 04-23-2020 03:38 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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....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.

“What lessons would you teach me?”

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“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...

[ 04-24-2020 08:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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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?”

[ 04-25-2020 09:00 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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“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.

[ 04-29-2020 08:08 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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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.

Then her greeny-blue eyes shot to pierce ShaRhylla’s bicolored pair. “He wanted me to deliver him an Heir.”

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