Private A Certain Kind of Nothing

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia itched at her arm and tried to concentrate.

It was hard. She couldn't keep her thoughts on the meditation exercise. She could barely keep her thoughts straight at all. She itched at her ribs and closed the ruin book, too restless to train. She had tried reading, she had tried running, she had tried cleaning. Nothing worked. She felt like she had swallowed a live wire and recently the sensation had only grown.

She was unhappy. She couldn't put her finger on why.

She rose from the floor and turned to leave the chamber. Her training chamber. Maybe she had outgrown it too.

Darth Mori

 

[Vesta]

Mauvaise Journée​

The air, stale and cold, moved as the darkness flowed through it. Light was extinguished where it went, heat vanished and color faded in its wake, but it traveled with a purpose that fickle nature could not. Misery was the day's company just as well as discomfort hung itself from Darth Daiara 's shoulder. A force of nature or a vengeful spirit, making a distinction in whatever it was that she had become in her fight with her cousin over Asog made little difference in the manner in which she seemed to appear from the chill on the still air. Coalescing darkness, the raw emotion and power that seemed to give her an identity even in the disembodied state that she had arrived in, and shadows came together in the misshapen, hard-to-define, Darth Mori.

"Leaving?"

Her question was one she would have spoken if her existence was not in the complicated state that it was now. It came clearly, telepathy, in a manner that seemed even more wrong than it would have if she'd invaded the minds of those listening with a face to fit the voice to. That face came soon after, etched like a negative into the open air like exposed film. In a way this illustrated the gradual shift in Vesta's interest, from the softer ramifications of the actions people took towards the more direct, concrete, interpretation of the things they did. She missed the discomfort, or perhaps associated it with the manner in which her apprentice moved to leave the chamber, and focused entirely on the method she took to alleviate it.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia stopped in place, a cold prick of familiarity sinking through her. She gasped sharply as Vesta coalesced into a faint, shambled configuration floating before her. That was new.

"Well since I am here alone, there's nothing to do." Her words were riddled with accusation. She would have asked what had happened but she no longer cared. More and more Vesta's attention had shifted from her apprentice to that order. She was tired of being kept at arms length-- an ornament for the house and nothing more. Vesta use to have such grand plans for her.

She had lost her master's interest.

Her nostril's flared at the shifting shadows. She stepped through them and continued on her way.

Darth Mori

 

[Vesta]

There was a momentary conflict there, a darkness at war with itself in a way that went entirely unseen. She desired, for herself, to let things end here - that was how everything was steadily beginning to unravel towards, a conclusive end with her alone. That was the cost of dealing with other people, selfish lives that only intertwined themselves with anyone else so long as it benefited them, and with every remaining soul that walked away from her she felt more and more disillusioned with the prospect of ever having something to hold onto again, or that she even had something like that in the first place. The rational side of her, or perhaps the idealized side, she couldn't tell, disagreed with the premise of what was happening here. Darth Daiara had made it a predictable habit of hers to act opposite of her own interests, voicing her displeasure through actions that implied finality in an effort to get her to do what she wanted.

Vesta wasn't capable of just walking away from the things she wanted though, but neither was she able to do anything approaching the sort of behavior that she'd need to smooth things over. Spiteful, petty, whatever it was that fit best is what she was most. Push and pull, both at once, was what she preferred most - it was what was safest for her, a half-step in either direction to provoke someone else to choose whether she was to stay or go for her. "You sound just like your mother." She said, bitterly, chasing her through the hall like she was the girl's shadow. That was a raw spot that she lashed out at because she knew it would provoke a response, though probably not one she was looking for. Whether she hid her own discomfort well enough or not, the accusatory remark that Aradia had directed toward her had certainly done whatever damage she had wanted and more.

"We're both alone, that's why you stayed. Now you're leaving?"

There was still anger audible in the way she spoke, but fine threads of anxiety were laced between each word just as well.

"You need me."

 

[Darth Daiara]

"And where are you?" Aradia snapped back, easily provoked. "Out there-- picking fights-- dying, and for what? You hate Orders." She turned on Vesta and glared.

"I need you and you've moved on. How's that for being my mother-- you're just like her." The idea of losing Vesta to the same inevitable disinterest would have one drove her into pools of fear. Now she was only angry.

"We had a deal! You would rather die for them then stay with me. How could you?"

The pent up energy had not been able to release came out easily here. Dark energy lashed out at Vesta in an unrefined attack.

 

[Vesta]

Like churning clouds of smoke every conflicting emotion and all of her frustration was emoted through the state of her boundless shape. She was being lectured on things that were far beyond the girl's understanding, subjected to being demeaned as a hypocrite for her collaboration with a group that shared a similar end goal as her so she could use them to get what she wanted. "We all have to do things we don't want to do, that's part of being an adult." She seethed, bristling at the notion that she'd devoted herself to something as chaining as an order of any kind. "You didn't seem to care what the hell I was after as long as you had someone to keep your bed warm, did you, Darth Daiara ?" She shouted, raising her voice for what very well could have been the first time that she could recall in recent memory.

Darkness rushed towards her but she made no effort to move aside, taking the pain in stride while volumes of shadow were pushed away like clouds parted by streams of air. The concept of being physically harmed was far more abstract now than it had been in the past, she could sustain herself through the hurt in ways that being trapped within a physical body never would have allowed her to, but it made the heightened emotions that flared up with seeing bits of her swept away all the more intense. "You're just like the rest of them." Vesta said with an uneasy calm, her dark eyes accusing the girl in ways her words just didn't do justice. "Choose me or them," She mocked, her voice distorted into almost a parody of a smaller voice. "I don't do ultimatums, you impetuous brat."

"If you want something you can be an adult and tell me, otherwise I'll give you exactly what you're asking for and it won't be what you want."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia's lips parted and closed, like a fish out of water. She couldn't catch her breath.

They had already had this conversation. She had already asked to be taken with Vesta and she had gotten a no. She already knew the answer so why bother fighting over it all over again. She burned for something more.

She snuffed at Vesta and did what the woman couldn't. She turned and started back away. "Give it your best shot, Casper. I'm still done for today."

 

[Vesta]

Some days she was more done than others; today, however, she was significantly more over how the way things were going for her than the rest. To say she had a shorter fuse than usual would have been an understatement, she had nearly thrown away a relatively hard-earned apprentice over an immediately obvious misunderstanding. One day she was taking on family, the next she was having her confidence torn out from her by some jealous vampire; she'd certainly thought more of Darth Daiara than either of the other two, at least as a general rule, but like a dictator in times of poor news she was all the more paranoid of the people closest to her when she needn't be.

"Things are just.. tense." She answered, trying to lower her red-hot anger to a more suitable level that could fit the situation - honestly not against setting aside whatever it was they would have done in the first place if that was all that this was. "I have a lot on my plate, things that are bigger than just you or me." Vesta explained, though it sounded considerably more like a lame excuse than solid reasoning when she heard herself talk. In reality there wasn't really a suitable reason to give behind whatever issue it was that Aradia had with Vesta's relative presence as of recent, things were either entirely personal to the older Sith or were political in nature and neither of those things tended to matter to the more free-spirited redhead.

"Recently I've been a bit more sens.. conscious of what the people I choose as company think of me."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia rolled her eyes and kept on her way, forcing Vesta to follow after or be left behind. One thing was for certain-- Aradia wouldn't stay locked in their stand down. She wouldn't stay in those halls at all.

"Bullshit" She called out. "You're angry, you've been angry for months, ever since you let that girl step back in-- she fucks with your head.

"S'toxic," she grumbled, rounding a corner and breaking for a side door. The dense, sulfuric air of the planet washed over her. It wasn't half as refreshing as she had hoped for.

"Are you even trying to stay alive?"

 

[Vesta]

She pressed on as Darth Daiara kept walking, fully invested in making sure things were set back in a way that favored what she had for how things would be going forward. The backlash that followed was expected, she had practically been asking for it by keeping things vague, and it was quite a bit more deserved than she would have liked to admit. "..Sure." She admitted under her breath while the girl grumbled about something she assumed had to do with Quinn. She raised her hands, limbs made of what could have been described as solid smoke given the shadowy carbon-like look she now possessed, and shook her head. "I won't deny it." Vesta said in a moment of openness that generally only appeared whenever she thought she was at an advantage in being so.

She had ignored the question lobbed her way, however, but the momentary shift and loss of definition in her face seemed to imply that it sunk in quite a bit deeper than she was willing to let on. "On the one hand I have you, your future, and on the other hand I have her and mine." She explained, almost coolly, as she followed her. "So, yes, I've been angry in trying to deal with her.. difficultness... as well as you and your inability to understand that I have things that I need too," Vesta added, her voice trailing off as she forced herself not to go off on some endless tangent. "But there are things I have dedicated myself to that do not mesh with either of those things unless I do everything in a very particular manner, and unfortunately that means that things aren't going to seem like they're going your way - or hers, before you accuse me of anything stupid."

"We aren't together, before you say anything else." She noted, as if she thought that was something that could poke a hole in her defense.

Accelerating her pace briefly, in order to get as close to being side-by-side with her apprentice as she could, Vesta seemed to realize they'd stepped outside - self control was now at the forefront of her mind. Her presence, as nebulous as it had been, was now confined to as much of a personal space as someone that was less there than not could have. "This galaxy has to change, Aradia, before I can have anything that I want - before anything I want is worth having. The Maw is.. it's ran by a psychopath who wants to destroy everything and play god like my cousin, Darth Carnifex , but Solipsis can get me to what I need and is far less concerned with me being there than Kaine is with having someone in his way." Vesta rambled on, finally gaining some relative positivity - even if it seemed morbidly so.

"It won't be much longer and things will be so much different."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia crossed her arms over her chest, huffing in agitation as she rolled back on her heels and let Vesta explain.

"...You do realize I am not some mindless sheep, right? I can't just stay here-- I can't just take it. You liked that about me once, that's why you took me on. I hear you, I do, but I don't want a life kept in the dark. I want more than this, Master."

She turned on Vesta, her face chiseled and defined by her discontent. This estate had been her home for too long now. It had served its purpose. It had sheltered her-- allowed her to grow into something that no longer needed protection. The galaxy was a dangerous place. For the first time in her life, she felt ready to face it.

"I need more, don't you see it?"

 

[Vesta]

She shrugged.

That, in its entirety, was about all she knew how to answer with. Darth Daiara was right and there wasn't much that she had to say which could twist perspectives any further than she had already tried, in reality there were other things at play that were a bit more traumatic to speak of which had motivated the Sith into keeping her apprentice so far behind her the closer things got to Tython but there wasn't really anything she could find herself willing to do the moment it was made clear that the girl had become discontent. She had gotten soft, maybe, or maybe things were starting to remind her too much of Bastion - she wasn't actually quite sure when it was, really, when she started to hold her own apprentice back out of some stupid sentimentality. Perhaps it just took the girl taking ownership of what would have been her own guilt if anything were to happen for her to stop being so restrictive.

She let out a short sigh. "Yes, I do." Mori added.

Things were different from what was troubling her, certain parallels were missing, but the general feeling of unease and uncertainty still made her think of back then, to different times. Maybe it was the arguing with Quinn, or perhaps it was the degree of importance she was placing on a battle that required her to decide between an outcome and the safety of someone directly under her, but any further pondering was about as fruitful as trying to tell Aradia to be happy with what she had: that is, to say, not at all.

"Will you hate me?" She asked, not immediately explaining herself before slipping into another pregnant pause.

It was up to her apprentice to understand she was referring to Tython, where she assumed the girl would be joining her after all of the fuss she had made about it.

"If I let you die, I mean."

This was another talk they'd broached in the past, under more heated circumstances, but it was one which had continued to nag at her mind. She knew - thought - Quinn would've on Bastion, if she had ignored her cries for help, so she'd chosen her then-apprentice over repelling the Imperials and taken on a degree of survival's guilt ever since with the genocide that followed. It was a moment that had created the cracks that bloomed into faults and breaks within her mind, and while she wasn't willing to sacrifice the chance of success for Aradia's life in the same way it was still a feeling that influenced how much she seemed to hold the girl back.

"Not that I think you would.. fail.. but if I have to kill you to get what it is that I want.. then it's something I will do without hesitation."

She shrugged again.

"I won't keep you anymore. Go do whatever it was you were going to do, I came back here instead of participating on Teta for you, but I'm willing to let this one go. We're going tomorrow for Tython, assuming you still have the stomach to go."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia frowned, the world around her going stale and silent when Vesta finally revealed what had been bothering her all this time.

"...We don't apologize for what we are. We progress or we die trying." She did not begrudge the harsh mentality that dictated their kind. Kaalia Pavanos had raised her under it from the start. All her life Aradia had been thrown into the fire and it had forged her into something more. She was not afraid of risk, not now that she felt ready.

Her fingers snatched out, grabbing pointlessly at the ethereal form have Vesta's arm.

"But if you kill me..." Vesta might feel the heat under Aradia's fingers. Her nostrils flared at the very suggestion-- the audacity that Vesta would reduce her to nothing more than a disposable pawn for her gains.

"You know better than to open that door. So don't." She held Vesta's gaze for a fierce moment, then released her and started back for the estate.

"You better get yourself a body. Unless you plan on haunting the jedi to death." A snort of amusement echoed back to Vesta as she walked away.

Darth Mori