In scene: [member="Bethany Kismet"], [member="Zakir Thaun"]
Nearby: [member="Electroheart"] - [member="Joon"] | [member="Elijah Henson"] - [member=Corin Zanith] |
The start of their interaction included a moment he found surprisingly refreshing. That the two would be at odds ideologically speaking came as a surprise to no one. They would disagree, likely for an eternity if the debate would be permitted to carry on without the limitations of time weighing down on it. Neither, he assumed, were new to life. They had found their way and creed and had it reinforced and improved, experience after experience. It was refreshing then, to be met with a calm and simple ‘You don’t need to agree with me’. Indeed, he did not.
Refreshing, although it was but the first step made of sending him into unbalance. Her presence was calming, even to him. She reminded him of someone he had never known, someone who did not exist. And that sparked his ocean of hate to start making waves within.
Even her defence against his mental assault left him with mixed feelings. So often he was met with walls, and he specialised in tearing them down. Yet she controlled the narrative, not with hastily built walls, structures prone to contain overlooked areas that served as points of entry, but instead with an ocean. The mixed reception came then from realising he would not be allowed to play his game and so easily have his way, while at the same time recognising the skill and even art with which she met him with. Her prepared ocean response resembled his own desert quite closely. Perhaps that was what kept him searching, even as he was starting to see her mind would not so easily be broken and left open to him. His own curiosity became amplified by her own efforts to draw him further in, and so the Togruta pressed on. Perhaps somewhere she would slip. Perhaps somewhere she might even unintentionally teach him something new about the technique.
But to whatever end, following the Jedi on this journey through carefully selected memories would not be to his benefit. The indication of conflict that had been threatening to come alive before now saw its flame of rebellion spark to life even further.
Friendship
Home
Both ideals he had once believed possible but since then discarded. In his circles, friendship had a tendency to turn on itself. The Dark Side corrupted all things, even the very atmosphere within which he breathed. Home was a but a concept that had remained intact for a short time, and had since shattered and scattered itself across the galaxy. His own daughter had fled and become estranged to him, a situation that could have been easily prevented by something as simple as spoken approval, from him to her. Now she roamed the galaxy, thinking she needed to get away from him and independently prove herself worthy of his love and recognition only through accomplishing impossible tasks. Perhaps his daughter was already dead. As for her mother, she was reduced to an unspoken name. Bethany showed him all the things he could not have, reminding him of the things he had once valued but since then lost.
Perhaps he could have worked with what lay even further than what she had shown him. Perhaps, if he had not fallen victim to his own anger. He felt as if he was becoming the vessel of two conflicting energies, a Ying and Yang still vying for influence at the expense of the other, not yet finding balance, not yet drawing the final lines.
Perhaps she had hoped he would find balance, find hope. Instead he saw his own deepest failures and inadequacies so blatantly and effortlessly achieved and displayed by this misguided soldier of the Light. Such were the sacrifices of a Sith. Like he had told his apprentice, discard comfort, discard family. The Code is all there is. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. When will finally my chains be broken? He was beginning to see it as a privilege not awarded to the living.
The mental tendrils of Pyrrhus withdrew in fury. Instead they retreated to form up a noteworthy wall of his own to prevent her to pursue and dig deep into the mind of the Sith Lord. Ironically, he was forming one of those walls that he so often dismissed himself, yet he was not in a state of mind where he could play the puppet master who calmly led his would-be assailant through a maze of his own making. Yet he did not intend to give her the time to work the stones of his wall apart.
Why was he here? Slaves? What slaves? He was here to defeat the ghost of his past, somehow managing to manifest through this Jedi. For no reason he had the time or energy to investigate, he felt both the urge to protect and kill her, at the same time. He did not recall drawing his weapon, yet the curved bone hilt was very clearly in the tight grip of his left hand. Not even the familiar snap-hiss had alerted him to its presence. He had simply suddenly opened his eyes, and the lava-red blade was already there, at his side, ready to do its master’s bidding.
“I will not be delayed” he grunted, the fury evident in his voice, even though most of it now was aimed towards himself. Reaching once more into the deep, dark pools of the Force, he summoned its power to him. This time it served a purpose much more direct. She was standing in front of the entrance. He would have her step aside. With a powerful yet poorly controlled wave of the Force he attempted to physically see to that in an effort to have her tossed aside.
