Alone

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

Wondering.

Lost.

Every step feeling empty. The raindrops slapping against the face of the man who tore through the back alley. His hair clung to his forehead, droplets of water dripping from his eyelashes. The thunderstorm overhead clapped out, lightning cracking the sky, lighting the rain that was pouring from the dark clouds overhead. The thunder in the background sounding like a very loud earthquake tearing across the planet.

Never had Commenor looked so dark.

Blood soaked through his jet black robes, staining them crimson. The knife stuck in his thigh had lost the shine it once had, instead being stained a dark red with dried blood. The man hadn't dared touch it for fear of bleeding out. It hurt, it hurt more than anything he had ever felt but he knew that he couldn't visit a local medical facility. He knew he couldn't risk being seen.

His eyes slowly changed from the cold red they had become.
He didn't remember much about the night. He remembered the feel of the knife in his hand, metal cold against his skin. He remembered feeling the blade as it slid across his hand, remembered feeling the wound open. He remembered the blood dropping onto his victims. he remembered lighting the match. He didn't remember killing them, he didn't remember why he had killed them.

He dropped to his knees in the alley.

He had lost control more than once. He never remembered why he lost control. He knew he had a range of issues but he couldn't blame any of those for his lack of self control. The voices never told him to butcher a family, he did that from his own back and he couldn't remember why. He wanted to know why, he wanted to know why a family lay dead and burnt due to him.

He tasted something. Something unnatural.

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

'Twas a hard thing, to abscond into the night with nary a trail to follow, a most impressive feat indeed. The young man, though, was not as impressive as such, the stink of death that clung to his skin made him more akin to a lighthouse than a shadow, if only for one as well acquainted with death as she herself was. Even so, to avoid being seen was still no small task in a city such as this, even in alleyways there tended to be more than a few eyes about. So even as amateur and sloppy as the boy was, he at least had a natural sense of things. Perhaps he would have some future... then...

The woman remained silent for a time, cloaked in the Force and no more present than a mouse perhaps. Light bending around her, cloaking her while she kept her signature minuscule as she could, letting him calm from his murderer's high. As opposed to normal, she wore a traditional sith robes, though a regal purple hue rather than black or red, which would no doubt come to sight of Jacen as she walked around and in front of him, the Force Cloak dropping from her body. At her hip was her saberstaff, and over her head was the hood of the traditional robes, obscuring her face in shadow.

Another moment of silence, to allow him to process, before she spoke in soft, melodic, sweet tones to him directly. "A poorly done job, young one. Sloppy work, and a poor job hiding. Though you have the intellect to remain out of sight, and keep that knife embedded in your flesh. That at least should be credited." She knelt down a bit, being careful to remain taller than him by not kneeling down the whole length, and remain somewhat covered in shadow. "Perhaps you would let me tend to it. Before you get infected, unless that is your goal?"

[member="Jacen Alder"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

But no longer.

He didn't know her, she appeared from no-where much like a wizard. He studied her, holding onto his leg in some vague attempt to numb the pain currently tearing though him. The knife was one of the most painful things he had felt, however he knew that he had to live with it, or else he wouldn't be living. The blood had started to leak around the edges of the blade, he felt the cold, viscous liquid trickle down his leg.

The woman was calm.

It was scary in a way. It didn't make sense. She should have been alerting the authorities yet she was insulting his work. He had commiteda butchery and yet she was calling it sloppy. She was calling his hiding sloppy. He didn't even plan to hide, the alleyway was just where his leg had finally given out under him. She was insulting him after he had just butched an entire family. He couldn't figure out if she was stupid or not.

He pulled himself to his feet using the bins besides him.

"Who are you? A doctor or someone sent here to kill me? You should know that after everything I've done, I have few issues adding one more name to my list"

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

A half hearted laugh barely escaped her lips, as she calmly rose herself back up to her full height. Though nearly a full foot shorter than the man, she held no fear of his capabilities... even ignoring the pain he was in she felt more than confident she could handle him quite easily were he to be so foolish. "Wrong on both accounts, perhaps I best rethink my praise of your intellect. Child if I had come to kill you, your body would already have grown cold." For a brief moment, she eased her control on her Force presence, letting the miasma of choking darkness have just enough give. Even untrained, a force sensitive would have little trouble feeling the, unnatural taint, for that briefest of moments. It would be gone as quickly as it came, but with a bit of luck it would get her point well and thoroughly across.

That said, he was still in poor condition, and intentional or not he had done well in remaining out of sight. Natural talent, natural gifts, things not easily found in the populace. It would be a shame if such were lost in such a pathetic manner as this. "So perhaps I will be more, direct. You will die, if that's not tended to. You've wisely given yourself a chance by keeping the blade where it is, but that only delays your death if it's not cared for soon. I would suggest, if you intend to last the night, you come with me. If you plan on taking a final rest, then I shall acquiesce."

Had the boy the ability to think, by now he should very well recognize a death threat. Or, death offer as it was.

[member="Jacen Alder"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

At least he may as well have been.

He was being offered two choices. Trust this female with his life or die. She wasn't a doctor, she also wasn't a hired assassin. Jacen didn't know who she was, Jacen also didn't want to die. He studied her for a few moments. Her hair was pure silver, something Jacen hadn't seen before. It was unnatural and different, it was cold. Jacen kept his eyes on her, removing his hands from the knife stuck into his thigh.

He looked at her one last time, nodding.

"Fix me. I'm not ready to die, not yet"

It hurt. Blood continued to trickle from around the edges of the cold steel. He felt the viscous crimson liquid trickle across his thigh, staining his pale skin. The rain continued to pour from above, lighning making the sky light up as the blue spark offset the black night sky. He fell back to his knees, pain shooting through his entire body. He needed help soon for fear of death, fear of bleeding out.

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

((Chaos had a meltdown, double post))

 

[Jacen Alder]

((Chaos had a meltdown, double post))

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

Ariealla smiled lightly, will to live. Yes, the vital component. With that, he could be tempered, forged. But first, she had to make sure he survived the night. To that end, she rather calmly used the Force to pull him along, using her meager natural strength to help lift the man back to his legs, and support the thoroughly stabbed leg. But, with that handled, the Force would keep him moving even if his legs gave out, he'd just find himself being dragged instead of sort of walking alongside her. Their destination? Well, that was the particularly fun bit. A Sith like her, with a wanted killer, even if not known at the time, wasn't likely to get through a hospital with ease considering the political climate. So, she simply took him into the home of a doctor, and with some... Forceful persuasion, convinced him to help and conveniently never remember nor mention the event.

She settled him down, while the doctor went about tending to the wounds. Even without proper medical facilities, he assured them both he could quite handily tend to the wound. He did keep an emergency kit in his home after all, considering the recent events, so it seemed [member="Jacen Alder"] had little to fear. It was at this point that she sighed calmly, and sat beside the bed on which she had moved Jacen to, pulling back the hood so he could easily see her face. Silver hair, as he had noted, rested comfortably, and her eyes a piercing violet. Of course they were contacts, her eye tones had changed long, long ago, but they looked natural enough, if you could forgive the color. "Well, now what will we do with you? You don't seem to have much of a home to go to, do you little one?"

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

Alone with his thoughts.

He had lost conciousness soon after the female started dragging him across the floor. In his head he was playing over the last few hours. He remembered the blade sliding into the juglar of a grown man who was begging for his family to be kept safe. He rememered the cold steel slashing across the cheek of a young girl who was begging for her cuddly toy. He rememered the same blade entering the eye of a small child, pulling the eyeball out when the knife exited.

"BROTHER"

And then he awoke.

Everything was white. His leg hurt but the majority of the pain was gone. He had been cleaned up, there was less blood. He tried to sit up, everything went spinny and then he fell. The mediciation he had been given had knocked him about. He took a minute to get himself together. He heard a noise in the corner, felt a needle enter his flesh near his knee. Then he heard nothing as he fell back into the void.

And then he awoke.

Again.

He didn't know what had happened, but he looked to his left to see the woman besides him. He was correct about her hair. Her eyes were something else, a dark violet. He liked them, they suited her. He heard her speak as he got to his feet. He was starting to figure out where he was, it looked like a house of some sort. There was a man in the corner, presumably a doctor or a medical professional or something.

"Home.."

He missed home. He couldn't think of home. Not after he just butched his family.

"No, no I don't. Where are we, who are you, what did I miss?"

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

"All the wrong questions. That's alright, I expected as much, you're not in your comfort zone, not in a state of clarity." She unfolded her legs from the slight, natural crossing the had taken at the ankles, and slowly leaned forward, as if to inspect the now standing man. Violet eyes slowly went from head to toe, watching his stance, listening to tone, pitch, tempo. Despite his situation, he sounded, calm, composed. Even. This would do nicely indeed, presuming...

"The answers you ask for are inconsequential, though I will humor you regardless. We are at the home of Dr. Stanley Rolffe, he works as a surgeon at one of Chasin city's hospitals and enjoys tragedies preformed by the university theater department. I am Ariealla Vareldi, Heiress to my bloodline and the one to whom you owe every breath you now take. You missed me taking you here and using the Force to dominate Mr. Rolffe's mind, so that he blindly believed my story, and tended to your wounds. He is now effectively asleep, until we leave this place and I release his mind."

"The family you killed, did you take joy in your work? Did you find some clarity in their demise? Have you found some sense of... freedom?"

[member="Jacen Alder"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

But now with an ally.

She wasn't a friend. Jacen couldn't say that she would ever be a friend. He owed her his life, but that was it. She hadn't yet proven herself worthy of friendship, of trust. She hadn't killed him however, she had delivered him to the home of a professional doctor in some attempt to save his life. He almost wanted to know why, however he could sense that she would chastise him for asking, tell him that he was asking the wrong questions.

"The force?"

It was a word he had heard only once before, spat from the lips of his father as if it had angered him to say. His father had rarely gotten angry, it was always his mother who was the angry one. She was always slamming down baking trays and slamming doors shut after things didn't go her way. She was cruel and calculating, even his father was afraid of the woman and he never appeared to be afraid of much.

Except her.

And his own son.

He knew very little about the word, what it was or who it was. The force was a concept he had never been introduced to. It seemed like it was hardly important, for the woman had said it as if it was nothing. His curious nature however wanted to know more, he wanted to be included and to understand every single word that the woman was saying. He wanted to be clued in for once in his life and actually understand more about the galaxy.

Then she asked HER questions.

"The family you killed, did you take joy in your work? Did you find some clarity in their demise? Have you found some sense of... freedom?"

He watched her slowly. He was free, free from his own and family name. He was the head of his family now, with access to the pitiful wealth his parents had collected. He had enough to buy a small ship, leave the planet. That was about all he could afford. He had never grown up with lavish parents, never grown up owning penthouses. He had heard a story from his brother once about a man who was best friends with the Queen owning a penthouse in the city.

Jacen would never be that man.

"The family I killed were limiting me from being myself. I don't know why they now lay dead, but I see clearly that my destiny is now mine to control. I don't have to follow in the footsteps of two traders who moved me here when I was young. I now have a say in what I want to do and where I want to go. I can return to Corellia, be amungst the friends I made when I was younger before I was moved here.

The butchery set me free"

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

SO guarded, so cautious, so calculated. This time even Ariealla couldn't hide the joy she felt, not fully, as her lip's corners curled slightly upwards in delight. Each and every word betrayed more than the boy wanted, yet just as her words had left a lust of knowledge in Jacen, his had drawn her need to know in turn. She had to take a moment, letting his last word hang in the air, as she managed to return her face to the stoic mask she had worn thus far with him. Free. 'The butchery set me free.' That was exactly what he claimed. He claimed to be free.

If there had been any reverb in the room, it would've been fading as she finally rose to her feet, having to look up to meet his eyes even when at her full height, and even more disproportionately the the situation, had to reach up to try and place her hand on his cheek. A hand on his cheek, like a mother disappointed with her disobedient child...

"Free. Child... you want to be free. Free of responsibility. Free of this planet. Free from the law. Free of... your family." His words didn't mask this well enough. If traders had moved him, and a second child, here when he was young, and still held him back, they could be little else. "You want the freedom to choose. I know that desire, little one. We both want that complete, truest freedom. But there is a difference between us... You are not free." The last words came as a whisper, harsh, at the edge of hearing, with the tone of a harsh mother rather than her almost sing song voice from before.

You could hear a pin drop, before she spoke again, the harsh whisper softening, ever so slightly. "You remain enslaved, to your family. Even now they linger on you, refusing to let you go. Killing them has not granted you freedom, it couldn't have. So why then, young child, did you slaughter them?"

[member="Jacen Alder"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone

But no longer alone.

He felt the hand against the side of his face. Soft, gentle but disappointed. She was correct as she spoke, he wanted to free. Free from responsibility, free from Commenor and free from the law. He wanted to be free from the family that had forced him to follow them across the galaxy. Free from the family that had torn him away from his friends just so they could progress their own company and their own business.

They didn't think of their children.

The silence was deafening. It was thick. You could hear a pin drop. Jacen kept his eyes on the woman, the woman who had introduced herself as Ariella Vareldi. He waited for her to say something, anything. He didn't want to say the next thing, he wanted her to finish. He didn't want to tell her that she was entirely correct. He wanted at least some things to be private, kept from her.

He did want to know how he wasn't free however.

"You remain enslaved, to your family. Even now they linger on you, refusing to let you go. Killing them has not granted you freedom, it couldn't have. So why then, young child, did you slaughter them?"

He blinked.

"How so? How do they linger to me when I've left them as nothing but a pile of ash? They died so I could make a name for myself. They had power over me that I didn't like, so I took the power back for myself."

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

"You've taken nothing back." The words, rather than having given his words time to sit, came almost as swiftly as he finished, as though she had known his answer, the deflection he would try to take even as she had asked the question. "They are dead. Ash. A part of the Force. And you are left behind, broken. In your murdering of them, they have broken you. You, have broken yourself. You now hold your father's name, his place, but You are bound here. If you were to suddenly up and leave, spending all your family's fortune, you would not escape the gaze of Commenor and her law. You would be ever in their sight, and better men than you have been caught for far less. Your friends are gone. Moved. Dead. Forgotten. And when they inevitably learn of your choices, sickened. In giving in to your hatred, you had a chance for freedom..."

"Instead child, you have only pushed it further from your grasp. Your parents sought, intentional or not, to drive a wedge between you and that life on Corellia. In killing them, it has dug deeper. You have given a corpse power over you, a broken shell, barely fit enough to stand. You have let them win, that is how they linger with you now. Perhaps even to the point you know not why they are dead, not the true reason. The reason beyond even the power you wished back."

She paused, and allowed her gaze to soften just a bit as she stared up at his face. "You are broken child. You cannot escape Commenor. You cannot escape the law. You will not escape your family, or your responsibility for their deaths. And if you continue to let the passions of tonight rule you, you cannot be free to choose, to be free of yourself. Not... without knowing the true path to freedom, a path you've denied... And yet, you are not beyond hope of repair. Freedom is a distant dream, but not a foolish fantasy...." There was no doubt to what she was asking him, even if she did not say it. She didn't have to ask him. If he was willing to kill for it, truly, she had no need to ask what the boy would do, not aloud. No, instead it would be left open.

She would offer it, but he would ask of it, for she was strong, he was weak. Such is the proper course of nature.

[member="Jacen Alder"]

 

[Jacen Alder]

Alone.

But with an offer to be no longer alone.

She didn't need to say the words, she had no need to say the words. He knew what she was asking. He knew what she was offering. He knew that the murder of his family did nothing, he would be the prime suspect. He wasn't free, he would never be free of that. What she was offering, no that was true freedom. She was offering him a chance to touch true power, real unlimited power and he was desperate to do just that.

She was playing on his deepest desires.

He was weak compared to her. He was uncontrolled and dangerous while she was methodical and smart. She was dangerous, but not to herself. She didn't fear herself like he did, she accepted exactly what she was. She was a killer, much like he, but she was cold and calculating while he was unchained and not methodical in any single way. He was nothing to her because she had been trained to be more than he.

He forced himself to his feet. He forced himself to drop to his knee.

"Then show me. If you claim I can not be free and I am broken then teach me how to be free, how to be powerful. Fix me, repair whatever you believe my parents have broken. Teach me how to be a controlled danger. Teach me how to fight and how to win. Make me a God among these peasents. Make me stronger than any lawman. Make me a danger to anyone who crosses my path, make me a threat."

She wanted him not to ask for it. She wanted him to beg for it.

He would never beg. But he would ask for it.

[member="Ariealla Vareldi"]

 

[Ariealla Vareldi]

Victory, the sweetest of delicacies... oh how she had longed to taste it in its dark and bitter tones. This was the first time, in a long life, she had been free to let herself dip into her own desire, that need to affirm her status. Having a man such as he, twisted and bent to hear just what he needed, and ask her for the very thing she herself wished. A willing subject, the greatest of servants. The sharpest of tools. She would enjoy watching him grow, or break, as fate may decree.

She gave him a small nod, and turned on her heels, almost seeming to glide across the floor. "Come then, Acolyte. We have much to do, and decide whether you can survive tutelage, or join your family in the netherworld. If you survive, you may take solace in the knowledge you have taken the first steps to becoming a truly free man."

It would be several hours, before the man left behind would awaken, confused why he had chosen to sit in the corner of his room. Though, perhaps he had been sleep walking, his mind blurred from the effects of what felt a deep sleep. He groaned, and slowly went about preparing for the rest of his day. Alone.

[member="Jacen Alder"]