Private Between Two Worlds

[Mia Monroe]

Mia felt the anger swirl around him, felt him wrestling with it and she watched him carefully, her muscles coiling ready just incase she needed to react. Though both hands reamined calmly coiled about her cup of caff.

The orange fell away and she relaxed, sapphire eyes boring into his for a moment longer, searching the soul behind them.

"I believe you." She said finally breaking the silence that had grown beteeen them, cutting the tense chord that threatened to snap. "Get up."

She stared into the depths of her drink, the dark liquid reflecting the memories that played in her mind. Memories that were hers...some that had been his...

The blurred lines that had been.

A blink and she looked up at him. "Is there anything you want to ask me?"

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

He breathed out softly, relief filling his system, as his eyes brightened considerably, doing as she instructed, feeling the immense weight upon him lifting, as he stood up from the ground, eyes tilted down to gaze upon her, her question enough to elicit a moment of pause and consideration from him.

He moved past her, toward the caff he had left cooling upon the table, bringing it to his lips, the smell was enough to reinvigorate him, the taste enough to make him wince.

Still, he could feel the tiredness leave him immediately, enough for him to take another sip of the utterly bitter black liquid, with a consistency not much thinner than oil, yet, still, thankfully more drinkable than that.

"Two, the first, are your own... ghosts..." He was remiss to use that word, yet, it was likely the best he would get given the circumstances, "...As active as mine?" He bit his lip, there was more to say, but he was not entirely sure how to say it... after all, living memories of a daughter and a brother... he might have been very close to his Mistress, as was the master-apprentice relationship.

But she was not blood.

"And... Velok, I know of a Velok, and considering what you have just told me, I assume he is dead... yet, I know he very much is alive, who is he?" They had not come to blows regarding Lillian the first time, yet if anything Mia said was true, he very much would need to make sure that Lillian stayed away from the man.

One who had killed his own wife, he had already been certainly rather troubled by Lillian's relationship with him, even if he took her word.

She could not be allowed to be in danger.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia sipped her own caff, more as something to do as she pondered the answer to his first question. The second was easier and came instantly.

"Not possible." She said simply. "Veloks soul was bound and cast into a star. Deliberately destroyed because of his tendency to fail to stay dead. He did sire children though, a son who took his name. No doubt a tradition carried on through generations. Whatever Velok you know, is not the Velok that started me on this path."

It was easier to focus on that question, because the truth was she didn't have answers for his first. What were her ghosts? She felt Jasper, in the back of her mind, shaking his head in disappointment. She had forgotten something, something important.

He would need to remind her. Personally.

"No." The word was barely above a whisper, but it was frought with emotion. He couldn’t come back, not again. Not for her, not again.

She blinked, remembering she was not alone. She released her cup, elbows coming to rest on the table as her pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes.

What had she forgotten?

"Velok was a sith lord." She began. "Not especially powerful in any one thing, but he was notorious. He collected knowledge of various force traditions, jack of all trades, I guess you would call him. He was loyal to none but himself, manipulative..."

She lifted her head. To look at him, blinking away the stars that appreared as spots in her vision.

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

He parsed his lips, staring between the low steam coming off the caff, and her blue eyes, trying to find any lie in her words, yet seeing none. Leaving him open to simply examine and analyse her words. So a son... perhaps even a grandson, a descendant of the one that had turned Mia into... this.

Bloodline did not necessarily mean or even imply greatness.

That had to be proven through one's own actions.

Yet, as she spoke, he very easily could admit what was said was of deep concern, and that he needed to figure out a way to extricate his cousin from his grasp.

Even if he was not the same Velok as the one who had done this to Mia, for someone to take up his name... even if tradition... how could he ever trust him, with his cousin's safety and wellbeing?

Her loud 'No', was enough to break him from his thoughts, watching with some concern as her elbows came up on the table, and she cupped her eyes. He could not be certain, but after so many times he spoke words involuntarily, he liked to believe he knew what it was to look for. Her ghosts might not have been in as much opposition to her as his.

Well... her daughter seemingly was not too kind to her.

But.

They still clearly haunted her.

And he knew she was avoiding his questions.

"Thank you for enlightening me," Malum simply intoned, his arms slowly, cautiously reaching out to grasp hers, as much a show of warmth as he could manage, "Now tell me, of the ones who haunt you, for you may wish to correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe they wish to come out."

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

The hand was a strangely welcome reassurance, a point to focus on to avoid getting lost in her own mind as she tried to find her way through the haze.

"They aren't in my head." She said after a moment of contemplation.

She hadn't been so sure before...before she sat on the bench with her brother. "They are ghosts, spirits from the nether sent to..." Sent to what? To test her? "The first was Ra. Repeating the same thing he did before he killed me, reminding me of my failure...My failure to protect all I'd sworn to. I banished him a few weeks ago, returned him to where he belongs...to the manda."

Her eyes glazed over as she pondered Cory.

"My daughter...she...she wanted me to come back..." a frown creased her head and she shook her head. "She'd so driven by her anger, that she got caught up in the moment, caught up in her own pain and hatred of me," she gave a sad smile. "She's more like me than I ever wanted her to be."

She sighed, passing her hand over her face. "And Jasper...my brother...my ori'vod..." she closed her eyes feeling his presence "...we are bound. I cannot walk this realm without him for long... I lose myself when I do..." She opened her eyes sadness reflected in the sapphire pools as she heaved a sigh.

"I have a horrible feeling he intends to join me. But we shall see." She blinked away the haze, and took a long sip from her caff. "No doubt I sounds like a madwoman to you right now."

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

Mad. Mad was certainly a way to describe her words, yet to describe her as such would have been the height of hypocrisy, for after all... he was quite mad himself. Ra Vizsla, Mand'alor the Wrathful, Mand'alor the Undying, what he would not give to have the real voice of such a... great man. To imagine what could he have taught him, what could he have said to him, simply... being in the presence of such a man.

Yet.

Even he could not claim to have desired to have Ra Vizsla himself assault his mind... especially if to Mand'alor the Liberator... Ra Vizsla was a nemesis... even as the histories said, Ra Vizsla was the one to slay Lady Monroe.

His mouth was dry, as he took a gulp, hiding it as best he could with a sip of the caff.

The bitterness of the dark liquid was only a shallow balm to the bitterness that Lady Mi- Monroe would no doubt be feeling.

And that was only the first of these specters.

A child...

His eyes slammed shut, considering her a daughter, a daughter that he would never know, a daughter long dead, a daughter of Mia that the histories would leave as but a footnote, for she was not well remembered, in a galaxy filled with trillions of daughters.

But a child... a child he would never know... a child that never had the chance to live.

A child he had never had a chance to meet.

The cup slammed down upon the table with more intensity than he met, yet, somehow, a small miracle, it neither cracked nor broke. As the Force, as if the wind, began to swirl about him, red eyes refusing to leave him, tormenting him, paining him.

The weight of what could have been.

The weight of a wound that he had thought he had long since forgotten.

A wound freshly reopened.

His hand withdrew back to his form, enclosing himself, as a rogue tear fell down his cheek. Such weakness... how could he so easily give into this... give in... in front of her.

But had he not already revealed to her so much?

Anything in the room not bolted down, began to shake, as the light breeze in the air, began to turn into a tempest.

"I'm so sorry..." He did not know who he apologised to... Mia... himself... Cory... Kara...

Or...

Or...

He did not want to think of the last anymore.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

The emotional shift in him, was like being slammed into a duracrete walls she felt it in the force before his hand withdrew, before the ship began to vibrate. "Malum?"

It was so easy, to shift her own problems aside, to focus on the issue in front of her. He was in pain...what had triggered it? She took a moment to understand at what point his emotions shifted...Cory. Her daughter...but why...?

She reached both hands across the table taking his hands in hers. "Malum." she said quietly as the tempest began to swirl around them, anything that wasn't secure slid from counter tops, crashed against the walls. None of it mattered. She covered them bother with a barrier, let him trash the ship. It was Just that. A ship.

The mention of her daughter, of a child no longer alive had struck something within him, something she could only take carefully educated guesses at.

"How long ago, did you lose them?"

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

His eyes snapped open as he felt both her hands around his, so lost in his emotions, in his memories, in the self-hatred, and the hatred for all that had let the tragedies of yesteryear continue to play out, that made him...

That had taken away...

Red clouded his vision, as the invisible tornado that had swept up everything in the room not bolted down ceased, everything for a millisecond hovering in the air before being allowed to drop and shatter upon the floor of the ship.

Yet it was a ruse.

As the barrier came to cover them both, he did not have the ability to care, nor even notice, as fire, as hot as the stars, as blazing as the molten core of a planet, as his hand unconsciously gripped down firmly upon her hands.

As the Force swept around them, all the items smashed into the durasteel walls and transparisteel glass, and more tears began to flow. Shards ricoteching around them, protected by her barrier, as the emotions continued to flow out of them as easily as liquid cascaded down of a waterfall. All of it, all that he had thought he had moved on from, all that he had thought he had buried into the depths of his mind, all that he had... so wanted to forget.

It was unconscious, it was desperate, and it was enough for him to do, what he had sworn not to do.

He opened their connection.

As he gazed into her blue eyes, with utter agony, and fear.

Wishing nothing more than to see red.

To see the only one.

Who could possibly understand.

Her question punched the air out of his lungs, his eyes forced to close, as with a knife she had dug straight to the heart of the issue... how...?

The remnants of all that he had destroyed ungracefully fell to the ground.

The ship that they stood upon ceased shaking.

He had but one thing to say.

"How... did you know?"

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia didn't flinch, as the fire raged, she was a surprising sea of calm, though to see him this way, to see him in such pain was heart breaking. What else was he suffering in such silence? Her thumbs gently stroked the back of his hands as he gripped them.

As his destruction ceased, and he closed his eyes she cast a breif glance around them. She wasn't certain he was done, so she kept the barrier up.

"There is no pain like that of losing a child," She said softly "any parent who has suffered it, can recognise it."

She let the words hang for a moment.

"I want to tell you that the pain will ease, but i don't want to lie to you. It doesn't, you will carry that greif with you for the rest of your life...but you will learn to live with it."

She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, though even she knew that it was tinged with sadness.

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

Hot air blew out of his nose, all that he felt, the wild mixture of emotions all different strains of rageful, depressed, confused, and simply... apathetic, all simmered forth to the surface, but they no longer boiled, he safely placed lid upon them, going through all that had been taught to him his entire life on how to feel.

How to... live.

It was not simply that their emotions were enough to tap into the Force.

It was that the Force exemplified all that they felt.

One of its lesser crimes he supposed.

There was reason the Jedi feared themselves. Fools as they were to fear what was within them, rather than what was all around them. Yet, their precepts held some virtue.

Control.

Control was absolute, or one could lose themselves.

And losing oneself to the everything that was the Force...

...Was a fate worse than death.

His eyes opened slowly, glassy in appearance, dull in outlook, he looked towards Mia, yet was not looking at her... he looked past her toward...

...Toward something.

"Are you not going to inquire on... anything? Who she is...? How long ago....?" If he had betrayed Elsie... and whatever that answer was, he knew in his heart... half of it was actively betraying her every time he took a breath. His voice was cold, as hollow as his eyes were, and his hand, enraptured by hers, was still.

His entire body was unnaturally still.

Her words could not help him, as right as they were.

Nothing could help him.

Another tear fell.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia slowly let the barrier drop as Malum fell into a strange but recognisable state. Everything was still, not just him but the air around them, the only movement was Mia's thumbs, gently stroking the back of his hand.

"It is your story to tell, when you are ready to tell it. I'm not going to ply you for information on the matter."

It was a delicate situation, Mia knew talking would help, but forcing him to would be counterproductive, they'd reached a point where honesty was flowing freely from them, she was not going to undo that by forcing him to talk.

"I will be plying you for funds to replace the contents of my ship, however." It was a light jest, an attempt to lift the mood that had settled over them.

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

His breath was heavy and ragged, almost as if he was choking on his words and breath alike, his body shivered and shook, the emotions draining out of him as if they were a liquid draining out of pipes. Yet, it was not as if they left him, they swirled about in his heart, his mind, his soul, yet, grasping onto the amulet, feeling the band around his hand enraptured and soothed by Mia.

He...

One could not say he calmed himself.

But he controlled himself.

And that would have to do, to keep the simmering emotions at bay, to keep the boiling feelings far from their tempest.

He breathed out a deep breath, and allowed the air to fill back his lungs.

His eyes drifted away from behind her ear, down to her hands that had taken his, that did their best, in their own little way, to improve his mood.

Nothing would... but he appreciated that.

Nothing would... but that was not her burden.

"We will have to be heavily intoxicated for that conversation, I am afraid," Malum offered with a wry smile that did not reach his eyes, for the first time gazing around at all the damage he had caused, he felt nothing for it... apart from the barest amount of regret, her jape at least makes it somewhat easier to know she did not blame him too much, "However much you need... my apologies... I lost control, not what you would expect from a Sith Lord, am I?" The wry smile, turned to a wry grin, his eyes filled with the barest glimmer of his old self.

"You were telling me about your brother..." He did not quite remember what she had said, but Jasper Ordo... another one like Ra Vizsla, a conqueror, one who had made it to the gates of Coruscant.

What he would not give...

To know, to speak, to the one who had led the One Sith.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

"Maybe one day then." She said with a warm but sad smile, squeezing his hands. She did not withdraw them from him, he would let go when he was ready. She offered a shrug, "People are rarely what we expect them to be."

Mia nodded at the change fo topic, understanding that it was a request to change the topic, to offer a distraction. "Yes...Jasper." she pursed her lips, eyes shifting from him, moving to stare at something beyond both of them, her eyes glazing.

"He will be here soon." She said after a beat, blinking herself back from where she'd gone. "We are bound by more than the force, endlessly chasing one another between this realm and the next. I don't know how or why... I feel like I am missing a great deal of who I am without him."

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

"Maybe..." He offered, neither a promise, nor a refusal, he did not want to ever speak of those days... yet, questioning it... who else was there he would talk such things? His fellow Sith? His family? Elsie?

Bogan... Elsie...

At war with himself, he could not bring Elsie into it.

Regardless, he knew it would be awhile yet, before he could ever discuss such things.

For now, he buried it deep down his chest, to be unleashed some other day, no doubt.

"People rarely are indeed," He offered a small little smile, he liked the answer, and indeed... did it not describe them both quite well? He a Sith, and she a former Mand'alor despite all their difficulties, here they stood, in a destroyed kitchenette, hands tied, and simply conversing.

He knew from the beginning that among the Sith he was odd.

He was the one courting a Mor- Mandalorian after all.

Yet, who would think that Mia Monroe, Mand'alor the Liberator, was quite odd herself?

An addendum to the histories indeed.

One that perhaps he would add one day.

His ears flickered as she began speaking of Jasper, and what he said, filled him with as much excitement as fear. That a Warmaster, that the leader of the One Sith, that Jasper Ordo, was returning to this realm... it filled him with conflictious feelings, almost immediately.

And what she said did not help.

Bound by more than the Force?

His face took an ugly turn, as he growled, reminded all too quickly of the chains that the Force had draped over him, bound him... bound him...

...To her.

Yet just as quickly, he tried to place a lid upon it, tried to forestall the conflagration, so much had been said, so much had been done.

He did not need to do this.

Her warmth against his fingers helped more than she would ever know, as his face returned to tranquillity, to serenity, to sombreness, "You have proven an exception to the rule... as much as I so desire to indulge my curiosity... the dead should remain buried," It was cold, it was even a cruel thing to say.

Yet he meant it fully.

Evolution, not immortality.

They could not be ruled by immortal tyrants, greats of other eras, forever.

They would stagnate.

They would weaken.

They would fall.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia's expression fell slightly, the cold with which the words were uttered from his mouth sent a chill down her spine. The soft stroking of her thumbs stopped.

She took a beat, chosing words in response. He wasn't wrong, they shouldnt be here. She, Ijaat, Kaine...and no likely a dozen others, all were here when they shouldn't be. Some brought back against there will, others that fought tooth and claw to get here, to remain here.

"Pray you don't die before your mission is complete then, Malum, because unfinished business in the greatest weight on a soul wandering the nether."

Her tone was clipped, matching the temperature of his.

She took a breath, her voice softening. "I didn't choose to return and neither does Jasper. I cannot exist here without him, to do so..." she paused trying to find words, "to do so is to invite ruin upon those around me."

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

"If my ideals, if my beliefs, do not survive me, they were not worth having in the first place," He swallowed his emotions, he had noticed she had stopped strumming his hand with her fingers, and found himself strangely... missing the sensation. He knew his words were... cold... and as he had thought before... cruel, yet, he knew they were true. It was the most important lesson he had taken away from his Mistresses' teachings, evolution, not immortality, success or death.

He feared death, those who claimed they did not were liars, and even with the certainty of what existed beyond death, he feared it even more. The Nether was a plain where the Force held dominion, and as much as it now held influence over him, there... it would hold control over him.

In that sense, maybe he should have pursued immortality with a vigour that would all fill with concern.

Yet he did not.

For immortality was a curse, not only for the bearer, but for all those around them.

And he could not help but grip down on his free hand, as she talked of it as a necessity to be back.

He would accomplish all he had in this lifetime, and he would hone a new generation to continue his work if he failed.

He would not... he would not become an immortal tyrant, that held his people back.

Even if...

And then she spoke of the bond they shared, her and her brother, and where once was ice, now was flame, "Do you believe you will bring more or less ruin by both being upon this plain? I have read of both your lives, I know what you have both done," He was still, the embers had taken his eyes, yet shaking, they had not yet taken over him, "You believe you are necessary for the return of the Mor- Mandalorians, yet you cannot even trust them to lead themselves, only your immortal selves, who need not care for life, who need not care for sacrifice, who will bring a new age of horrors, as you did decades before, and you claim to tell me, you are not inviting ruin?" He was heaving, his breath heavy, his eyes snapping shut, as more than he had intended was being ripped out of him.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia withdrew her hands, her expression becoming hard. He knew nothing of what he spoke. Mia had sacrificed everything she was, everything she had for the sake of her people. To guide them to strength, to undo the damage Carnifex had done, the damage she had done.

They would bring ruin, but it would not be upon her people, it would be upon Him, upon Carnifex and all who dared to follow him. Her duty was in defence of her people, in claiming vengeance...

In liberating them from the oppression that scattered them into the winds.

"I do not need to justify my actions nor our existence on this plain to a child raised on the skewed version of history Carnifex wrote." Her words were laced with venom. "To a child who sits before me with a dead woman in his head denying to himself that he is granting her a version of immortality."

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

He missed her warmth as soon as she withdrew her hands, he hated how he missed that warmth, yet he could not deny that he had. Only to banish such weakness, such thoughts from his mind entirely, as he offered a sneer, so tempted, to dearly tempted to stand and make his way out of his place. To treat him like a child.

To treat him like an inferior.

She could not even look past the greatness of her life, the longevity of her age, to realise it was that exact arrogance, that exact hubris, and egotism which made him correct, entirely, and utterly.

"Do you believe a babe has more value because they were born on Mandalore, rather than Dromund Kaas?" He offered, icily, a cold venom matching hers, as unconscious as it was, he began pulling all the heat of the room into himself, an anger so hot that it became ruggedly cold, as the emotions simmered back upon the surface, so desperate to be unleashed, his eyes narrowing, hollow, and gazing upon hers, "Do you believe it cares, whether it was butchered by Kaine, or by you?" He hissed, slitherine in nature, giving back into his base instincts, "You think me biased, and perhaps you are right, I was raised to love the Sith, I was raised to love the Empire, I was raised to name Kaine as His Imperial Majesty, yet here we are," He shrugged his shoulders, his arms presenting around them, "The one so biased, that I willingly joined your scheme to kill him."

He closed his eyes, as he breathed in deeply.

"They say you destroyed your world to make your people stronger, Kaine destroyed your world to avenge what happened upon Dromund Kaas, do you believe that the thousands you both butchered cared for either of your high-minded ideals? Do you think they even had a moment to imagine if they deserved the agony they would feel?" His voice was hollow, his heart beating a mile a minute, the feelings, the emotions, simmering forth underneath him, as he looked down upon the table, attempting, pleading, for him to remain... remain him.

His eyes opened, as glassy as they were, they were too enflamed, he would not submit and kneel so easily.

"What differentiates you two? You believe you fight for the Mordi- Mandalorian's best interest. He believes he fights for the Sith's. So you annihilate each other, again, and again, immortal, never needing to care for your own lives, when the weight of your presence is enough to galvanise a horde of impressionable young youths to run into the fire... and never even have an opportunity to live." He slammed his fist down upon the table, an audible crack as it splintered, the pain through his hand, better than the pain through his heart.

"This... this... never ends... your presences trap us in this eternal war... you will never free us from your slavery..." Was he speaking to her, or something far beyond them both? At this point, he could not find himself to care, all the emotions they felt over the day, such a mix categorised by... a little bit of everything.

It was too much for a soul.

He was shaking.

"They all think when Kaine is dead... that all will be well..." A rogue tear streamed his face, "But you.... will not be done when Kaine is dead... your immortality will only be secured..."

He could barely speak now, could barely consider the latter half of her words.

She was right in some sense.

Wrong in others.

He knew his Mistresses' goal.

But did not know if he could fulfil it.

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mis didn't move, her hard expression unchnaged as the room went cold, as he unleashed the torrent of his emotions with equally venomous words. Even as the table split she remained unflinching. He was every bit the child she was accusing him of, the tantrum was mild at least, but it was something for him to focus everything into, all his pain, all the emotion. He was lashing out.

Her breath misted the cold air. She allowed her anger to rise, channeling through her palm, a small concentration of the destruction that had rolled out from her the night before. The table between them disintergrated and she rose, stepping to stand over him. Catching his chin between thumb and forefinger, keeping his gaze on her.

"The difference, between myself and Kaine, is that I feel the weight of every soul lost, regardless of its origin. The difference between me and Kaine is that his pursuit of power is purely for himself. The difference between me and Kaine is that I did not choose this path, it was laid before me. The difference between me and Kaine is that when my job is done, I will return the the Manda willingly. The difference between me and Kaine is that I want an end to the cycle, that I actively seek a way for us to move forward in the wake of his death."

Her eyes shifted from sapphire, to orange to a deep red glow, the light in the room seemed to retreat from her as she stepped into the darkness. Her voice shifting layers falling upon it, echoing whispers that did not belong to her, but tonthe thousands of dead that she was connected to. She was no longer Mia, she was something far more dangerous.

"You know nothing of the things i have sacrificed, of the pieces of myself that have been carved away. I have given everything. Kaine only takes. This will be the last time you compare me to him and are able to walk away unscathed."

Darth Malum of House Marr

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

To call it fear would have been an overestimation of what exactly fear was. Fear was simply an unpleasant emotion aroused by threat, harm, or pain.

And to call all that he felt at her presence, her unyielding grip on his chin, the tremor as in an instant the table at which they sat around was... not just broken... not just shattered... but eviscerated. The splinters did not fly out as if shrapnel, but simply fell upon the ground, both their caff falling upon the floor, their remnants spilling, none the wiser of what had just happened.

Leaving him, to face the consequences.

To call it fear would have been an overestimation of what exactly fear was.

To call it terror.

To call it horror.

To call it dread.

All were underestimations of what he felt.

It was spine-tingling, shivers broke out from her vice grip, to every part of his body, his eyes widened, shocked, surprised, as he gazed into eyes that rapidly shifted, sapphires, turning to topaz, to rubies. He knew exactly what that meant, a phenomenon that had haunted him ever since... had she lied to him? Had her...

Was she not fully herself...?

Or more aptly... was there more of her than he could have possibly known? The voices... they were her... but not entirely... there were others there too.

But far more than the three she described.

Her words hit him with the power of a shout, with the fury of anger so hot that it could melt planets wholesale, with a rage, a need for destruction and pulverisation, that even as her words did not raise themselves. He found himself desperate, trying to pull himself out of her grip to no avail, trying, needing, to be eyes from those eyes that held him captive.

It was dire, it was critical, as her words washed over him,that he escape.

He could barely breathe, so lost, an instinctive behaviour was lost to him, as bile rose in his stomach.

He forced his eyes shut, letting it all wash over him, needing to not look at her, needing to not see her.

Needing not to be...

...So scared.

Any normal man, would have accepted it, nodded limply, nodded in intimidated acceptance.

But, for all that could be said about Malum, it could never be that he was particularly wise.

And as he felt his dead amulet come to life, a heat spread throughout his chest, throughout his entire body, as he felt her stir in the back of his mind.

He knew, he was not alone.

He knew, they would be there for him.

Against the monster that held him.

"Do you think the victims care if you feel them... do you think that offers the dead some comfort... that even after you feel them... you will still do it... a hundred times over... a thousand times over... a million times over?" He whispered, breathing in heavily, breathing in quickly, "Do you think... they care if you did it for yourself... or something you thought was greater than yourself?" The whispering was fervent, was sickly, as a priest upon the altar desperate for a miracle, "Do you think they care... whether you chose this... or you thought you had no choice?"

His eyes snapped open, blazing orbs filled with emotions that were as contradictory as they were confusing, rage, wrath, fear, dread, depression, sadness, it did not matter, all was his ferment.

"You are fooling yourself if you believe you and your brother will be done when Kaine is dead..." The shaking grew worse, barely able to control himself, needing her to let him go, knowing what he needed to do, yet knowing... that was liable to have his neck snapped, "You will not rest... you will not be done... until my people are dead... until I... am dead... you do not believe Mandalore will be safe... until an entire civilisation is extinguished.... and you will willingly step over a million corpses if that is what you think needs to be done... and you will fail... and the cycle will continue... because we... will never die... we will never submit to your immortal tyranny." The harshness of his voice, breaking free from their whispering chains was a surprise even to him, as he felt his heart become a hot coal, a molten core that needed to be unleashed, needed to be heard.

"No one cares... no one cares what you have sacrificed... your victims when they see their life flash before their eyes... as they see the family they have, the friends they made... the child they never had a chance to hold... do not care for the sacrifices a butcher made..." He closed his eyes, as tears fell, "Strike me down... here and now... I know what Kaine would do... what he would do without a further thought... but I never thought you... you who I so admired when I read of you in the histories... you who I... trust..." Was that not a revelation to have in this moment? "Who I... care for..." He paused, another revelation, unfortunate it would have to come so late, "I never once thought... you are so like him."

Mia Monroe