Call My Name and Save Me from the Dark [complete]

[Scherezade deWinter]

Again came that word. Love. It came from the wrong lips, and it came at the wrong time. The Darkness had shown her the truth of it; love was the end, love was death, love was to be weak. So the only reasoning for Katrine to say such a thing again and again was an attempt to trick her again, just as she had when she'd sold her. She roared again, and it sounded nothing like a human. But Katrine blocked her again, and the Sith was becoming more and more enraged. And to add fuel to the fire, the evil woman now had traded to call her by her real name. One of them would die this day, and Scherezade had every intention to make sure it would not be here.

And then Gerwald stepped closer.

She hadn't seen it, not really. But she didn't need to. Much before the Darkess, there had been one smell, one scent, that had given her the protection against the Darkness that she had never known she desired or even needed. The smell of pines, of earth, of wind, and freedom.

Scherezade blinked, freezing mid-movement, her eyes wide.

She remembered the first time she had noticed it, not realizing what it was. It had simply helped her close her eyes and not be afraid of the dark. And then she could smell it even with her eyes closed and it was as though it protected her, served as a shield between her and the Darkness that had always threatened to pull her back in. When people used the worked Darkness they often meant it figuratively - for Scherezade, the threat of the Darkness had always been real and tangible, and a few years ago, it had become real.

But there had been no smells in the Darkness. Not good, not bad, not anything in between. There were smells here. She could smell the water that rained on them from the ceiling, she could smell the things that were burning because she'd set them on fire. And she could smell.. It. Him.

Scherezade blinked again, the confusion all too clear on her face. The Sword of Darkness in her hand fizzled, becoming a bed leg again, but she held on tight enough and a few moments later it became the Sword of Darkness again, only to undo itself once more.

"You were my shield against the Darkness," she whispered, looking at Gerwald. He looked different now. Smaller, somehow. More.. Human. "And you betrayed me. You made me kill you a thousand times and more, even in the times I didn't want to..." If nothing else, her mind was sharp enough to register that they were not trying to kill her. Not out right. Perhaps they were laying a trap to make it worse later? Her gaze averted to Katrine. "You told me... You told me it had been a year... That everyone was in on it... That was years ago..."

She inhaled deeply again. The scent...

But how could it only have been a week? Nothing made sense. The Darkness made more sense. Not in its choices, but in its patterns. This... This broke all the patterns. She couldn't comprehend what was happening.

Those were all visions of Darkness, came a voice in her head, it has been years for you, but a week for them, as they stood above your bed. Scherezade screamed and jumped back. The voice. Again the voice. Always the voice inside her head. "Go away!" she screamed at the Jart, "you told me I was the monster! You told me there was no other way!" That was not me, child, that was the Darkness, and it kept me from interfering. But I saw everything.

Her eyes moved back, dancing between Katrine and Gerwald. Nothing made sense. Nothing. The bed leg in her hand dropped the floor, rolling away. "How could it only have been a week?"


[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

With the corner of her eyes, Katrine had noticed Gerwald move closer and she had wanted to give some kind of sign to make him stop, not sure how to at the moment with what Pebble was saying. What she's saying... the thought rolled through her mind as words came through. Why bring up Avarisa now? Why did she think she was trained like one oiled a piglet for cooking? And Jart, Jart had said she was confused, her mind being through so much more.

Her hand, now having complete hold of Talzin's sword had been at her side. Katrine made no attempt to raise it as she heard a whisper from the girl, betrayed her... they were all quiet before she looked back at her and said that Kat had told her it had been a year, that everyone was in on it. The blonde began frantically shaking her head. "No, Pebble. It's been a week, I swear. Kamon almost killed you and my visions are still so jumbled but I heard you, saw you," she tried to answer the best she could. But everyone was in on what? "No one is on anything. You're my family, it's not a lie." There was no lie, there was no falsehood. Jart may have said Pebble should be her Ward but Katrine had loved her as her little sister for a long while now. And whether Pebble needed it or not, she was always under her protection.

Jart voice reached her ears as he spoke to Pebble though the words were quiet, private to her now. Pebble screamed at it, said he'd told her she was a monster. Katrine had wanted to interrupt but instead, Scherezade was looking between the two of them, dropping the sword which was no longer a sword. Sapphire gaze glanced at it before Talzin's sword vanished from her grasp back into the ichor, hearing the whisper. How could have been only a week? Katrine didn't have an answer immediately. Time, it moves differently, in different places. Her darkness, it was more in her head. It lied, made the very worst of scenarios, made her believe in the very version of the people she cares about. he offered an explanation.

Her lips pressed together as she took a step back towards Pebble. "I couldn't see you, I could only feel you're alive. Jart says time moves differently in those places," she offered gently. "I don't know exactly where you were but everything was wrong there and distorted. Lies to destroy you." With what both Jart and Pebble had said, it made sense that way. "You're here now, you're safe and you're healed." Now though that she had mentioned healing, she worried whether or not the ichor had played a role in what she'd been through. Katrine hoped not. Then it would have really made it her fault if it had.

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

Gerwald’s proximity had made her stop. He knew it was a risk, and he felt guilty that it had worked. It only made it all the more clear how much she needed him, and how deep their connection was.

”Made you kill me? Do you not know me well enough by now that I would never intentionally cause you pain like that. Any betrayal would never be borne out of malicious intent. And Katrine would sell you to Avarisa? You would accuse two people who love you of being so intentionally cruel?”

Jart says. There it was again with all of these spirits. The ichor has worked, but perhaps all the otherworldly abra cadabra was partly to cause for all this. From Ger remembered about how Scherezade was put into the pebble in the first place, the way her grandmother still spoke to her. None of it was normal, and it was playing with something worse than fire.

There was no expression on Gerwald’s face. He was lost in how to help, and he was cautious in making her feel secure. It suddenly came back to him that once they calmed her down, he was going to tear her entire world apart. How could that be right. Gerwald had already broken Katrine’s heart, and he was going to break Scherezade’s. He was not looking forward to telling her about his relationship with Katrine, not after what she had seen in the darkness.

His thoughts went to Katrine alone.

”How am I supposed to tell her now? Clearly in her visions we betrayed her. She will only see what I have to tell her as that.””

The questions weren’t Gerwald saying he would not talk to her. Rather he was expressing concern that this would blow back to Katrine as well.

He looked back to Scherezade.

”Put the weapon away. You’re safe. We are here to keep you safe.”

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Kamon. She knew that name. It was somewhere in the back of her mind, rummaging, threatening. Her hand flew to the shirt she had been put in while she was unconscious, moving it away from where her beating heart was. On top of her breast lay a scar. Old, faded, as though it had been there for years. A scar in the perfectly round shape of a lightsaber hilt, or the full moon. It was so small, and somehow seemed to bear so much weight. She gasped, looking up again. Katrine had taken a step towards her, causing the girl to take a step back, keeping the distance between them as it was. She did not want her to approach.

And Katrine spoke more. Lies, lies to destroy her. She wanted to object, she wanted to reject those words, but she knew the truth of them. She had been destroyed. She had built herself up again and parts of her were no longer her, but the Darkness, just as the sword had been made of the Darkness.

And the he spoke. Gerwald. His scent still threatened her and caressed her at the same time. But his words... Her mind snapped, hearing him say "two people who love you". It was supposed to be a sentence with meaning. Meaning that had been discussed. But had it? Inside the Darkness, love had only held weakness and death. No one had said that they loved her before the Darkness. Now it appeared people could not stop. She did not know how to handle it, how to deal with it.

"You're lying," she suddenly said, her gaze focusing on Gerwald, Katrine momentarily forgotten. Her voice turned cold, icy cold, and she wanted to call her sword and stab him again, as she had a thousand times before, "if... If what happened in the Darkness did not really happen... if you two did not form a pact to betray me, and sell me, so you could live your lives together... If none of that happened, if none of that is real..."

Did she have the words? Could she say it? She remembered now, the weeks before the Darkness. Whether the Darkness was real or not, she remembered the pain that had come before it. The pain that Gerwald had caused. And remembering it was harsher, was so much worse, than having been stabbed in the heart with Kamon Vondiranach's lightsaber.

"You caused me pain," Scherede finally said, but the coldness was gone. It was her again, her vulnerable self, the one that not even Katrine had been allowed to seen, "we made each other a promise and you disappeared. I waited for you. I had a song for you. And you were not there. How can you say you would never intentionally cause me pain when that was exactly what you did long before I was forced back into the Darkness."

Perhaps... Perhaps the Darkness had been right. Even if the events that had unfolded within it had been a lie, perhaps it had merely showed her that her heart lay in the wrong place.

Scherezade took another step backward, her back now hitting the wall. She was wet through and through by the rain from the sprinklers, and she was cold, and miserable, and her head didn't know where it was. The voice inside her head tried to speak again, but she shut it up. "No more voices."


[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

She went silent, watching as Gerwald spoke, eyes drifting to Pebble's hands as she kept an eye on the weapon, feeling her connection to the ichor slowly be replaced by her connection the Force. He spoke of him never intentionally causing her pain, words that made her look away, wondering how she'd take the whole story. Katrine herself had taken it pretty hard and in the end, it had been the lies that hurt her more than him connecting with Scherezade. Any betrayal would never be born out of malicious intent, he'd said, her gaze shifting back to the two of them as she listened. And he'd even address Pebble's word of her selling her to Avarisa.

Katrine stayed quiet, letting him speak to him. He seemed to have an effect on her she couldn't. She wanted to help her but all she could do was tell her what Pebble didn't want to listen to now.

Her head was invaded by thoughts coming from Gerwald, making her look at him for a moment as she listened. How was he supposed to tell her now? Just stop. I need her to come back first, whatever she's experienced has been horrific, Katrine shot back through the telepathic connection before she looked back at Pebble. She was looking at the wounds. Katrine hadn't checked them today, last she'd checked, they were healing nicely. Katrine hoped the scars wouldn't remain, that her healing combined with the ichor would completely make them vanish but now, she had a feeling they were still there.

In her step forward, Pebble had stepped back, making her stop, hands raising as to quietly say she wouldn't come closer now. Katrine normally had a strong sense of personal space but didn't think of others possibly having the same but now she recognized the behavior enough to make her not move nearer.

She accused Gerwald of lying, listing what she thought had happened, questioning if it had... if they hadn't made a pact to betray and sell her so they could live their lives together... Katrine blinked, wondering if Pebble had heard anything from what was said in the room in the week, her mind making it far worse than it had been? She didn't dare say it now but it made her worry even more. And Katrine just stayed quiet, still listening, wondering now if she should even be there as Pebble spoke to Gerwald only, accusing him of causing her pain, about making each other a promise, of waiting for him. I had a song for him. Something hurt in her chest again as she realized exactly what she was talking about. They'd talked about this, Gerwald had mentioned it. Katrine remembered well enough. She was the reason he hadn't gone. Because of the songs they had for each other because they'd run into each other and refused to part. She was going to get her heart broken. If Katrine wasn't convinced of it before, she was now. She'd gone through her stages. She'd been angry, she'd been hurt, she'd refused to talk to Gerwald or talk to him before she'd begun breaking as she refused to change for so long. She'd been in a sense of calm after the two days of staying in her wolf form, able to talk to him finally. Pebble hadn't even begun any of that. It reminded her again she was going to be to blame for the heartbreak too. Even if she hadn't known before, she'd been the cause of it. She was going to be the cause of it.

It hardly seemed fair, Katrine thought to herself, watching the two... feeling like the odd one out at the moment.

Slowly, she'd backed away, palms moving through at her temples, pulling back her soaked hair as Pebble moved further back herself, making her way to the opposite side of the room. Jart had reached out again but Scherezade dismissed him, making him stop. The fires were out, the immediate threat seemed to be halted. "Arki, can you please...," Katrine began. "Ground her? Write her a bill for the damage? Call an adult to cover... oh, wait, that's you? Tough to be you, isn't it?" She sighed as the other woman spoke, the projection walking towards. Right now, the sight of her Mother didn't cause the effect she hadn't wanted. And her mentioning grounding sent a shudder down her spine, reminding her she never should have told A.R.K.I. about that memory at all. Katrine never wanted anyone to feel what she felt when her Mother used that technique on her. "Just turn off the water and stop talking." Silence. The fire suppression system deactivated. "Thank you," she said with a sigh before she let herself glance inside. There were damages though the water had probably made sure it wasn't even worse.

Katrine glanced to Gerwald for a moment before moving inside. The moment seemed all too private as it was and something among the scorch had made her move inside, hands feeling the fabric of the dress she'd altered completely from what her Mother had originally had. "Sentiments," A.R.K.I. said quietly. "Shut up. I miss her. I missed Pebble so much and she's been through so much that I can't help her with. She won't let me," she snapped at the artificial intelligence in a hushed tone

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

The water was finally off, and despite everything that was happening, Gerwald was suddenly hit with the realization that things could not be fixed. He stepped away from Scherezade, and he looked back to Katrine and he did not know what to do. He felt like he still had a choice to make. Katrine's words came to his mind. She had been through enough, Scherezade needed to come back from where she had been.

Gerwald sighed. Scherezade spoke of their promise... a promise for more firsts between then and whenever Gerwald figured out what his feelings were. All of this was so new to Katrine, and what happened between him and Katrine was going to be new to Scherezade. Why had he made things so complicated? Why had he not followed the pull he felt initially and just made a move sooner. Gerwald had been ignoring his instinct for far too long, instinct that had warned him not to get involved with both of them, and now he had broken their hearts.

He had told Katrine it as going to break Scherezade's heart, and was she only realizing it. They both suddenly felt distant from him.

"I did cause you pain," Gerwald finally said as he stood dripping wet. "I know I did. I was not there, and you do not think that I don't blame myself for that, that I do not blame myself for the fact that Kamon almost killed you. All because I could not return the feelings you shared with me. I told you... tried to make you promise then you would not run off like this because I knew... I knew then... the moment you said those words... you had given me the power to break your heart, and I was afraid of what would happen if I did. It's why... It's why I told you about the pull I felt to another."

Gerwald purposefully did not say Katrine because he was trying to ensure that Katrine would be able to be in a position to comfort Scherezade. Despite everything he had felt before, Gerwald was beginning to see in his heart that he was going to lose them both. Was it the best option, he didn't know. He would let them both decide how they were going to handle the mess as he made every effort to clean it up. It was not going to be cleaned up today. It wasn't going to be clean in month, or even six. The pieces needed to fall where they would before he could pick them up.

He started for the door, but stopped.

This was a defining moment in his life. He knew it could not wait. Deep down he knew it could not wait. His blue gaze looked over to Katrine. The words went to her mind.

"I fear she needs to hear the truth. I also fear that I am about to lose you both because of it. The only thing that will bring her back to reality is to hear me say what needs to be said. I promised you honesty, and now I have to be honest with Scherezade. We both have to be. I don't want to lose you... but I know you cannot lose her..."

Gerwald was afraid. He was never afraid, but for the first time in his life he feared that removing himself from the picture might be the right thing to do for once. Not because he was a coward, but because Katrine and Scherezade were family. Gerwald could not ruin that.

Gerwald was afraid.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She was no longer aware of Katrine's presence in the room. Every part of her mind tried to focus, tried to set aside what was real and what was not. What she had seen in the Darkness was not real. Fact. What she had told Gerwald about her feelings was real. Fact. Katrine and Gerwald did not team up to ruin her and sell her. Fact. Her mind was spinning, reeling. Everything in the Darkness had not been real. Fact. She did not kill Gerwald a thousand times over. Fact. Gerwald was alive. Fact. Gerwald had abandoned her a week or two before she stumbled across Kamon Vondarnach. Fact.

"Kamon did not almost kill me because of you," she finally groaned, trying to force her brain to accept the chronological order of things, "Kamon almost killed me because Kamon found me, on Coruscant, which is a planet that I used to.. That I regularly visit."

Sober. She had to be sober, and functional, because she did not understand anything. All she understood was that it had been a week since that fight, and that in that week, something had happened. Something that she would not like or enjoy.

"I remember everything," Scherezade said, and her voice was just above a whisper, "I remember how you pulled me into the tango near that bonfire. I remember how we hunted together and how you gave me half of the prey's heart. I remember how you touched my chin and moved me to face you, and how you told me that you see me. I remember how we kissed and then confessed to each other that it had been our first kiss. I remember how your eyes light up every time you experience a new first. I remember how you like your coffee, how you like your meat, how you smell when you're all stinky and dirty and how you smell when you're clean. I remember the intimacy of our first time in bed together, and the raw passions of all that times that followed. I remember how the physical part was so minor in all that happened after that. I remember Ryloth, I remember Dathomir, I remember Orcus, I remember Coruscant. I remember breakfasts and lunches and dinners, I remember jokes and heart to heart conversations that took the place of sleep. I remember sleep, in all its forms, with you."

She had not been idle as she spoke. She moved near him, her steps small, almost as tough she was unsure of herself at first. But with each thing she remembered, she felt every bit stronger.

"I remember how worried you were when I jumped off that balcony to teach you another aspect of being free. I remember your face in the sight of pure and unfiltered freedom when you realized you could fly a ship and ride a speederbike, when you could free fall in Coruscant and cause traffic accidents with me. I remember how you fought for me with those Trandoshans. I remember how you did not run away when I showed you exactly who and what I was, and I remember that when you asked me whether I wanted the man or the wolf, I answered that I wanted yourself and meant all of you."

Scherezade was so close to him now, his scent threatening to overtake her.

"I remember trying to push you to get your siblings weeks ago. I remember how terrified I was when I told you that I loved you. I remember the pain when you said you were drawn to Katrine. But what was a mere drawn compared to all of that? I remember how you held me on that floor, and hugged me, and kissed me, and then helped me untangle my hair. I remember kissing the nape of your neck just a little before that. I remember that after you said you could not give me the same words I'd given you, you promised we'd make new moments and memories together."

She paused. That had been all the great things. All the amazing things. All the reasons and more that she loved him.

"I remember we both left for Melida/Daan together, because you didn't want me to recklessly throw my life away over a dangerous volunteer mission, so you stupidly insisted on joining. And I remember..." she stuttered. She remembered so much more. How much longer would she be able to keep going, cold and wet and miserable, and needing to touch him, just to touch him, for a moment. When she touched him she knew things were all right. That whatever he had done to hurt he could be fixed. That this was not the end. "I remember thinking that all this pales in comparison to merely being drawn to someone, because I've felt just drawn to people in the past as well, and there was nothing that resembled what we have. And I remember... I remember believing that you just needed time. That it didn't matter if you said the words or not, because your actions showed that you were. And I remember waiting, and waiting, and waiting for you, even after we were all released from quarantine, because I knew that if you just came back, I'd forgive you, and make you install the elevator, and then we'd laugh about it before we loved each other again, and deeper. Because I remember wanting to give you a whole lot more of firsts, and I remember you wanting to give me a whole lot of them as well."

Even closer she stood now, her face a mere few inches from his. He was not running. She would not let him run, not again. He had run from his siblings and he had run from here, but he was there. He did care. He would not have been there if it had bee otherwise.

"I remember you loving me, Gerwald. Even if you couldn't form the words on your lips. I remember you loving me."

There was nothing else to say. If the Darkness had been a lie, then this was real and she had just emptied out everything. He was close enough for her to kiss now, but something was holding her back. She was scared. She was terrified. This was not the fear of the Darkness. This was the fear of being vulnerable. A fear that only Gerwald could instill in her. Only his presence. Only his scent. Only him, man or wolf, it did not matter. She would throw her life away to protect either and both. She didn't just "loved him" in the past tense. She loved him still. And if she had managed to break out of the Darkness, and he was there outside of it, there had to be a reason.


[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

She heard him in her head again, fingers still pulling at the material inside the closet. Gerwald wanted to tell Pebble the truth right away and he feared he's lost them both. Katrine didn't speak, unsure what to tell him even. She didn't mean tell her, she was just worried how much of a difference between right now and an hour would mean but maybe he was right. Maybe right now as she'd gotten calmer and stopped attacking them was the time. Like a bacta patch. He'd promised her honest and now he owed the same to Pebble. I don't want to lose you... but I know you cannot lose her, she'd finally heard in her mind and sighed, glancing towards the open space leading back into the bedroom.

His voice, even her head... Katrine could hear the fear, making her eyes close as she inhaled a deep breath stopping herself from leaving her hiding place, to go to him. Her head lowered, mind reminding her of what her heart tried to forget. They were where they were because Gerwald hadn't been honest with her or Pebble. And like he had faced her, he now had to face Pebble. Without her. He had to ride this storm out, had to be honest with everyone. There was no way around it.

From where she stood, her head rose as she heard the sound of Pebble's voice though she hadn't originally heard what she was saying. Slowly, her ears adjusted even though she had no intention of them. ...game me half of the prey's heart, the words began to sink in, touched my chin and moved me to face you...kissed and then confessed... one by one, the Pebble had listed everything they had been through. ...the way your eyes light up every time you experience a new first,... coffee, meat, smell, intimacy of their first time in bed together...

It kept going. Katrine hadn't realized the way her fingers had curled into a fist around the purple fabric of her dress, the way she'd clung to it as if for dear life. Ryloth, Dathomir, Orcus, Coruscant, Her head leaned into the dress, trying to find safety in it but it no longer held the scent of her Mother, just her. Nothing but her and he couldn't offer herself any sort of comfort right now. There was something in the way Scherezade listed everything they'd experienced. So many firsts, so many adventures, so many meals, raw passions, jokes, and conversations, sleep...

Katrine wanted to draw out the sounds, wanted to scream to make herself deaf even for a minute, even for a second just so she didn't have to listen.

There was something incredibly painful in knowing that while Katrine had been living through so many firsts with the only man who was truly perfect for her, he had been experiencing them with someone else. It didn't even better than that it was Pebble. He had been her first willing and true kiss, the first wolf she had shared an animal with who hadn't been family, the first she'd been so eager to beat, the first she'd been with, the first she'd offered to claim in the very way her parents had, letting him decide when she could joke for so long about the ways of the Witches...

...whether I wanted the man or the wolf, I answered that I wanted yourself and meant all of you. Eyes opened and stared in the dark of the dress. "One and the same," her lips formed the words but no sound came out. The wolf understood what she knew, there was no either or, there was only one in two forms. One of them was true, the other was an extension of. Only the truth kept the madness at bay.

There was so much between them, that it made her wonder. Why did Gerwald even want her after all that? He'd been through so much with Scherezade that suddenly their meetings, their songs, their words suddenly felt so small. In those thoughts, a tear rolled down her cheek. Why would Gerwald choose her after all that? Because the wolf wanted, because there was a pull? There was a pull, a draw on the first night. It had made her stand and barely walk, made her find him, made her keep staring at him but that pull hadn't been the only thing making her feel like this in a while now. ...all this pales in comparison to merely being drawn to someone, and Pebble was telling him the same thing. The exact same thing. Her face buried into the fabric deeper as the tears continued, faster, stronger. There was no sound yet as she tried to just disappear into the fabric. As she realized she was crying, Katrine couldn't remember the last time she'd cried. No, she could. Once, on Orcus. She had cried, rain falling over her. They were tears of freedom, tears of victory. And the rain, it had began to wash away the traces of her curse. Then and now. For the completely different reasons. Before that, there had been the medication. It kept her from being too sad, kept her from being too happy. All of a sudden, she'd missed them even though she'd hated them. She missed that suddenly, missed the power it had of her, the safety it provided. If she didn't feel, she didn't hurt. Without them, she knew love, she knew pain, she knew heartbreak.

She felt though. Every bit of it, as strongly as she did every emotion. She wanted to scream because of it and to stop hearing but instead, she'd bit her lower lip to stop herself. And that bite had made her lip bleed.

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

Nothing, Katrine replied with nothing as Scherezade approached. He had to say it, and he had to say it before...

Scherezade began to speak. She remembered everything. Each word was like a dagger in his heart. Every word reminded him of why he had been so afraid to hear her tell him that she loved him in the first place. Gerwald had trapped himself, hemmed into a corner that was of his own making. His base instinct was to run or fight, and when faced against those he was close to he had always chosen to run.

Gerwald could not run now. Running was the wrong answer. He had run from Stewjon, leaving his siblings behind because even though he was a warrior, the wolf could not face them. He could not tell them he wanted to leave, or that he wanted to follow Katrine. What was it that had made him want to leave with her, it was not a pull. No one abandoned their life, their family, or loved ones for a pull. Deep down Gerwald knew the truth, and it was not that he had been drawn to another Lupine.

He tried to form words, tried to stop Scherezade from saying things that he knew Katrine would bear without context. If only he could imagine the pain those words would cause to anyone. It seemed Gerwald was only good at breaking hearts, and that no matter what he did or said now, hearts would be broken, and behind repair.

”Honest and true...” he said soft, below what Scherezade would hear. If Katrine was listeneing she would understand that his words were for them both to hear. Gerwald needed to say what he was about to only once because he feared he would only be allowed to say it once.

”A mere pull does pale in comparison if that’s all it was. The memories I had created with my sibling should have seen me stay on Stewjon if I was simply drawn,” he began.

Gerwald sighed, his stomach tying into so many knots he felt as though he was going to vomit. His heart pounded like a thousand war drums beating an aggressive cadence across the battlefield. It had to be said. The truth had to be told.

”You are not the only one I have been intimate with. I have hunted and killed with another in ways that we cannot. I have been under the canopy of the night sky as a wolf, with a wolf. Stewjon, Ryloth, Dragonflower, Coruscant... Being absent is not the only thing that I am guilty of Scherezade. I wasn’t honest with you. I withheld from you... from you both.”

When you told me you loved me I was afraid. I knew I could not return the words because I was thinking of another. You gave me the power to break your heart, a power you shouldn’t have given me because...”

“...I was afraid I would... I knew... I knew I would.”

Gerwald looked away. He didn’t know. She had talked about the darkness. Never once had she told him how much of a shield he was to her. He forced himself on. The truth was not complete. There was still one question, a question always asked that he had never fully answered. Scherezade had asked it, and Katrine had asked it. Why had he left?

Everything came back to that moment. It all pointed back to Stewjon. Finding another Lupine, knowing he was not alone in the galaxy, having felt betrayed by his mother for not saying, all of it came back to one thing that Gerwald knew.

”When I was on Stewjon, the scent, Katrine. I knew it. When I saw her... I saw my future.”

Gerwald looked to Scherezade.

”Everything that has happened comes back to that moment. The fire, the heart, the adventures... but there has been a waterfall, a stolen sweater, a scent I cannot part with... songs that were sung for her.”

Scherezade would know why he said songs. She would know why he didn’t come after quarantine was lifted.

”Standing over this bed fretting, fearing that you would be lost. Claiming, choosing... Love...”

Gerwald grew quiet. Everything inside him was shaking. He had said it. He told her why he had been gone. They both knew why he left Stewjon. If he had just been honest from the start none of this... they would not be here. They were because he had not, and while he had said what he had, if nether could forgive him, he knew it would be his to carry.

He deserved neither of them, not after what he had done. Yet as he looked for Katrine... as he looked for Scherezade... he knew this time he was not going to run.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She had thought... She had dared to hope... For a moment, she had maybe even dreamed, that he would kiss her, and this whole mess would be over with. That he would embrace her, and the last smokes of the Darkness would be vanquished, gone for good, her mind piecing itself together in the parts that did not deal with her direct memories of him.

The memories I had created with my sibling should have seen me stay on Stewjon if I was simply drawn

That was not true. She shook her head. That was simply not true. He had told her of Stewjon and the life on it. With or without being drawn, he had suffered on Stewjon, he would have left the first moment opportunity presented itself. Something was scratching in the back of Scherezade's mind but she forced it down, forced herself to listen even though every fiber of being in her body told her to either run or to call back the Sword of Darkness and stab herself in the heart again.

He could not return her the words because he had been thinking of another. Another. And that other was Katrine, and when he he smelled her he had seen his future.

Scherezade took a step back. Her body shook as the realization of what that could mean sank into her. There were less moments he'd had with Katrine but Katrine had been the one he had sung songs for. Plural. Scherezade took another step back. She had been branded as the best pin cushion in the 'verse. Gerwald had told her during their last visit to Coruscant that there weren't many places left in which she had not yet been wounded. But he had been wrong. So wrong. Her heart had been pure and full of her emotions for him and every word he said now shoved another dagger into it. She punched her chest, once, twice, willing the heart to return. She could not let her heart bleed and beat, not like this, please, by the Force, any way but this way. But her heart refused to grow the stone back. It beat. It bled. It shattered.

Standing over the bed... Fretting that she was lost... If he had fretted so much... Why would he have fretted so much if...

Claiming.

Scherezade turned, looking now to where she could sense Katrine was. This was not the Darkness. She had to remind herself of it. This was not the Darkness. In the Darkness, she had believed everything she saw because it had all made such perfect sense. But this was not the Darkness and this was... This was so much worse. This was something that had not presented itself in her deepest dakest fears because like she had told Gerwald time and time again that they were limited by their imagination, she could not have imagined this.

Choosing.

He had chosen. He had been with the two of them. He had been with her, and he had been with Katrine, and he had chosen. He had chosen Katrine because he was with her in ways he could not be with her. He had chosen Katrine because Scherezade was not a Lupine, and never would be. He had chosen Katrine despite knowing that Scherezade knew how to make him feel free without knowing what it was like, because she knew him, because she cared for him deeply enough, because through her actions and deeds she believed she had slowly been yanking Gerwald away from the effects of Stewjon every time they met.

Love.

She loved him. She still loved him. She yearned for him to break into one of his big smiles and say he was just testing her cognitive abilities or something stupid like that. He had to be. There could be no... It was impossible.

"You're lying," she finally said, her voice broken, "you're lying to me, you're lying to yourself, you're lying to Katrine. If that pull was so strong, if it was half as strong as you're trying to say it was, none of what we shared would have come to be. None of it. It would not have been possible! I was with you during those moments, Gerwald. I was with you there, and that pull was not, because we have... Had.. Have... Was not just... was not just..."

Was not just empty sex. Or perhaps it was. Perhaps she had simply read everything wrong. Perhaps the Darkness was right and she had been used in more ways than one. Se had so freely and easily given him not just her heart, but everything she could touch in the galaxy as well, and she had given all of that away so easily, because she thought he had seen her, and she thought she had seen him.

But he had also mentioned claiming, and it had come together with fretting over her bed. She spun to Katrine's direction again. Claiming. They had claimed each other while Scherezade lay on that bed, fighting for her life. That was what she had understood from his words. They couldn't wait for her to heal and wake up, they couldn't wait for her to recover from the events in the Darkness. They had claimed and chosen and loved over her would be corpse.

Scherzade looked at Gerwald again, and everything hurt. She needed her stony heart back. She needed to not feel, to not hear any of this. She could have forgiven him for being intimate with Katrine. She could have looked past all of that. They had not promised each other that they would be exclusive and she could not fault him for tht, even if she wanted to so dearly. But claiming... And love... While she lay dying...

And her heart. Her stupid, stupid heart. Still beating. Still bleeding. Still not understanding.

Scherezade took another step back, her hand coming up to punch herself right where her beating heart was. She needed it to stop. She wanted it to stop. Not to feel. Not to feel anything. There were no words that she could say, no deeds that would undo this horrible event. She couldn't even bring herself to cry. Gerwald had seen her cry. Twice. That was twice more than anyone else in the galaxy. But he... He didn't want to. He didn't want her.

She looked up with anguish, trying to find a place to hide in the ceiling. If she could not evaporate into smoke and dust, maybe... It was not a logical thought. None of this made sense.

Scherezade blinked. She knew this ceiling. Earlier it had been a dim memory but now she remembered it clearly.

"You were my shield against the Darkness," the words came out of her mouth, "when you were nearby, the threat of the Darkness always vanished. After that first attempt of my grandmother, nothing related to the Darkness ever even attempted to break its way through when you were around. Because you were around. And when I was in the Darkness, there were no smells, not good, not bad, not anything. But at one point, early on, I smelled you. I caught your scent. And I opened my eyes and I remember seeing this ceiling, and I remember smelling you, and I remembered that you were my shield against the Darkness and I thought... I thought I would pull through. I thought I could fight and make it back to you..."

Her voice cracked. She did not cry. Refused to cry, even if the tears were threatening to come out on their own. He would never have never turned out to be her shield if the emotions that marred and mutilated this mess would have been one sided. She couldn't allow herself to believe it. Because she had not been drawn to him by some unspoken power. She had chosen him, as she thought he had chosen her, if not by words then by actions.

She could feel her heart breaking again, as though it had swelled to the size it needed to be in order to contain her emotions for Gerwald and now simply shattered into a million pieces, an each piece broke all over again on its own. There was not enough space inside her chest to contain the pain that she suffered now. It was nothing compared to the Darkness. The Darkness would have been so much preferable to this. To all of this.

Scherezade took another step back, falling on the broken bed. She was sitting, her weight off her legs. Slightly more set now. She was still shaking all over, quite visibly.

Claiming, choosing... Love...

"You fretted over me, you both brought me back from the brink of death..." she said, her voice still as broken as she felt on the inside, shaking as she put the thoughts into words that she never wanted to say, but more than that, never wanted to feel, "only so you could kill me again."

Scherezade let a sound out of her lungs. There was nothing human about that sound, and nothing Lupine either. It was the sound of a wounded creature, broken and battered beyond repair, knowing that it had come to its end.



[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

While Pebble's words were breaking her, an ever quieter reached her. Honest and true... Katrine felt herself freeze, eyes opened to face the dark of the dress. She said that, just before all of this had begun, before Pebble had woken up. Right now, she didn't have the energy to find where she'd picked it up, feeling her breath suddenly get stuck somewhere in her throat and refusing the budge as he began talking about the pull and his siblings. Katrine knew for fact that wasn't completely true. She'd abandoned two for the sake of one even when she knew that one was safe with their parents in the time. It was salfish, if Katrine had ever been honest with her. Selfish in having all four of them together, selfish in bringing Chloe back home with her. And what had it done? She was here, in the past, she wasn't with her family, she'd pulled Gerwald away from his, they'd been in this whole mess because of her.

He talked about intimacy and hunting. With another, again it was. Stop saying that, in the privacy of her own mind, Katrine had complained, feeling herself take a long breath finally. He was defending everything they'd been through, naming planets, speaking of their time as a wolf before he'd gone back to speaking of facts. He hadn't been honest, he had withheld. He spoke of her telling him she loved him. Katrine remembered that part from his first confession. Of another. Again. Another deep breath forced to calm her.

...I saw my future, Gerwald had said of her. There were still tears falling down her cheeks but his words had made her not want to scream anymore even if she doubted if he was even listening to Pebble, in everything she'd said. Their moments seemed so small still, so distant from each other. Katrine didn't know things about him that she knew and that was what was eating at her now. Gerwald still compared, speaking of the waterfall, the sweater, songs sung for her. Claiming, choosing...love. One of her hands finally released the dress to wipe away the tears from her cheeks, trying to make it stop.

Pebble began again, saying he'd lied. Lied to her, lied to himself, lying to Katrine, going back to the moments, the pull. If it had been as strong as he was trying to make it seemed, nothing they had shared would come to be. Her words jumbled, unfinished. And again, she'd felt that ping of pain her heart. Not for herself right now but for her sister. She talked about the darkness, the way he protected her from it, the way he had made her believe she'd pull through.

Those words let her mind momentarily draw away to the issues Pebble was being left with. The problem with that, as Katrine knew, was that as long as someone or something else protecting you from the darkness, it was only temporary. She'd been protected, she'd been drugged, she'd been coddled. And then abandoned. Once she was abandoned, the corruption had taken its toll, taken longer than it should have. In the end, the only one who could defeat her own darkness was Katrine herself. Listening to Pebble now say Gerwald was her shield from her darkness worried Katrine. Not because of Gerwald at all but because of Pebble who still had it chasing after her.

All the thoughts of her past faded as Pebble said they'd fretted it over her and brought her back only so you could kill her again. That made her drop the skirts onto which she had clung to, face still red as she left the damaged dresser and moved to the doorframe. "No, Pebble. I brought you back because I love you. Because I can't lose anyone else my life. What Kamon did to you was wrong, disgusting. He'd been built up so high in my eyes only to end up being nothing more than a monster that is willing to kill a girl for his sick beliefs. I couldn't lose you because of him." Her voice cracked against the weight in her throat still, the tears still threatening to come out but had for the moment stopped. Katrine, who had been taught to make her own path, who had been taught that love came before anything else, whose Nona had tried to teach her right before wrong but ultimately, taught her that a person shouldn't be judged by their alignment but by the person who was underneath it because all the way their family, their entire family, was. She didn't care if her Ward was a Sith just like she didn't care with Aston was a Jedi. Both of these things paled in comparison to how she felt about them.

Slowly, she'd made her way to the center of the room, looking at the girl, seeing just how everything had affected her. "When I saw you in my visions, I didn't know. I called Gerwald because of what he means to me and because I knew that you'd spent time with each other," for a moment, she'd glanced over to him before she'd looked back at her, "and while I've been hurt over the lies, you are still my sister. And you have so much to live for in this life. You have a future same as me and I couldn't let this be where your story ended." Following everything that had been said, how much Pebble had dismissed already, she worried she'd be dismissed yet again but Katrine had to tell her. Her normally porcelain skin was red and puffy, there was no way to hide just how much she'd actually heard but she needed to speak, needed to be heard even if her words wouldn't be accepted.

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"Of course it wasn't meaningless... and don't you, when I am telling you... don't..." Gerwald said not knowing how else to deal with the accusation, nor having the room to because Scherezade kept explaining her pain.

He wasn't lying. Gerwald was telling the truth. Not once had he denied the fact Scherezade had said she remembered him loving her even though he could not say the words. If he treated that time as meaningless, he would not be honest. Which would hurt less? Gerwald didn't know the answer to that, but what he knew was that truth had to be said. Gerwald felt deeply, and it pained him to know that his words were causing so much pain. Hearts were breaking, including his own. He was angry with himself for being the cause of this, angry that he had not been honest from the start.

Keeping secrets. It was what his mother had raised him to do, to keep one massive secret, and now he saw what secrets did. He should have been running free on Stewjon, learning how to take what he wanted, and most importantly learning that he could not live two lives, but that is not what he had learned. It wasn't until he met Katrine that he saw a Lupine free as they should be, and it was not until Scherezade that Gerwald had seen the limitless frontier that freedom could give him.

Gerwald loved them both for it.

The more Scherezade spoke the more guilt he felt. He was her shield against the darkness, the one that had drawn her out of it. The more she spoke the more he realized how much damage he had caused. It wasn't his to say, but she should have never made anyone her shield. Gerwald knew one thing as a warrior, death was inevitable.

He wanted to reply, to say something that would make her understand he was not there because he wanted to kill her again. Gerwald was there because he could not bear to see her die, he had been there to rescue her, and to discover who it was he had to kill for it. Kamon had harmed his pack, and Gerwald was intent on sinking his teeth in the man's throat. He did not care that the man was stronger than him in the force. Gerwald would do what he would because no one would ever hurt the people he loved and not pay for it dearly.

Katrine had emerged to speak before Gerwald could say anything. Her words pulled his attention to her. Looking at her face it was clear she had been crying. Katrine had heard it all. She knew the depths of what Gerwald had experienced with Scherezade. It had only caused more hurt. How was it she could still choose him, to want him to rule with her, how could she still love him? How could Scherezade? Gerwald felt so unworthy of their love, of any kind of love, in the moment.

The look on Katrine's face could only be borne from love, and the pain it could cause. Her heart was still wounded, and Gerwald wanted to fix it, to rush to her and fix it. He could only imagine now how much his experiences with Scherezade would make everything he had ever said and done with Katrine seem so... tiny. It wasn't, nor was that ever his intention. When he said he had seen his future, he had meant it. Yet, Scherezade... how could he have done all of that if what he said was true? Was Gerwald still lying, or was he simply being selfish?

She loved Scherezade, she had saved her because she loved her. Katrine was right, Scherezade had much to live for, even if right now...

Everything in him hurt, and all he wanted to do was make it stop for both of them. He hurt because they were hurt. Katrine was in the center of the room, and Scherezade was on the bed, shaking. He could not go to them both, and he could not say anything to make the pain stop. Now he felt like the odd one out, as if he needed to let them say what they needed to say to each other. And still... he felt like there was something left unsaid, something he didn't know how to put to words.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

She looked wildly around her. She was on the bed. Gerwald stood where he had been. It was Katrine that spoke, it was Katrine that moved. She gave words, words that would have been so beautiful in almost any other circumstances. Words about bringing her back because she loved her, words about being unable to lose her, words about being sisters, having much to live for, about a future that was the same as hers.

As Katrine moved forward, Scherezade's eyes narrowed and she moved backward on the bed, every movement indicating just how threatened she felt now. There was no warmth she could provide back, whatever her wishes were. She had wished for so long to have a family. With the absence of her brother and parents, Katrine had made the attempt to fill that hole, to adopt her into the family before she knew her, before even Scherezade knew herself. Had it only been five or six months since she had come out of that pebble, barely able to control her limbs?

But that was not all there was to it.

Wounded or not, strained or not, she wanted her voice to be as poison. But her vocal chords refused to cooperate with her, refused to let her wield a mask of braveness. All that came out was broken, cracked, and dry.

"How could you?" she asked, emerald eyes looking directly into saphire ones, "you speak of love... You speak of family..." He eyes moved to Gerwald again. Claiming, choosing... Love... "you speak of all those things but while I lay on this bed, both of you chose. Both of you loved. Both of you claimed."

Her words were accusations. She couldn't stop it from sounding like that even if she had wanted it to, and it suddenly seemed to matter less and less that her voice was broken, that so much energy had been spent in trying not to cry. The tears flowed of their own accord and there was no movement fast enough that would have enabled her to hide them.

"I remember what you told me, Katrine," she continued, "the Hawks take their claiming very seriously, remember?" Again she looked at Gerwald, her words paraphrasing something Katrine had told her several months ago when they had been training on Ryloth. Claiming, choosing... Love...

She had reached the wall again. All these walls. There had been no walls in the Darkness, only an endless inky black horizon. She had thought that the Darkness was small, she had thought she would choke in it. But this... These walls were smaller. This room was smaller. Scherezade, Scherezade was small. Too small. She couldn't vanquish this, whatever this was. She couldn't make her heart stop beating, even as she tried to use the Force to force it into place.

Another groan escaped her throat and she darted, her movement aided by the Force as she made her way to the door, where she stopped and turned around. She had to distance herself from them. She needed air to breathe. Air that was not full of Katrine and Gerwald's betrayal. Air that could fill her lungs, that could help her set her thoughts in order.

"You're not afraid of losing anyone," came the next accusation, "you just like to collect things that you think should be yours. Like you decided that I was your Ward, before I'd even lived a single day. Before I even knew what I wanted or who I was. Without giving me the option to say that I didn't want that. What you're afraid of is of having your possessions realize they can leave. And now you call me your sister and tell me that you love me when you never made such mentions in the past. You say we're family but you loved and chose and claimed when I was in the Darkness."

She burned. She burned from the inside. She wanted the fire to leave her body, to set flame to her skin, to leave her nothing but a pile of ashes. "It was never about Kamon. it was never about me or whatever future like you that you think I could have. It was about you and what you wanted and not even imagining that others might want anything different. if it was, you would have never loved and chosen and claimed while I was on that bed, not even if it had been with a complete stranger."

Her hand was touching the door now. She burned on the inside, and the air made her feel cold on the outside. The tears were still rolling down her face, making their way to the damp clothes. Those ugly clothes that she would have never chosen to wear even to the grave.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

Scherezade screamed and punched the door frame, shattering it. Her hand bled now and she let it, ignored it. The physical pain, it was... It was calming. It was soothing. But only for a moment.

"I release myself of you, Katrine Van-Derveld Hawk. I am no longer your Ward. I am no longer your sister. I am no longer any kind of your family. I am no longer part of the Mandragora." Technicalities be damned. She didn't have to look in order to know that the mark of the Jart on her back had healed. She could feel it. But Katrine had taught her how to write spells, and she would use that skill to free herself from the Jart, from anything related to the Witches of both Dathomir and Ryloth.

Wet eyes moved to Gerwald. Gerwald. She loved him. She loved him so much it hurt. But he did not love her. He did not choose her. He had loved and chosen and claimed Katrine long before Scherezade could challenge it, could question it, could do anything about it. All her pretty words had been for naught. A tantrum of a broken hearted girl who should have known better. There was no one to love her. Only those who would use her and manipulate her to get what they wanted. She had given him her heart, her ship, training, food, her body her soul... Her love...

"There are no debts between us," she finally said, looking at him. Everything inside her pushed against it, pushed against her words, tried to make her say the opposite of what was leaving her mouth. Everything inside her wanted her to undo what she had said, to run and let Katrine hug her or just hug her on her own, to hide from everything inside Gerwald's arms. Her stupid, stupid beating heart, there was nothing left for it to shatter.

Child, you are the monster.

There was nothing she could do. Nothing she could say or behave to change it. She had been in the Darkness and it had claimed her while Katrine and Gerwald claimed each other.

"So enjoy your claiming, and your choosing, and your love. Enjoy it to the fullest, and die surrounded by fat grandchildren." It was a common enough saying on Endelaan. It had come to her tongue naturally, though on her ancestral planet it only meant good wishes. Was it now? She did not know. She did not dare to think.

"If either of you approach me outside of a mission, I will kill you."

There were no more bridges to burn. No more dire relationships to save. They had done what they had done while she was in the Dakness, and she would not be a puppet to their wills. She would have no family. She would have no love. If this was love, either for family or for another, then it was only a tool to control her. She wouldn't be caged again, not like the two last times.

Her tears never stopped. But she swallowed hard, and turned around. She had to leave. She didn't know where her original clothes were or where her weapons were, but it didn't matter. She would get by. She was the best pin cushion in the 'verse and she always bounced back. And she was so tired of being hurt. She would never give anyone the power to hurt her again.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

The Darkness had been right all along.

Scherezade deWinter left the room.


[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

Katrine had already believed Pebble would have found a way to counterargument her words. She expected it, was prepared for it. The words began slow. How could you? The blonde watched, her eyes still a little sore as she focused on keeping eye contact. You speak of love... you speak of family... Yes, Kat spoke of family. She always spoke of family. She spoke of them often because she missed them, spoke of them to remind herself of them and get he memories going. It baffled her now that despite everything, Scherezade could doubt that of all things. ...while I lay on the bed, both of you choose. Both of you loved. Both of you claimed. That wasn't how it happened. She'd chosen long ago, felt like another lifetime ago after this whole week. She'd loved before now even if she hadn't admitted as much until today, not really. But she hadn't claimed. It was more than words, it was an act, an action. A ceremony more than anything else.

Her attention had shifted to Gerwald briefly even though it moved back to her again. The Hawks take their claiming very seriously, remember? She had. There was meaning, a power. It was a bond that lasted no matter where one or the other was. Weren't her parents proof of that? They still belonged to each other no matter how far from each other they were. With those thoughts, Katrine had given a small nod.

Katrine blinked and the girl had moved past her, making her turn as she tried to follow, catching her again as she'd reached the doors. She was leaving. They hadn't resolved anything and she was leaving, Katrine panicked suddenly but as her lips parted, no sound came out. Instead, Pebble spoke again. You're not afraid of losing anyone, the sharp words came. That's a lie, her mind argued even when she stayed quiet. She gave her the right to say what she needed, hoping once she did, it would help them move forward. You just like to collect things that you think should be yours. Her head began to shake, it wasn't true, she didn't collect. Well, she'd kept Gerwald's shirt but it had been more for another reason than to just collect. Scherezade used herself as an example, saying she had decided she was her Ward before she'd ever lived. The child was entrusted to you. Teach your Ward, she remembered the words of the spirit. It hadn't been her, it had been Jart who had said it.

"Jart said the word, he decided, Katrine muttered even as Pebble continued. Without giving her an option. What you're afraid of is having possessions realize they can leave, it continued. Her head shook again, this time more violently. She didn't collect, she didn't possess. There was a choice, there was always a choice. Katrine never kept her at her side, she didn't know how to keep anyone at her side. If she did, Chloe wouldn't have left. If she hadn't, Katrine wouldn't have been here. If she wasn't, maybe her Mother wouldn't have disappeared. to If she wasn't here, Pebble wouldn't be here neither would Gerwald. None of them would have been in this position. There wouldn't be so much pain. And yet... Katrine didn't regret coming, she didn't regret what she was, didn't regret listening to Pebble's grandmother or being on Stewjon to find Gerwald...

And now... calling her her sister and telling her she loved her. This was wrong? Her feelings were wrong? Was nothing she did right? Nothing in what was happening between her and Gerwald or between Pebble and Gerwald changed how she looked at Pebble. Not for a moment. She'd been hurt to find out he'd done it and never truly said a word, she'd never felt what she felt in the knowledge that he'd been with someone else and only now gone to mention it. Did nothing they'd been through mean anything to her? Was she just angry now Gerwald wasn't choosing her and lashing out? Honestly, she couldn't tell anymore as her heart raised faster, listening. She took what she was being told, let Pebble say what she wanted. After what she'd been through, what she was realizing, Katrine had just let her, feeling her heart sink with every word.

It was about you and what you wanted and not even imagining that others might want something different. Her eyes narrowed suddenly. Something inside her snapped at that, heart racing inside her chest, threatening to escape. "Because I have no right to want?" Katrine suddenly returned as Pebble was already touching the doors. "It doesn't matter what I want, does it? You had a choice," Her voice dropped to whisper as she watched the back of the girl she loved and suddenly convinced that she wasn't just angry. She screamed and punched at the doors, shattering it. Katrine shuddered to the sound. I release myself of you, Katrine Van-Derveld Hawk. I am no longer your Ward. I am no longer your sister. I am no longer any kind of your family. I am no longer part of the Mandragora. The words burned at her skin like no spell could have. Katrine began to shake. The burning was cold at her skin, skin feeling like it was cracking. Sapphire gaze watched at the girl, and in a moment, it had ripped at her. In her mind, an image flashed. She remembered the very last time she'd seen her sister. She remembered the last time she had seen Seren. She remembered the last smile on her Mother's face before she'd woken the next morning find she'd gone. And then Pebble flashed in her mind, the way she had looked as she'd become human for the first time. She shook further and the voice from the girl became distant. She'd said something about the claming, about grandchildren but Katrine didn't hear it right. I will kill you, the last of the words had been clear enough.

She was wrong, she was completely wrong. Katrine didn't collect, Katrine watched as one by one deserted her. They all claimed to love and they left her. Chloe had abandoned her, her Mother had abandoned her, Avarisa had almost killed her soul, Mother had disappeared. Ram and Seren she had left behind. And here she had stood, waiting to know if the boy she loved would choose her. Only to find it wasn't really about that at all. It was about the sister that didn't love her at all. The sister she'd taken in and loved without needing to, accepted into her heart without realizing. It was never about Gerwald at all. It was about Scherezade, who had never been her Pebble, not really. She was someone she didn't know at all.

There it was again, the pain. It was stronger, sharper, her fingers clawing at her chest, trying to rip the pain off her. Her eyes closed as more tears threatened. And when she couldn't, Katrine screamed. It started weakly but as all her pain poured into it, she'd tapped into the Force and screamed louder, stronger, forcing all her anger to wash into it. Her ears hurt almost immediately from the sound. And Katrine fell to the ground.

Pebble was wrong, she was the one everyone left behind.

Couldn't put me back together again​

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

Gerwald did not understand why Scherezade was so angry with Katrine in this moment.

"It's not her fault," he attempted to say over her, but it did nothing to stop her from continuing with her rampage. This was not like the Scherezade he knew, and yet it was exactly like her. It was impulsive, in the moment, raw, and passionate. She felt deeply, Gerwald knew that. He just would have never seen this as anything Katrine could be blamed for. Katrine had not gone out of her way to try and steal him from her. Katrine had not even known that Gerwald was involved with Scherezade when the offer was made. That was when he should have said everything. He should have told Katrine about his involvement with her ward, the feelings that had been developing. Gerwald should have told Scherezade that Katrine had confessed feelings and a desire for him, and that he knew he wanted the same.

This was all his fault, and Katrine was the one being punished for it.

NO!

This was not right! This was not Scherezade!

The words simply kept pouring from her mouth, and Gerwald knew where it was going. With each word that passed he knew that Scherezade was going to say something that she would regret later. It was not something he wanted her to say. He wanted to stop her, but Katrine did not try, she just let her yell. How could Gerwald stop it if this was what she needed to heal.

Healing was not where her words were headed, and that's when the words came that Gerwald knew would be hard to take back.

"I release myself of you, Katrine Van-Derveld Hawk. I am no longer your Ward. I am no longer your sister. I am no longer any kind of your family. I am no longer part of the Mandragora."

Gerwald had seen it in her, the tendency to rush toward trouble when she was upset, or hurt. She was impulsive, and under the influence of whatever she saw in the darkness, and Gerwald knew his news only fed into that. Katrine had been right. This was something that should have waited until she was calm, more stable. Instead Gerwald had to rush to the truth. Now the damage had been done. He had told Katrine she could not lose Scherezade, not even for him, and yet here the were.

"If either of you approach me outside of a mission, I will kill you."

She could not have meant that. This had to be fixed, and clearly Katrine was not in an emotional state to go after her. Gerwald shifted, but then it hit his ears.

That sound, that scream. The pitch tore through his ear drums. Hands pressed to his ears trying to make the pain go away. Everything on the inside of his head began to burn with the sharp wave of pain that throbbed back and forth, pulsating across his head. Gerwald was disoriented for a time, and he knew, he new it was the scream. He had to get Katrine to stop. If she did not it would harm them both, maybe even kill them.

Gerwald rushed to her. He didn't know how to get her to stop. His hands came away from his ears and his arms went around her. They were massive, but gentle. He tried getting Katrine to look at him, all the while knowing that Scherezade was leaving. She couldn't have meant it, could she? Had this been Scherezade all along, or was this who Gerwald had made her with his betrayal? Was it the darkness?

"KATRINE! STOP!!!"

Ger shouted, but wasn't sure it worked. He pulled her into him even more, trying to get her to use his body to muffle the sound so their ears would not begin to bleed. Neither of them could run after Scherezade if she did not stop screaming, and one of them had to. Katrine had to.

"GO! Go after her!!!"

Gerwald could not have possibly known what those words could mean to Katrine. He did not know about her travels from the future to save a sister he did not know. Gerwald only knew that this could not be how things were left. It could not be. If only he was in tune with the spirits... with this Jart to know what he should do. Gerwald was deaf to the spirits, and if his attempts to stop Katrine did not work, he would be deaf to the world.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Because she's weak.

She was walking. She wasn't running. She wanted to run but she couldn't. Not after what she had just done. She knew, she knew what she'd just done. There was burning bridges and there was using ugly explosives. She'd pulled out every little tiny weak spot she knew Katrine had and she smashed against each and every one of them. And Gerwald... He would never want to speak to her again.

You are nothing.

But why would any of them speak to her even without it? More importantly, why would she want them to speak to her at all? She'd been in that bed for a week, they swore on it. A week. A single week, and during that time they had loved each other, chosen each other, claimed each other. While she was in that bed. While she was fighting, first for her life, and then to make it out of the Darkness.

Choosing, claiming, love...

Scherezade let a scream of frustration out, pausing her walk to punch the wall, breaking it. The metal cracked and twisted and new wounds were on her hand, but it didn't help. It didn't soothe her.

Everyone was in on it...

And then she heard it. Katrine was Force screaming. The walls of the entire ship shook as a result of it. A part of her wanted to run back, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to beg her to take her back, to never leave her again, to say that she hadn't meant a single word of it, that she did love her, even if she didn't know what a sisterly love was because she had nothing to compare it to. But she shut that part up fast. No. She didn't want to run back. She didn't want to beg anyone to want her, to accept her. She had done more than enough of that for a lifetime, after tonight. The other part of her was happy, happy that Katrine was in pain, that for the first time since she had come out of the pebble, there was something that the two shared, that heart ripping pain that could make someone scream like that. A look of concern on her face made way for a maniacal grin. Let Katrine suffer. Let her know what it was like to have everything you thought you had be taken away from you. Katrine had everything. She had family, she had friends, she had Gerwald's love. She'd even had Scherezade's love, though Scherezade had never actually told her that or even hinted at it. She held a place of position, she had respect from those around her. She had everything. A tiny bit of pain would not hold her back, would not undo her. Gerwald would still want Katrine after she recovered, she would still be the Nightmother, she would still have the rest of her family. What was one former Ward compared to any of that.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

Scherezade grabbed her head, trying to cover her ears. She had to leave. She had to put more distance between her and them. She had wished them a happy life together and now she had to leave them to that life, that life that she was not going to have any part of. Her heart still beat in pain as the word that had been said out loud since she opened her eyes ran through her mind, again and again and again. The tears were still leaking from her eyes, and it didn't matter that she wanted them to stop. What she wanted never mattered. What she wanted she could never have. What she wanted was... No. She had to stop herself from letting her thoughts go there again. It would do her no good, to repeat what she wanted. Because what she wanted wasn't shared by anyone. She was truly alone and that was not going to change. She had thought she had been changing it, baby step by baby step, but she'd been wrong. Not everyone was meant for love, for being wanted, for... No.

There is nothing for you outside of the Darkness.

Bare feet stepped out of the ship. Only now did she realize just how big it was. She had expected light outside, but it was only dark, though nowhere near as dark as the Darkness. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was standing. Coruscant's skyline gleamed, but Coruscant was a big place, and she didn't know each and every part of it. Her insides still burned, still wanted to make others burn. Katrine's pain had not satiated her desire, her need, for death, for destruction, for despair. She wanted to hurt everyone. She wanted to break every person she'd ever met. And it still would not be enough. It would never be enough.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

Scherezade blinked, looking at the sky. There were no stars to decorate it on Coruscant. But there were more than enough lights. And this was Coruscant. Scherezade put one leg in front of the other and resumed her walk. She knew how to walk. Walking was easy. Sooner or later, she'd find something to help her locate herself, and then she would make her way to... To her ship. Where her sheets still held a faint smell of Gerwald, because she had not wanted to change them for fear of not having the chance to have him leave his scent on new ones. To her ship, where that special coffee that Gerwald had liked so much was waiting in the kitchen, because she had imagined many more mornings of him being there to drink it. To her ship, which was mostly clean now, because Gerwald had done it after the events on Orcus. To her ship, where they had... No, she had to stop thinking about that. She had to stop thinking about that before it drove her crazy.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

She had done the right thing. Pain or not, regret or not. She had done the right thing for the three of them. Katrine and Gerwald had stood above her while she lay dying and they had chosen, they had loved, they had claimed. There was no way to undo it, any of it. There was no place for her in there. There was no place for her anywhere. She had lashed out and completed their choices for them, separating herself brutally from it all. She would not have been happy there, between the two of them, loving each other, building their lives together. She was too weak for that to be an option. She could have dealt with it if they had just waited, if they just would have given her more time. It was their own fault anyway. But it didn't matter. Fault or not. There was no place for her with them like that. They betrayed her. She was not even supposed to want to be near either of them, never again. She wasn't supposed to want Katrine to still loo at her, to still teach her and train her. She wasn't supposed to still want Gerwald to hold her and cover her with his scent and kiss her.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

Scherezade let another scream out. She was thinking. She was thinking too much. The Darkness had taught her that thinking was bad, that everything was better when she knew how not to think, knew how to make her heart stop beating. But the thoughts kept coming, and her heart refused to stop. She couldn't control it. There was nowhere for her to go now. Ryloth was Mandragora territory. Coruscant was forever contaminated by the events that had occurred on it. She was too weak to go home to Endelaan. There was nothing, there was nowhere for her to go. Perhaps the best thing to do was load her ship with months worth of food and nourishment and let it float in space somewhere. And before that... Before that she had to buy copious amounts of bleach. She had to burn the bed sheets, burn the towels, wipe off every fingerprint left by her and Gerwald's bodies. Remove any trace that he had ever been in her life, that he had ever been around, that she had ever been so happy when he was around. From Katrine, she only had one thing to throw into that pyre, the pink dress she had given her the night they met, when Scherezade had no clothes save for a flimsy white sheet that covered her. She had kept the pink dress because of the memories that came with it, even though she had never worn it a second time. It would burn along everything else.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

And then there was that whole issue of the Mandragora. She had left. She knew Jart was tying to break through, because she could feel it. But she kept shutting him down, ignoring him, willing herself not to accept any notion that he tried to bring through. Writing a spell would take too much time. She didn't have that time, even though she had nothing left to do. There were other ways though. Ways that would take less time. All she needed was a good knife. The mark had been harmed before, and it had broken the connection. Scherezade laughed as she pictured it; she would find her ship, she would grab her knives, she would remove the flesh that contained the mark, an she would send the bits of flesh back to the Nightmother. Drive it in further. Leave no bridge un-burned, leave no corner she could come back from. If she was nothing, if she was truly nothing, she would embrace it. She would embrace the Darkness. Katrine and Gerwald had claimed each other. The Darkness had claimed her. There was no reason to keep herself from claiming the Darkness. The Darkness had been the only thing in her life that had not lied to her, had not betrayed her, but merely held up a mirror to what she was. And she was nothing. There was nothing for her to be.

You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it.

She wanted to hurt them both again. She wanted them to feel the pain that she was feeling, that she was unable to shut out. What she had done, the stabs she had sent with her words to Katrine, sending Katrine her marked flesh, it wasn't enough. She had to make Gerwald hurt too for his lies, for his betrayal, for the choices he made and acted on while she was in the Darkness. She could not fault Katrine alone. They had chosen together, loved together, claimed together. They both did it. They were both guilty. They were both the villains in Scherezade's story. Not Kamon. Kamon was a comfortable excuse to use. And while she had lashed out at Katrine, she had left Gerwald alone, telling him there were no debts between them. Foolish, foolish thing to do. But what could she do? How could she hurt him, make him understand what he had done to her? She had to think. She had to gather her thoughts and think.

You will have none when you leave it.

She didn't know where she was. Scherezade folded into a crouch, close to the ground, and hugged her knees. One moment, the injured animal sounds escaped her throat, only to turn into laughter the next moment. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't control it. She was too weak. She would remain here until morning and find her ship and do all the things she needed to do. There was nothing and there was no one for her anymore. All that was left to do was to accept the Darkness. The rest would follow.


[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

For a short time, it felt the screaming and pain were helping. They weren't. Not, really. It was temporary release, making her brain shut down and focus on the pain instead of what she'd just heard and realized it. Hands around her started, Gerwald's voice barely noticeable before she was pulled in tighter. For a moment, it hadn't done anything but her scream was dying out in the embrace, the pain was still intense even as her own voice lessened. It took a couple more seconds before she could hear again even with the pain. GO! Go after her!!! She had heard but her body had leaned into his instead. Not even because it was him but because she was losing balance. Defeated. Katrine felt defeated.

Her eyelids pressed tight through the pain she'd caused herself. "No. She's... I can't. She's wrong. Everyone leaves me. She's free to leave me same as the rest," Her shut eyes winced as she spoke, still fighting through the pain. Whereas there had always been instinct to go after, to get lost in the search even if there was no promise she would find what she needed, right now, she'd been kicked and gutted, the physical pain seemed so small in comparison to the way her soul burned. There is no freedom, Doashim had said. We release. No one else. Lylek followed.

She remained completely quiet. As did Jart for a time. "Let her go," she muttered at them, "if she doesn't want it, I release her, she said, her small hands reaching for the hands holding her. Her body still shook, still trembled. You had two people before you entered the Darkness. You will have none when you leave it. Jart suddenly spoke into her mind. The trembling stopped as her body froze and eyes opened. There is nothing for you outside of the Darkness. Katrine rushed back to the past, to the darkness that had held her, the darkness that hat corrupted her. Hers had a name. Pebble's was just the Darkness. In his words, he hadn't given his opinion at all and yet he had. Jart was neither angry nor was he determined to harm, far more attuned to what was happening with the girl.

Her body remained frozen as the words played out in her mind. Katrine wouldn't go after her, she didn't have the strength to keep following after those she loved. The pain she'd given her was worse, so much worse than what she'd been through this whole week. And yet, Jart was right in his words, right to remind her of what she should have known. What she had known before the pain had become unbearable. Releasing Gerwald's hands, her one outstretched forward. Jart reached for her, her hand taking his, feeling him pull her slightly forward she connected with him, using his connection to his chosen, to Pebble as she spoke out loud and into Pebble's mind. It began as Jart's voice as their voices merged together. "The Darkness is wrong. You still have someone. I love you. I'll always love you. When you want to come back, you'll always have a place here."

There was nothing else could say right now. It felt incredibly draining connecting to the spirit now. She didn't have the energy to get up and go after her, she was just there, not letting go of the girl she loved. Jart wasn't either. If she was choosing to leave, she could leave but Katrine couldn't just stop loving her even with what had been said. She wouldn't.

[member="Gerwald Lechner"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Aston Jacobs"]

 

[Aston Jacobs]

Aston sighed for a moment as he leaned back into the seat he was in and rubbed his hands on his face. This truly, had been the longest time of his entire life. The days seemed to drag on and on but when you were waiting for someone you love to come out of a coma of sorts. Time would seem to drag on a long time.

"I'm out, at least for a little bit." Aston smirked as they agreed to take a break as they'd been at it for an hour and half already. Which between the four of them playing they had some good runs. "We're gonna hit up the kitchen Aston, you gonna join us?" Just before he was going to answer he felt something touch his side and chuckled lightly before glancing back to them. "I'll catch up here in a bit."

Aston turned to face the wolf, who happened to be Katrine. Aston couldn't forget those eyes or anything about her. Aston re positioned himself so that he was actually now sitting on the ground and his hands raised up as he began to gently massage her in a comforting way before kissing the top of her head. I know you are going through a rough time, and I wish there was something I could do to fix that. Aston took a deep breath before he gently pulled the wolf closer to him and hugged her as best as he could. Speaking through the force as to give her some comfort.

Don't forget who you are, your the toughest person I know. And don't forget that I'm here, anything you need, you just have to ask. I love you Katrine, don't ever forget that.

*****

It wasn't long after as more days had gone by that Aston was actually resting comfortably in the guest quarters and it wasn't long before he was awoken by one of the crew members that Pebble had woken up and soon enough as he reached out he could feel the emotions that were running high, and he stayed sitting in the small bed as he closed his eyes and tried to get a fix on the situation. He wasn't going to dive into what was going on, this really wasn't his place but he felt he was here at least to be emotional support for Katrine.

Don't forget who you are Katrine...


[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"] [member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"No. She's... I can't. She's wrong. Everyone leaves me. She's free to leave me same as the rest..."

"Let her go if she doesn't want it, I release her..."

Gerwald could not believe what he was hearing. His heart was already wrung out of any emotion that he could possibly feel in the moment, at least he thought. When Katrine said to let her go, and that everyone leaves her, Gerwald felt his heart break one more time. It was clear she was in more pain than Gerwald could comprehend. He just knew that he had to make the pain stop for one of them. Scherezade would not want to see him, not now. Her words had it clear that forgiveness was not going to be an easy thing to achieve, and Gerwald wondered if it would ever be possible.

He sighed...

Katrine had used him to prop herself up. That much he knew in the moment. She was not returning his embrace. The nightmother, his white wolf was broken. The tear that had threatened to fall during the whole ordeal finally did fall. What was the use in holding them back now? Perhaps it was time to allow the pain he felt on the inside to be visible on the outside.

Gerwald cupped Katrine's face in his hands and gently brought her gaze to his. He didn't care that she was still puffy from her tears, her eyes were still the most beautiful shade of blue he had seen in his short lifetime. He had promised her honesty, but now it was time for another promise, one he had never made to anyone.

Ger bent and kissed the top of her forehead.

"I will never leave you, Katrine Van-Derveld. That is my choice. Even if everyone else does, I never will."

[member="Aston Jacobs"] [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] [member="Scherezade deWinter"]