She'd done a good job. Scherezade offered Cardinal a small smile. She had, hadn't she? Against all odds, kept her true identity a secret not once but twice; first with Madalena convincing people she was actually Madalena, and then as Scherezade, convincing people she was Madalena. On top of that, she had found the way to reach out and get help, get the things needed done so that the real Madalena could have her body. For the first time in her year and bit of life, Scherezade actually felt as though she had created something rather than destroyed it. And soon the time to destroy it all would arrive, she knew. The current situation would not last forever.
It was weeks later. Scherezade had spent those weeks going back and forth from Kamino, going on plethora of missions while pretending to be Madalena, while pretending that everything was fine and normal. It was
exhausting. And it made her terrified. Madalena would be back, and her time of pretending to be her was coming to an end. There would be no more respectful looks, no more pleasant smiles, no more any sort of care from those who surrounded her. By the end of the night, Madalena would be back, and then…
No. She couldn't think about that now. Scherezade knew she needed every bit of focus and power she could gather to herself, and thinking about the dark future that awaited her once the pretending was over would do her no good.
With close to no effort, she moved the four prisoners [member="Cardinal Vi'dreya"] had provided her with to the four corners of the room, each symbolizing a wind direction.
"Whatever you see, whatever happens," she said as she looked at Cardinal,
"stand beneath the doorframe, or outside. I'm going to use the prisoners as a protective ring while I do the thing, I can't vouch for your safety if you enter it."
Sighing, Scherezade looked at Madalena's body. It seemed to be sleeping, the only machines connected to it now simply ones to ensure she remained unconscious. A small white sheet covered her for some privacy, but that would soon be removed as well.
"First step is for me to manage to snatch Madalena's soul from the place between dimensions and bring it here," she said out loud, half to calm herself down and remind herself that she knew what to do, the other half to help relax Cardinal so he would know what would be happening.
"Without going to sleep, without using stims… I'm going to probably have to see if I can do an Astral Projection."
Then was the matter of the Transfer Essence. A darksider ability that was considered among the hardest to do, usually reserved for Sith Maters alone. Scherezade had never even been recognized as a Knight anywhere. But she would do with what she had. She was a Sith, even if others questioned that. She was a Blood Hound and matters of blood and sometimes life were in her hands. And she was the scion of three powerful bloodlines, which were all one of the sources of her strength. Her personality would not be a problem once the ritual began – her personality would not matter. All that mattered was success.
Quietly, Scherezade placed a glass jar near Madalena's head.
"This is where I will put her soul," she said quietly,
"and then transfer it into the body."
Almost, she
almost asked Cardinal if he had any questions. But no. Any question at that point would deter her from trying, would cause her to believe she had to rethink and push this away by weeks more. So there would be no more questions.
"Go to the door and turn around," she said, closing her eyes,
"I'm going to remove the covering from her. She gets to choose when you see her naked for the first time. Not me, not you."
As soon as he was turned, Scherezade removed the sheet, and now she was glad that Cardinal was not looking, because the next thing she did was lay directly next to her soon to be sister's body and close her eyes. This was the body, this was the vessel, this was what they had been working on so hard and for so many weeks.
Scherezade
sang softly. There was no meaning to her song, no words that could be discerned in Basic or any other language that she knew of. But it was an old song, so ancient that none lived who remembered it, aside for those who had come from Endelaan. It was a lullaby sung in the language they spoke before the Ancient Sith had come to the planet, before Basic had even existed. It was a song that mothers sang to their children, siblings to each other, and loved ones one to another. It was a song of love, a song of dedication, a song that would never be heard by those who did not matter.
And right now, it was a song for the both of them – for Scherezade and Madalena.
She sang it twice, from start to end, humming the musical parts, before she began to gather the Force around her.
Caridnal would be able to feel it beneath his skin. What begun as just a gathering of power now became something much, much deeper. Scherezade's singing and humming resumed, ever becoming stronger, the power continuing to gather.
And then Scherezade opened her eyes, and a familiar scene extended before her. The waters of the sea breaking at the beach were a near black, their foam a fine white. The skies above them were a pale gray, managing to be both bright and glum at the same time. The sand between her toes was a gray as well, but a dark one, coarse and uncomfortable. The place between dimensions; or rather, how her brain translated it in a way that her human mind could understand what she was seeing. The sea, the sky the sand, none of it was real. Yet the big contrast compared to when Scherezade was there, was that now there was no Darkness in the sky; wherever she looked, there were no clouds of Nothing coming to make their way to try to grab either of the Endelaan Princesses.
"Is it time?" Madalena asked, her own glowing green eyes looking at her ever so slightly sister.
"I hope so," Scherezade answered. The two looked at each other.
"You're scared," Madalena laughed,
"I've been dreaming of this moment for so long, but I was sure that I'd be the one who was scared. Why are you scared, Scherezade?"
"Because I might screw it up. Because there's a body waiting for you, and it looks just like you look now, but I might still do the wrong thing because I've been doing the wrong things every step of the way since I came out of that dumb pebble. Because everything has gone so smoothly so far, but it's still me, and I cause clustercracks, and if nothing's gone wrong so far, it has to go wrong now that we're ready to finish it. And because if everything goes fine now, it'll just boomerang later. There is always a price to pay, and I'm always the one to pay it."
Madalena nodded. Her sister had always been scared. When Scherezade returned from this very place, Madalena had a glimpse into her mind, into her memories. No, not everything. But enough.
Closing the distance between them, Madalena wrapped her arms around Scherezade, holding her closely.
"You are not going to fail with the ritual. You are going to take me out of this place, and put me in my new body, and you will guide me as I learn to use it. You have taken the wrong step every step of the way besides the one with which you summoned me. You saved my life, and we will be sisters. Properly, this time. No betraying, no heart breaking. And when whatever it is you think will come to claim the price, I will be there with you, and we will fight it together."
When Scherezade raised her head from Madalena's shoulder, her face was wet with tears. She tried to speak, but no words would come out of her throat now, so there was little she could do other than miserably nod. There really was no choice anymore at that point. Nothing they could do but power through.
Her hand came up from Madalena's side and she closed her eyes. The two remained there, standing quiet. Later, Scherezade would try to understand how Madalena knew what to do, how to move. Now… Not was just the time to do it. Her hand came forward, against Madalena's left breath, and went
through it, her fingers wrapping around the heart that beat bloody and warm.
When Scherezade pulled her hand back, Madalena's heart was in it, intact, beating at a lazy pace. She looked up at her sister, and Madalena was smiling.
The beach around the two began to disappear. Scherezade heard the singing before it vanished entirely, though she couldn't feel her own mouth move. Slowly, the sky turned from a bright gray into a pitch black, and with it disappeared the water and the sand. Still the song continued, went on, the humming dipping above and below.
It was not until she opened her eyes,
hours later, that the singing stopped. Scherezade sat up and looked wildly around, trying to remember where she was, what she was doing. The jar… She picked the jar up, inspecting it. She'd always expected a soul to be like a shining orb, or like water, but to the naked eye, the jar seemed just empty. If it was not for the Force, she would not know that a soul was actually in there.
Madalena's soul.
"First part complete," she said, out of breath, not really looking at Cardinal or checking to see if he was there. If he'd say but the smallest word, she might lose what she had gathered.
The Force was so
tangible in the chamber, and Scherezade felt as though she was swimming it. But she had to get off that table, had to distance between herself and Madalena. The jar was returned to its place and Scherezade looked at the prisoners gathered. Snapping her fingers, the one who was standing in the Northern part of the room opened his eyes. The anger in them was immediate.
Perfect.
Scherezade reached forward with her hand, never even touching him. The prisoner's face began to dry out almost instantly, the effect of what she was doing to the rest of his body unseen because of the clothes he wore. A gurgled sound escaped from his throat, but where there was no moisture, there would be no actual sound, and within moments he dropped to the ground, his body looking like an overdry raising.
The Sithling licked her lips. That was so much better.
"Life pays for life," she said out loud, and her voice sounded nothing like her own; it had taken a deep dark hue to it, as though it was coming from the very depths of her stomach, sounding deeper yet more confident, as though the terrified girl that had been there until hours ago had disappeared entirely.
Turning to the South, Scherezade repeated the same action, and now the prisoner dropped even faster, though he had managed to get a scream out.
"I take life, and I give it," Scherezade said with the very same voice, turning then to the remaining two. They were both permitted to awaken together.
"Death fears touchig me or mine," she said, and they both came down to their knees. It was not their lives she wanted, not by performing the Drain. No. There were better ways, other ways.
Both prisoners began to scream as the blood came down from their noses. The room itself became darker, the light bulbs exploding one by one.
"I am the Blood Hound, and the blood is mine," Scherezade growled, the thickness of the Force and the darkside increasing within the room. The prisoners continued to scream as blood became to come from their mouths, their ears, their eyes. There would be no escape for them.
"Through the blood I gain power. Through the blood I gain strength," Scherezade continued,
"I am Scherezade deWinter, Princess of Endelaan, daughter to Queen Nessarose deWinter and King Diomedes Antares. I am the only female to come of my mother's womb. I am the Blood Hound. I am the Pebble, the Loving One, the Broken One, the Not-Dead One. I am the blood and the blood is mine and by the blood mine is the power and strength to take life…" the prisoners gave their final screams as the blood exited their bodies; no longer in streams from their holes but now pulled through their very skin, forming first growing and welting bruises before at last the splash made it through, covering both Scherezade and Madalena in blood that did not belong to them,
"and mine is the power to give life," Scherezade whispered.
Grabbing the jar, Scherezade threw it with all her strength against the floor, seeing it shatter into thousands of pieces. She could feel her own legs bleeding from the pieces of glass that got wedged into her flesh, but she paid it no mind. Madalena's soul was free. It was not supposed to be free.
"I bind you, Madalena," Scherezade screamed,
"I bind you to this body. I bind you to this empty vessel that had been grown specifically for you. I bind you not by your own will but by mine. Enter the vessel and LIVE!"
If moments ago the room had been pitch black, there were no words to describe the darkness that took it over now. It was a darkness deeper than black, a nothingness that reached as far as one's hand would be allowed to go forth. If [member="Cardinal Vi'dreya"] turned around now, he would see
nothing, he would feel
nothing, and he would know
nothing or what was happening in there.
But to Scherezade and Madalena, there was no nothing. Madalena's soul struggled, trying to grasp the freedom it had been given, trying to run away back to the space between dimensions, trying to do anything but get into the body that had been created for it. Scherezade screamed and reached out, demanding her sister's soul to return to her, but it was beyond her grasp. She could see the Darkness coming, the Darkness trying to eat at it, take her sister away, take her promise for the smallest shred of family love away from her.
Scherezade screamed again and took a step towards it, her bare feet landing on crushed glass, her own blood now definitely joining the mixture of the mess that was on the ground. This was it. This was where everything was going wrong. This was where she would lose her sister, her body, everything. Tears formed in her eyes and she screamed again, trying to reach for the soul that just kept fading and fading away.
Time no longer existed. Scherezade was running now, chasing after the soul, trying to save the newest clustercrack she had caused. She couldn't let it go. If Madalena was leaving, so was she. Into the void, into the Darkness, into the only place that she had ever truly known. She couldn't leave Madalena to face the Darkness alone, not after all that had happened.
The soul she was chasing had hit a wall. It tried to hit into the wall time and time again, but it did not help. The soul had nowhere to advance to, and Scherezade was gaining on it. Still it remained slippery as an eel, unwilling to do her bidding.
"Madalena…" Scherezade whispered. She couldn't understand, did not comprehend, why it was running, where it was running to, what had gone so wrong.
Scherezade stopped. She couldn't. She just couldn't. She had once again reached for powers beyond her understanding, had ruined everything. With her bare hands she had killed her own sister, could not grasp at her to bring her back. Her knees folded and she wrapped her arms around her legs. Madalena's soul was so close, yet she could not touch it, could do nothing with or to it.
The sobs that came from her sounded like nothing human. They were the sounds of a wounded animal, almost knowing it was dying, that there was no way to save matters. It was the sound of breakage, the very same sound she had made that terrible night when she had come out of the Darkness after years of torture. The knowledge that once again she had been close to something good only for it to be entirely ruined by her own doing.
The same would happen. She would leave this place and be alone again. Cardinal would be furious with her. The Exarchs would vote to have her executed. She would survive, somehow, but she would be a broken mess, unable to function outside of a battlefield, unable to love or be loved, unwanted everywhere she went. She would continue to pay the price for everybody else's happiness while continuing to lose
everything.
There were no words that could properly describe the anguish and the pain.
A hand was upon her shoulder.
Scherezade jumped up, looking, confused. Green eyes peered down at her, eyes that were just like hers, glowing with ferocity, but… But there was a smile in them. Slowly, Scherezade allowed her gaze to travel outside of the eyes, look at the head they were in, see the shape of the bones, the long dark hair, that… That smile. And that
smell.
"M... Mom?"
[member="Nessarose deWinter"] smiled and nodded, pressing a finger to her lips to shush her sweetling, her only daughter at this point. She leaned forward and placed a kiss on the top of Scherezade's head before extending her other arm, calling Madalena's soul back to them. Ever so gently, Nessarose placed the sold in Scherezade's arms.
"She is my daughter too," Nessarose whispered, caressing Scherezade's cheek in a way that only a mother could.
"I love you. And tell your sister I love her too. I am doing everything I can't come back… But it may be years before it happens. Never forget who you are, Scherezade. You have so much of your father in you… And it nearly destroyed him as well. I wish I could make you comprehend what is within you without you needing to waste years figuring it out. But remember… You are my daughter. You are not the pebble. You are a Princess of Endelaan. Now go back and bring your sister to life. I love you. I will always love you."
There was no time to even blink. Scherezade was back in the pitch black room, and Madalena's naked body was in front of her. Moving quickly, she slammed the soul into her chest, her screaming renewing itself. Again and again she slammed, screaming all the while. Scherezade saw red, saw blood red everywhere she looked at, and she continued, beating Madalena's body, trying to shove the soul into it. Her screaming became louder and louder until she could hear nothing else, until there
was nothing else.
And then everything went dark.
