Private Cloud Nine, Screaming Red Swirling Inside

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Bespin.
​

Pit stopping in a cluttered hanger, the teenager exited her ship. Loud equipment, swirling machinery, many species of aliens dashing around... As many different people and creatures all messed around with their own ships, Gwyneira Craft looked around the hanger. A busy, clustering hanger with barrels of equipment and darting droids. This... this felt like home. Overcome with homesickness and feelings of bitterness, the girl scowled and pulled her headphones over her head. She pulled her datapad out and picked her favorite metal playlist. As screaming vocalists and gritty guitars blasted way louder than what was safe for the ears, she turned and attended to her maintenance. Happily isolating within her own head, she put her engineering skills to good use. The ship she currently maintained, the Mercury Class Star Courier, was a nimble and fast ship. Still, she did her routine check ups, refueled, and made sure her baby was in good shape. She also decided to pull out spray paint and graffitied stuff like Down With the Sith Empire and This War is Karabast on the ship's underbelly. The entire time, her radio serenaded rage into her ears that vibrated with her heart strings, soothing her.

Eventually, she was in the process of cleaning up. Surrounded by mechanical tools and covered by her ship's wing, she felt it again. That cry. Once in a while, she felt strange feelings of what felt like rage and agony clouding her mind. What was this? Sure, she felt these things herself all the time. Yet, this was something coming from the outside. She pulled her headphones down, still hearing the music loud and clear even in the booming hanger. She looked around, then finally looked down to her waistline. She reached inside her pouch and pulled out a lightsaber.

The lightsaber was not her own. She had taken it from a Sith Acolyte on her homeworld after killing him in self defense. Since then, this lighrsaber seemed to be trying to communicate to her from time to time. Strange. Weapons were not sentient. Weapons were inanimate, like her ship! Why then did this thing give off waves of pure suffering? She sat there, mellow and down trodden. As if her own misery was difficult enough...

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

In the hangar next to the Mercury Courier was the Vixen, an unusual corvette. Star-shaped and constructed entirely from a hard crystalline material that gave off a weird energy, it stood out like a sore thumb among the rougher and more industrial starships parked around it.

Ishani descended the glassy loading ramp, looking just as out-of-place as the ship. She wore a plain black gown with high collar, a skirt that reached to her ankles and sleeves that went just past her wrists, and a white veil that covered her head. In her hands she clutched a datapad. Her face was down, her gaze focused on the screen as she walked.

Her route took her past someone who was blaring very loud, very angry-sounding music. Pausing, she looked up to find the source of all the noise. A teenage girl sat on a crate, clutching a lightsaber hilt.

More than that, a hilt that Ishani recognized. It had belonged to a Sith Acolyte back at the academy on Korriban. But this girl was not that acolyte.

“Excuse me,” Ishani spoke, her green eyes widening as she pointed to the hilt. “Where did you get that?”

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyn gasped, looking up and startling at some stranger standing over her. As a deep growling and bass heavy breakdown blared through her headphones, she looked up to a veiled, rather calm looking woman. Still, there was a sense of... accusation. She did not like that. Her pupiless eyes narrowed and she clenched the lightsaber closer to her chest. Feeling the pain pulsing from the lightsaber, she clenched her teeth. Of course, this scared and alone teenager was bound to be snippy, "And how is that any of your business?"

Still, her heart pounding in her chest made her rethink. What if this woman would threaten her further? What if simply answering the question would make her go away? She visibly gulped, a lump vibrating in her throat as she maintained a tight and frightened posture, defensive and ready to bolt if needed. She then whispered, admitting, "My homeworld was caught up in those stupid Jedi and Sith wars. An acolyte attacked me, I killed him and took this karabasting thing. Happy?"

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"And how is that any of your business?"

Ishani resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If this was what she had to look forward to when the twins became teenagers…

Before she could say anything, the girl had answered her question. “Well, that explains why I thought I recognized it,” Ishani remarked. “I used to know the person it belonged to. Doesn’t surprise me that they wound up dead.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How did you manage to kill a Sith?”

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyneira shuddered, remembering her flight through the lab. In grubby engineering clothes, filthy and bloodied from the battles. Chased and hunted, nothing to defend herself. She blinked, looking up to the woman.

"Wait, how did you know him? Can I trust you? Are you with them??"

She had rapidly slammed buttons, electrical sparks flying as she waited for him to enter the part of the floor with loose, cut wirings from the battles. Sparks flew as he approached, lightsaber in hand...

She raised her eyebrow at the woman, "If you want to know, he was karabasting chasing me through the underbelly of a ship yard."

The bright whites and blues surrounding them were only contrasted by the red glow of the lightsaber. He raised it as the girl gripped a lever and yanked it down.

"The karabasting invading dog got what was kriffing coming to him."

He fell, screaming in agony as he was bombarded with electrical currents. He dropped the lightsaber. he crimson blade deactivated as the lightsaber was tossed to her feet. She had not noticed, watching as the currents fried the Sith Acolyte until he stopped screaming and his body was motionless.

"I had to draw him into some falty wiring and turn the machine on. It worked. He got electrocuted like he electrocuted so many of my townsfolk." She spat onto the ground, gripping the lightsaber in her hand, "So I think I earned this."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“I used to be,” Ishani admitted with a shrug. “Not anymore. I was just a student. Never even saw combat.”

That was a bit of a lie. She had gone into battle, just not against Jedi, and certainly not to attack civilians. She had known people who did, however. The Sith whose lightsaber this girl had taken was one such butcher.

“That sounds like Bendik,” Ishani commented dryly after the girl finished her story. “I certainly don’t blame you for killing him. But you do realize anything owned by a Sith could be dangerous, right? And not in the ‘make sure you don’t impale yourself’ way. I’m talking dark magic and curses.”

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyn blinked, looking up at the calm, stable woman. She then reached for her datapad and turned the screamo music off. She looked down to her lightsaber and once again felt it. She felt waves of some kind of suffering emitting from this lightsaber. Yet, she was unsure as to what it was.
Perhaps, a former member of that wretched order could help.
"I'm Force Sensitive, though I've done next to nothing to figure out what that means. I don't want any Jedi or Sith to take me away..."
She held up the lightsaber for the woman to observe, "But I feel something in this lightsaber. It feels like there's something alive, but I sense some kind of constant agony coming from it. I really hate it, and I want it to stop. But that's stupid, weapons aren't alive! Are they? Is this some kind of evil Sith sorcery?"

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"I'm Force Sensitive, though I've done next to nothing to figure out what that means. I don't want any Jedi or Sith to take me away..."

“Well, you’re not a helpless child anymore, and you’re far from either Jedi or Sith space, so that’s unlikely,” Ishani said. However, the girl did seem to be in a pretty vulnerable state, living on her own, possibly on the run. Or maybe Ishani was just underestimating her.

As the girl started ranting about the lightsaber, Ishani peered at the weapon, looking with the Force rather than just her eyes. “Uhhhh… well, yeah. Probably because there’s something wrong with the focusing crystal inside the hilt.”

She pointed to the lightsaber. “Kyber crystals don’t naturally come in a red color. To make them red, Sith ‘bleed’ them, which involves imposing their will on a living organism, putting it in constant pain just for the aesthetic.”

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

What...
She looked down to the weapon in her hand. She had always thought lightsabers were inanimate tools of the Force users. Yet, now she knew the truth. Every lightsaber she saw, every red glow... There was active suffering going on in there. To think, this entire time she held one of those crystals. Those victims. She felt sick, looking down at the item. How had she been so blind? This organism was screaming to her, begging for relief. Day in and day out. No rest, only suffering.
She pulled her hand up and placed it over her mouth in a responsive gag reflex. She now had even more reason to despise the Sith now. What cruel monsters could do such a thing! She looked up to the woman, the Force user, with tears dotting the edges of her irisless eyes. "How do I make it stop?"

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“By cleansing it,” Ishani replied. “I don’t know how to do that, but a Jedi or other Light Side practitioner might.”

All Ishani could do was disrupt the crystal’s Force connection, which wouldn’t solve the problem. She would’ve done more to help if she could, but this was outside her area of expertise.

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyn frowned, feeling terrible. She was unable to help? Moreso, she needed a light side user to help her? She shuddered. The Jedi and Sith were all the same. They fought each other in an endless, relentless war with too many casualties. Still, sympathy that had pushed her to nausea swirled inside. She looked down to the crystal and whispered,
" I don't know if you can understand me, but hang on a little longer. I will try to find help for you." Somehow...

She looked up to the woman and asked, " Where do I find one? I don't want to become some karabasting Jedi, but I need to help this crystal."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Well, you could go straight to the source. There’s the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Silver Rest on Kashyyyk, the Jedi Enclave on Jakku…” She listed off the three most well-known locations, then shrugged. “Jedi can usually be found anywhere there’s trouble afoot. And they won’t force you to join them—they don’t work that way.

“Other than that, I dunno. I’m a Chaldean Mystic. We’re not part of either side, so I don’t know that many Jedi personally. Except… well, there is Caedyn Arenais . If not him, there’s a guy on Coruscant named Dagon Kaze . If he can’t help, he could probably put you in touch with someone who can. Oh, and Aaran Tafo , although we’re not on good terms. I tried to kill him once.”

Turns out Ishani, a former Jedi Padawan, knew a grand total of three Jedi by name. Not very helpful. Well, if she had to go with the girl to resolve this crystal business, she would.

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyn nodded, but was dazed by all these sudden names and locations. She blinked, trying to break everything into reasonably sized chunks and breaking everything down. She did not, absolutely did not, want to go near Jedi headquarters or bases. That was out of the picture. Yet, the names given offered a light of hope.

"By chance," She asked, "Would you know where any of these light siders are? I don't want to go to any place swarming with Jedi..."

Ishani Dinn

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“I suppose you could go straight to their house or ship, assuming they don’t live in a Jedi temple/enclave/nest, or whatever.”

Yeah, it was starting to sound like she’d have to supervise this a lot more than just giving the girl a few names and sending her on her way.

“I know how to contact Caedyn and Dag,” she said. “I could arrange a meeting in a public location, or act as a mediator between you and them, if you’re really that scared that they’ll try to make you become a Jedi.”

It occurred to her that they hadn’t even properly introduced themselves to each other yet. “My name is Ishani Sibwarra. What’s yours?”

Gwyneira Vizsla​

 

[Gwyneira Vizsla]

Gwyn blinked up, placing her lightsaber on her belt. Was this woman really that dumb? Thinking she was only scared of Jedi for taking her away and brainwashing her? No. No, it was way more. She saw their warriors, she watched the war. Those stupid, pointless battles between Sith and Jedi that she had been caught in between on. She was scared of Jedi. She was scared of their power, their energy, their control, and the wars they waged. She sighed, having to calm herself down. Sure, this woman was demeaning to her, but she was offering to help. She closed her eyes and stood up, swiping her datapad and sticking it into her coat pocket.

"I'm Gwyneira Craft. And I would appreciate the connecting to Caedyn or Dag. Thanks, Ishani Dinn ."