Hello From the Other Side

[Vereshin]

Eternity - Annwn​

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The Universe slept around Vereshin, who fought against the force binding him to its face. The space he occupied stretched, pulled by the sheer mass of his Force output, until it crushed him under the weight of the matter he had used to collapse himself. Beneath the gravity, he reached out, fighting against the prison and determined to get the better of the matter which had eaten him. At the end of the darkness, he saw a light, not as bright as a star, but bright enough for him to reach out and touch it. Bringing the entire resolute of his Force output to him, he wrenched himself in the direction of the light, which guided him out from beneath the canvass of space.

"Body of infinite darkness, reverse!" His voice echoed through the walls of the hole, billowing off the space around it like a gravitational wave. He telekinetically grabbed the space on the other side and pulled it outward.

"Expel me now!" He said, pulling the inside 0f the black hole with vigor. With an almighty thrust, the other side collapsed inward, shooting Vereshin out. The force released a wave which rippled through space, met by the gleaming light of the star on a nearby planet, where he was ejected and transported into the atmosphere. Suddenly, the darkness was gone, replaced by a white sky and the wash of the sea against his cheeks.

Vereshin could not remember the fall, only the ocean as it swept him up and the lightning which split the clouds. The matter had been released and finally, he could breathe. No force held him down, only the local gravity on the world where he had landed, he could move his arms freely and allowed the waves to carry him to the shore. Like waking from a long sleep, Vereshin sprawled in the water, floating idly as the waves met the sand, washing him up onto the shore. His vision blurred, disallowing him to see what lay before him as the people on the boardwalk came into view.

Thrashing halfheartedly, he tried to make them out, but quickly gave up trying to swim and surrendered to the ocean. The waves crashed onto the sand, bringing him to the shore with their gentle lull. He blinked, slowly regaining his vision and grabbed the sand, then crawled forward, all the while trying to piece together exactly where he was. Lightning coursed through the sky above, threatening the onset of a storm, most likely as the result of a local black hole being pulled inside out, Vereshin thought. He still wore his black coat and his scarf hung over his shoulders, the buttons on his knitted vest having been torn off.

From between the slits of his eye, Vereshin saw a woman approach him and for a moment, swallowed a pang of dread when he thought it might have been [member="Leira Rhys"]. That could not be, as he had left her behind in the future, their bond in the Force having never been established. When his vision cleared, Vereshin could see that he was indeed looking at a different woman and sighed with relief. Freezing and soaked, he tried to stand, but keeled over in the sand. The water splashed beneath him as he planted his hands directly into the bay, struggling to find the strength to pull himself up.

Groggily, Vereshin managed to raise his head and looked up at the woman, his face covered by wispy, black stubble.

"What year is it?" Vereshin asked, first and foremost wishing to know if he had succeeded in travelling through time. When he had tried to use the force of the black hole to pull Leira and himself apart, she had narrowly escaped and steered his ship right into it. Now, he knelt on the shore of the present, relieved of the young woman who had vexed him so many times.

Before the woman could respond, Vereshin tried to stand again, but fell face first into the sand. His arms and legs felt weak and gave out from beneath him, robbing him of his ability to walk. Slowly, he crawled up the beach and looked up at the woman again, his black hair falling around the sides of his face.

[member="Madalena Antares"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

Location: Beach on Scarif
Tags: [member="Vereshin"]

The beach. Standing there, the sun caressing her face, Madalena stared at the waves as they lazily came forward, breaking against her sand, their foam disappearing by the time the water spooled around her ankles.

She used to be afraid of the water. Terrified of being swallowed up and drowning, because she'd never learned how to swim. The fake memories instilled in her mind by her sister had decreed that she'd spent her entire life on Coruscant, and so an opportunity to learn how to swim had never presented itself. Not until she met Cardinal, and he taught her how. That had removed her fear of the water, and for a precious few weeks, she thought she loved it.

Only she had not. Her nightmares that plagued her when she walked in her previous body were almost always on the beach. It had been a dark beach, its colors entirely in shades of gray, cold and uninviting, and the other woman who had been standing there had always caused her to wake up screaming. She had not known at the time, that the other woman had been her sister, the original inhabitant of her body, trying to warn her to stay away from the Darkness, and that the beach was how her and most people's brains interpreted the visual aspect of the Space Between Dimensions.

And then when Scherezade returned to her body, Madalena had been temporarily placed on that grey beach, alone for months that stretched seemingly into years of gray and cold and sand.

But this beach was different. There were beautiful colors here. The sky was a lovely shade of blue, the water was inviting, and yet there was something inside Madalena's core that kept her from actually walking into the water. Kept her from letting the waves carry her back and forth.

She'd almost been ready to turn around. Get on her ship and go back to Cardinal, end her day in the arms of the man she loved, when she sensed it. It… Something… Someone?

Green glowing eyes narrowed as she looked at the waves, waiting for whatever it was she was sensing to get closer. There was no fear in her, no danger that she could sense. Whatever else, she was safe now, and the bracers that were on her legs, concealed underneath her pants, would not be tested in battle this day.

But she remained wary. Just because she could not sense danger now, did not mean that danger could not suddenly come to exist.

Looking at the figure, it took her moments to realize that it was a man she was looking at. The ocean had simply spit him out onto the sand. Why? And from where? She came forward with the Force, not to attack him, but to simply take a lick, to understand who it was she was facing.

"847 ABY," she answered, still looking at him.

Something in his plight to stand up touched something within Madalena. She recognized the moves, the lack of control over the muscles, the absence of their strength. It had not been too long since she'd been in the exact same position, and it was her sister who had helped her, who kept her from falling.

With a sigh, Madalena closed the distance between her and the stranger, and offered him her arm, as well as to lean against her.

"How did you end up in this predicament?"

 

[Vereshin]

Salt overwhelmed Vereshin's nose, the waves ever rushing around his knees. Between long, belated breaths, he slowly looked the woman in the eye's, his lime green irises glowing more brilliantly than ever. He threw a hand over his shoulder and pulled off his scarf, which he rolled up into a bundle and tucked beneath his arm, before rubbing the water off his face. With a heavy sigh, Vereshin relaxed his shoulders and remained still for the moment, when he heard the woman speak. Tasting salt in his mouth, he spat it out and swallowed, his throat still clammy from being squashed by the black hole. She told him what the year was and with a rising kink at the end of his mouth, Vereshin smiled with ecstasy, baring his pitch black teeth.

"Eureka!" He exclaimed, his voice still quiet and barely lifting above the rush of the ocean. There was little more for him to say, except to relish in his moment of triumph with the knowledge that he had achieved what he had set out to do.

But at what cost?

There was the very real likelihood that Leira would try and kill him again, as the past was now proceeding as the effective present. He sighed on the possibility, then made a mental note to stay away from little girls and black holes until he found a way to stop the past from repeating itself. Equations rolled through his mind, but he discarded them and instead focused on recovering after such a physical experience. Withdrawing a breath, he swallowed a bout of anxiety when he realized that he could very well encounter himself in the past, which he would need to work to correct.

The woman extended a hand, which Vereshin gratefully took and leaned all his strength against her as she helped him to his feet. Wobbling about on the sand, the waves splashed as he stood, his head still spinning. He gripped the woman's arm with both hands and could not help himself from falling into her. As she helped him to walk, he smiled wryly and raise one of his severe eyebrows, stifling a chuckle at the question.

"Now that's a story for milk and cookies." Vereshin laughed. "If you give me a place to stay and something to eat, I'll tell you all about it." He said, leaning into the woman's side. He pulled his feet through the sand and followed her to the boardwalk, where a small crowed of people were gathered to see what had happened. His shoes had fallen apart, so he kicked them off and walked across the beach in his wet socks, clumps of sand clinging to his feet.

"I'll need some new clothes as well." The time traveler said, looking back at the remnants of his shoes.

By the time they arrived at the boardwalk, the crowd of people had doubled, with some backing away as the woman helped her new friend up onto the walkway. He paid them no heed and managed the strength to raise his head, then looked around curiously at the buildings, wondering where he was. There were no Imperial flags or patr0lling the town, so he assumed that he was somewhere far away from the Empire. Clutching the woman's shirt, he looked up with wide eyes, eager to see if the past had changed since he had traveled there, eager and anxious. With his mouth open, he turned up his top lip as he wracked his brain around the notion, trying to imagine the events he had been present for which would now unfold differently.

"Say, what faction is this?" Vereshin asked as he followed the woman along the boardwalk. When they reached the railing, he pulled himself away and gave her some space, then leaned on the balcony and looked at the horizon.

[member="Madalena Antares"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

Helping him walk was harder than it seemed. Madalena still relied on the bracers that were hidden beneath her clothes after the morning was concluded, and they were meant to support her; to support another person physically was new territory for her, and she could feel that was it not as simple as it once was. Yet she said nothing, and her face revealed none of it as she helped, though she hoped it would not be long before the man she had helped could walk without her aid.

Glowing green eyes blinked in surprise as he asked for a place to stay and something to eat. Those were… Sort of big requests to make to someone who's name you did not know, whom you'd met only a second ago. Did this man come from a place where trust was so freely and easily given? And clothes. Why did he think she had clothes that would fit him? It was all… Incredibly confusing to Madalena.

Frowning as he clutched her shirt, at least they were on the boardwalk now, she ignored the people who had gathered and were staring, and carefully led the man to a nearby bistro she knew was open and could see didn't have too many people it.

Offering him a seat, she stared at him momentarily. Thus, beyond giving him the year and asking how he had ended up there, she had not said a word. And now he made yet another demand.

"Perhaps we should tone it down just a little," she said, lofting a brown, "I will pay for this meal. I do not promise anything else. And we are in Confederacy space."

Out of habit, she smiled at the waiter-droid that came to pick their order, made hers, and waited for the man to make his.

"My name is Madalena, and I am with the Knights Obsidian of the Confederacy," she at last made her introduction, "and if you wish for my aid, I will need to know more about you first."

[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

Still soaked and cold, Vereshin had to withdraw his anger when the woman refused his demands. She was wary, which was entirely logical, since he was a strange, unnerving looking man, but right now he was a very cold and uncomfortable man who needed new clothes. There was little he could do, as he was in a strange place with nobody to contact, except for this woman, who was his only chance of finding a place to stay while he got back on his feet. He could not kill her, as then he would be forced to wander the streets until he found somebody else who was willing to help him and the last he needed was to deal with the law, or the risk of being exiled from whatever part of space he was in. With a sigh, Vereshin leaned against the railing of the boardwalk.

"You're very lucky that I'm in a good mood." Vereshin said, his voice dropping to the level of a warning. He had succeeded in travelling through time, meaning that anything this woman did would not be enough to bring out his temper, which was fortunate for her. "I will tell you more about myself, then I need a place to stay or else I might catch my death of cold." He said, shivering beneath his wet coat. He did not know what he was going to do about his clothes, but he needed to somehow get new ones, as well as toiletries and other necessities before dark. He knew he could not ask the woman of that much and regretted that he would have to wander around with no shoes for the remainder of the evening.

Releasing his weight off the balcony, he followed the woman to the bistro on the street corner, where she hailed them a table inside. He immediately welcoming the heating and breathed a sigh of relief. Arching the cramps out of his neck, he sat down and reclined in the chair, physically overwhelmed from the force of the black hole. A waiter droid rolled over and gave each of them a menu, which Vereshin scanned for something that might satisfy his odd taste in food. When all he saw where sandwhiches and seafood, he groaned slightly, before remembering that this woman had gone out of her way to feed him. With a sigh, he settled on a bowl of hot soup and set the menu aside.

The woman, who introduced herself as Madalena, revealed that Vereshin had landed in Confederacy space. They had grown into a rather large power as he recalled and now seemed to be on the verge of reaching that mantle. Cupping his chin, he thought to himself about his new home, rather excited to be finally free of the Sith, whose brutal struggles for power and combative ways never interested him. Staring into space, he mused on it for a while, then turned back around to face Madalena, her green eyes glowing in a similar way to his own.

"The Confederacy, you say?" Vereshin said, his chin still cupped. "They'll do for now, it'll be nice to be away from the Sith." With a nod, Vereshin revealed the first detail about himself, the fact that he used to be a Sith Lord. The waiter droid rolled around their table and beeped.

"I'll have the pumpkin soup with a side of bread please." Vereshin said to the droid, reading the menu. The droid beeped and recorded his order in it's memory drive. "With sour cream, oh and a cup of tea." He said, giving the droid a stern look. "Tea leaves, no teabags under any circumstances, thank you." Handing the menu to the droid, Vereshin leaned into the back of his chair and rested his hand on the table. The droid rolled around the other side of the table to take Madalena's order, then stored it in it's memory and left. Hearing the kitchen doors swing open, Vereshin shivered again, the heating causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand. He stroked the stubble on his face, feeling a pang of disgust.

"Ugh, I need to shave." He said, then sighed again.

"Madalena." He said, following a pause. The woman's name rolled off his tongue with the remnants of the accent he used to have. "My name is Vereshin, but call me "Vi." Vereshin offered her his nickname, baring a smile of black teeth. When Madalena asked to know more about him, he nodded in agreement and leaned in, folding his hands on the table. She was offering her aid, and for that, he was happy to tell her about him and where he came from. There was a further pause as Vereshin gathered his thoughts, trying to think back to where it all started.

"I was a Lord of the Sith, a sorcerer predominantly, I cannot use a lightsaber and have no desire to." He began, his eyes following the patterns on the tablecloth. "My field was the manipulation of time and I conducted many experiments with black holes." Speaking softly, he drew out the points of his story with clarity, failing to mention that he had abducted a little girl and b0und her to himself in the force. Madalena did not need to hear about his crimes, only the person he used to be. "During one such experiment, a black hole got the better of me." He chuckled. He had his doubts that Madalena would actually believe his story, in which case he would be on his own, but until she judged it for herself, he gave it to her plainly.

"I was sucked past the event horizon and remained bound to it's mass for six years, six years of my life which were slowed down with it's gravitational pull." Vereshin said, moving around his hands in an involuntary motion to illustrate how his life had been slowed down with the pull of the black hole. "They were slowed to such a rate that the present as I perceived it, prior to being sucked into the black hole, was merged with the past." Squaring off a little area with his hands, he tried to convey reference frames being squashed in time. What Madalena observed as the present, was the past from the position of Vereshin, as his frame of reference had been shifted backwards, now occurring in the same frame as Madalena.

"While I was inside, I pulled the mass outward and transported myself into the atmosphere of the nearest planet." He said, shoving a hand forward, trying to show Madalena what it had looked like. He had not effectively entered the atmosphere though space, but rather, phased through it to travel to the nearest planet, just as he would apparate himself into a raven to travel across far distances.

"And here I am." Vereshin smiled.

[member="Madalena Antares"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

She was lucky he was in a good mood? Madalena raised an eyebrow, openly unimpressed with the tone the man was giving her. While he was thinking about the time jumps he'd done, she herself was thinking of the different dimensions she had been. The current one was not her dimension of origin; that one no longer existed, and she had spent months in the space between dimensions. Her sister had been trying to come up with resources that spoke of that place, but so far, neither of them had found anything to explain the phenomenon or how either of them had even gotten there in the first place.

Her attention returned to the conversation as the man claimed he would be nice to get away from the SIth. Did he not test her Force Presence out? She was a Sith Sorceress herself, and "The Confederacy is full of Sith and Darksiders," she smiled.

Vereshin. Vi. To that, she nodded. When he revealed his black teeth, she wished she still had the Blood Hound abilities she'd had while in her sister's body. Her sister would have been able to scent him and tell what species he was, why his teeth were black like that. But Madalena was not a Blood Hound. She was, simply, a human with certain privileges.

Still, she was a patient woman, and she listened to what he had to say. Black holes. Time travel. Merging things. Madalena sighed. It was a familiar story; more than a handful within the Confederacy had ones similar when it came to time travel and black holes. Some would say his arrival here, at the same time as her, was the Force's Will. She was not entirely certain of that.

"I was summoned from another dimension," she said when he concluded his story. If he told his, she could tell hers… Leaving some of the detail out, "I've been told that my original dimension collapsed shortly after I was pulled out of it, for unrelated reasons. Had I remained there, I would have died. I was brought to this dimension without anyone being aware of it, not even the woman who'd summoned me. We later learned that we are sisters. This was a few months ago and I'm still learning my way around, sort of."

The food arrived. Vereshin's soup and bread were placed before him, whereas Madalena nodded with a thank you to the droid who placed her order of sausages, eggs, and starchy cooked vegetables in front of her. She was bigger than the average for a woman – she ate accordingly to maintain it.

"What do you intend to do once you've had rest, warm clothes, and food?" she asked Vi, "do you plan on joining the Confederacy simply because you happened to land in its space?"

[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

Leaning back in his chair, Vereshin offered Madalena a coy smile when she informed him that there indeed, Sith and users of the Dark Side in the Confederacy, although not the ones he was referring to. He had sensed her Force signature and knew that she used the Dark Side, but was relieved to know that she was not with the Empire. He recoiled into his seat, drumming his fingers on the table as he experienced the change in his own presence which had occurred inside of the black hole. Upon sensing him, Madalena would feel the vortex of the singularity, a force so strong no light could escape from it, which Vereshin was more than comfortable with, if not slightly alarmed by the change.

"Pardon me, I was referring to the Sith of the Empire. That's where I came from." Vereshin said, dismissing his mistake with a wave of his hand. "I knew you were indeed, a user of the Dark Side." As he smiled, he could tell that Madalena was looking at his black teeth, which he responded to with a further smile to give her a better look at them. He was human, but his teeth had turned black as a result of his corruption in the Dark Side, which he did not supposed that she had assumed.

After Vereshin had finished telling her his story, Madalena revealed her own experiences, which were not too dissimilar from his own. At the mention of another dimension, his mouth parted in awe and his eyes grew wide with fascination. He listened intently as she regaled the story, just as the waiter droid rolled around to serve them their meals, a bowl of pumpkin soup for Vereshin and a plate of sausages, eggs and vegetables for Madalena. She had ordered quite a lot and Vereshin did not know if he could eat all of that himself. With a silent nod of his head, he thanked the droid and began to stir around the sour cream on top of his soup, taking light sips between blowing on it to cool it down. As Madelena spoke of the dimension she had come from collapsing, Vereshin slid a spoonful of soup in his mouth and continued to listen.

"Remarkable, the existence of dimensions beyond our own has been something that has fascinated me for a very long time." Vereshin said, shivering from his wet clothes. He dipped a piece of bread in his soup and took a bite, welcoming the warmth it brought. "Would you ever be interested in knowing why the dimension you came from collapsed?" He asked, quite interested in the question himself. Considering that he had pulled a black hole inside out not too long after Madalena's dimension had collapsed, it seemed almost eerie that the two events had occurred so closely together, but Vereshin dismissed it as simple coincidence. He sipped his soup, savoring the warmth it brought to his shivering body. Setting down his spoon, he reached over and began to pour himself a cup of tea, which he stirred with a touch of milk and sugar.

"It's a rather astonishing coincidence, that I came out of a black hole not too long after you came out of another dimension, don't you think?" He asked, bringing the teacup to his lips.

"Oh how I have missed tea!" He exclaimed happily, taking another good, long sip of tea. With a small clank, he set down the cup and picked up his spoon again, then stirred his soup, all the while thinking of the relation in space and time between the two events. When Madalena mentioned having a sister in his own dimension, he raised an eyebrow with curiosity, interested to know how such a thing could have been possible. Then again, for a man who had been sucked into a black hole and survived, the word "impossible" had very little meaning. "So you have a sister in our dimension? How was that possible considering you were from a separate one." He asked, not meaning too sound rude, but he was genuinely interested to know how it had happened.

Madalena then asked Vereshin about he planned to do once he had been properly settled in Confederacy space, which caused him to look away with uncertainty. In truth, he did not know and could only took what came his way until he succeeded in correcting his passage of time. That would be the first thing he did, look for a way to rectify his past before it repeated itself, then find a way to travel back to the present. Holding his spoon against the side of his bowl, he looked forlornly at the table as he struggled to think of an answer to Madalena's question.

"That's a good question." Vereshin said plainly. A pause followed and he set down his spoon, then had another sip of tea.

"I will have to rectify my past to stop it from repeating itself, after that, I must travel to the future to correct my passage of time." He explained, turning back around to face Madalena. His green eyes glowed with intensity, his force signature seething unhindered as he already began to think about the mathematical process involved in correcting the way in which he proceeded through time. While he had successfully used a black hole to travel to the past, he did not know if it was possible to manipulate one in order to travel to the future, as the mass had slowed down his place in time, dragging it backwards. He placed both hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward, staring at the middle of the table in contemplation.

"But I will need to find work in order to fund my research, the Confederacy looks like a good start." Vereshin nodded. He would also need a means of paying for transport and accommodation and since the Confederacy employed Dark Siders, they looked like his best bet.

[member="Madalena Antares"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

The Sith Empire. Madalena nodded. There were many within the Confederacy who might have shifted uncomfortable at the sound of that despite the Non-Aggression Pact between the two nations, but she was not one of them. Three of her four grandparents had been Dark Lords of the Sith at one time or another, had led Sith Empires at one time or another, although all three had one so much before the Gulag had spread over this galaxy and essentially reset it. There were few that even knew about that part of her heritage, though, Madalena, despite her last name, was a deWinter. They remembered.

As Vi let her take a better look at his teeth, look she did, wishing that it would have given her at least more of an insight as to him, who he was, why he was like that. But no. This was one place where Madalena was still green about. Perhaps, with a few more years of training, she would be able to better understand these things. At present, her strength relied mostly with the Sorcery aspect of the Darkside, and leading people into the field of battle.

Would she ever be interested? Madalena paused a moment, before nodding, and then shaking her head. A yes and a no. "I can't deny that this would be interesting," she answered, "but I would be more interested in regaining my memories of my time there, and why pulling me out was even possible. I am eternally grateful for what my sister has done, but until I somehow know what actually happened prior to her actions, there will always be a hole inside of me that cannot be filled."

But no, to the second question, she shook her head, "Not exactly," she muled over her words a moment, "I was extracted nearly a year ago, but we did not know about it until a couple of months before now. I spent a short stint of time in the space between dimensions between the moment of knowing until a little ago, but I can't claim to have gained any insights from it."

Madalena reached for her own food as well. While she was almost tired of sausages and eggs, she knew her body actually needed it. Yet there was nothing keeping her from beginning with the vegetables, and she took a heap full of the cooked yams and potatoes, enjoying their gentle sweetness, as well as a small roll of crunchy bread with butter that arrived in a little cute basket.

Another question. But now Madalena smiled after she swallowed her food. She knew the answer to that! "As it was explained to me," she answered, "you can think of dimensions as organized within a complicated matrix. Take one step up, down, or diagonally, or a single step in a 3D view of the matrix, and you get a dimension that is mostly similar. The more steps away you take, the less similar it becomes. Some dimensions feel entirely identical because there is only one detail that is different from the one you come from, but others have more in them. While I don't know what else was different in the dimension I came from, a Seer gave her life to discover that in it, my sister and mine's family existed, albeit slightly differently. In this dimension, our mother only had a single set of twins, and was told she would never be able to carry another pregnancy unless she had her reproductive organs replaced. In the dimension I'm from, she and my father had many children."

And of course, that left them with the question of how they knew that. "A Seer from our home planet had to give her life up to receive glimpses of where I'm from. She said over a dozen children, a big, happy, healthy family of glowing green eyes. In this dimension, our mother had endless vials of her fertilized eggs, but that is an entirely different story. My sister took one of those vials to grow me this body. The Seer was certain this is what I looked like in my own dimension. I don't know if she's right or not, but I know that this body feels like it's mine. It felt like it was mine even before I learned how to fully control it."

Madalena leaned back in her chair and relaxed, giving Vi a small smile. She was speaking freely, easily, all while maintaining enough of her family's privacy. Her words would not give him a name or a hint as to where that home planet was, but the rest… She felt comfortable. Never before had she discussed these things at any sort of length.

Taking a few more bites as Vereshin paused to think over her own question, Madalena smiled again. This time, for the quality of the food.

But when he spoke of rectifying his past mistakes… Madalena sighed. "If you've already made your mistakes, they are done, and part of your timeline," she said gently, "As I understand it, you'll be changing the potential future of someone who is like you, but not exactly you. Your personal timeline, your own path, will be unchanged. But… Perhaps you could speak to my sister. She's the one who has more information and knows more about all these sort of things."

Vi spoke of finding work, or research.

Now Madalena was grinning.

"It is within my power to offer you a position, in that case," she said with a nod. Yes. It felt like the right thing. She was certain of it. "Within the Confederacy are the Knights Obsidian. A mass of Force Users who do various things. Within them, there is a group called the Archivists. They perform the sort of research you're talking about. They look into the non-tangible, they try to understand, and they create too. They do less combat than the other Knights Obsidian, but they still come to the field of battle when called upon. I believe…. I believe you would fit right in."

[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

At the mention of where he came from, Vereshin watched Madalena nod nonchalantly, the truth about his origins having not phased her. Looking up, he smiled meekly, somewhat relieved that his history as a Sith had not landed him in trouble on the first day of his new life. Stirring his soup gently, he mixed in what was left of the sour cream and ate a spoonful, then looked down at the bowl and saw that it was nearly finished. He set his soup down and t0ok another sip of tea, while Madalena spoke about regaining her memories from the dimension she had come from, which piqued Vereshin's interest greatly. Resting his spoon on the side of his bowl, Vereshin listened to Madalena's plight intently, already thinking of ways he could use his powers to assist.

"You know..." Vereshin began, his fingers entwined. As he thought, he tapped one finger against his chin and looked up at the ceiling, debating the possibility of using time travel to take Madalena back to the events of her previous dimension, even if it meant bypassing their own dimensional coordinates. "By travelling back in time, it could be possible to restore events which happened to you in your previous existence, even if their dimensional coordinates are separate to ours." He said, shifting his eyes across the length of the table. If Madalena had a sister in his own dimension, that would confirm some sort of interdimensional link which he could exploit to travel back to the events of her past, but he would wait until she had told him more about her origins before he proposed a concrete solution.

Fingers poised, Vereshin looked forlornly at the table as he listened to Madalena describe her lack of memory as a gaping hole inside her, one not too far of from how he would describe his own situation. All those he had met and came to know in his past would no longer remember him, although in Vereshin's case, that might just be for the best, as he had forgotten how many colleagues he had pissed off in the years to come from now. When Madalena told him that their respective arrivals, him from a black hole and her from another dimension, were not the result of coincidence, he simply nodded and scooped up the last few drops of soup in his bowl. He licked his spoon and set it aside, then took a final sip of tea as he waited for the droid to roll around and take it away.

Vereshin slid his bowl and teacup aside. The waiter droid rolled around and collected his used plates and cutlery, then asked Madalena with a beep if she was finished with her meal. Grabbing a napkin from the center of the table, Vereshin dabbed his lips and shuddered, his clothes drying very slowly. Madalena continued to explain the intricate structure of the dimension, to which Vereshin listened, fascinated by the intricacy of the mechanics she was describing, which confirmed that there could be relation between the two dimension which he could exploit to restore events from the correlating one. The waiter droid brought around a little wicker basket filled with bread, to which Vereshin helped himself. He buttered the side and took a bite, regretting that he had no more tea to wash it down.

"Fascinating, one of these identical elements could be used as a lead to locate events which took place in a correlating dimension." Vereshin mused on the prospect, waving his knife around. He had only just met Madalena and needed to settle in and become acquainted with Confederacy space before he going ahead to travel through time with her, so he let the offer sit. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, I only just arrived in the past and here I am talking about exploiting elements in other dimensions!" He laughed and nibbled his bread. A pause followed as Madalena sighed at his mention of rectifying his past mistakes, Vereshin creased his brow and recoiled into his chair. There was truth in her words, he would never be able to rectify his past in it's entirety and would continue to reoccur every time he changed an event which took place then.

"It's not a concrete solution, but realigning the past version of myself with my current position in time is only way I can live normally until I find a way to travel to the future." Vereshin sounded more and more forlorn as he spoke, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as his body temperature dropped. He popped the last piece of buttered bread into his mouth, the smile on his face dropping as he thought about Leira and how she would inevitably try to kill him if he did not succeed in changing the course of his past. There was a pause and Vereshin looked at the table in dismay, the jovial expression on his face having disappeared. "My life depends on it." Was all he said as he leaned back into his chair and huddled beneath his wet coat.

With his coat wrapped around him, Vereshin continued to shiver, now rattling the table as he drew fast breaths. He sneezed, the air from the door outside sending a chill through his wet skin. At the mention of a position within the Confederacy, he forced a smile, but it was becoming too difficult to think the more uncomfortable he felt. Madalena said that the Knights Obsidian housed a sect which researched non-tangible forces, which sounded more than appropriate for him and he nodded, shoving a trembling hand into his coat for where he last remembered his cigarettes were. As he felt around, he forced another smile at Madalena as drops of water ran down his temples.

"That sounds more than suitable, I'd be very grateful if you were to have me." Vereshin said, his voice broken through shivers. He pulled his cigarette case out of his pocket and opened it, only to find that the last few cigarettes he had were soaked. A wave of fury overcame him. The veins on his temples bulged purple and he hissed, grasping the case, before throwing it down on the floor with a clatter. All he wanted was warm clothes, a bed and a cigarette and here he was talking about other dimensions and time travel. His mind fell apart in a mess of clouds, he couldn't think right now.

"Son of a queen!" Vereshin shouted.

An uncomfortable pause followed, filled by the stares of the customers as they looked at the wet, homeless man throwing a tantrum over his cigarettes. He avoided the gaze of Madalena, who was no doubt embarrassed by his outburst. Gripping the tablecloth, he creased his brow tightly and closed his eyes, his head hanging above the table as he tried to collect himself. His teeth chattered from the cold and an urgent sensation began to build in his groin, as he had not had a chance to relieve himself since before getting sucked into the black hole. As the reality of his situation came to a head, Vereshin curled up in his chair, buried his face in his knees and sobbed for a good three minutes. Breathing heavily, he wiped tears and seawater from his face, then turned around to face Madalena.

"Madam, you've been very kind to me." He sighed, resting his forehead on his knees. A pause followed and he turned around, then slumped onto the table. "But I can't do anything until I have clean clothes and a place to sleep." He shook his head. He knew that he was in no position to ask Madalena to buy him clothes and a place to stay, but he had nobody else. "I know I shouldn't ask anymore of you, but I don't have anybody else to turn to." Vereshin shrugged.

[member="Madalena Antares"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

Madalena said nothing at first. She'd never considered the option of traveling back in time to restore memories, and she cursed the fact that she did not know nearly enough to be able to even make an educated guess as to whether or not that would work at all. Her sister would probably know. But her sister was not there to say anything on the matter.

Realizing she was no longer hungry, Madalena gently left her utensils on the plate in a way that would signal to the droid water that she was done, and leaned back in her chair. It was a shame; more than half had remained there. But she supposed she wasn't truly hungry to begin with, and the subjects discussed ventured too deeply for her to be able to stir any sort of true appetite.

Watching @Vershin carefully, she wondered just how much of what he said was based on fact, and how much on speculation. Were the ideas he was proposing even safe to attempt? The last thing Madalena wanted was to return to her original dimension, for that would certainly spell out death.

Glowing green eyes narrowed.

"Why does your life depend on it?" she asked, "surely to actually live rather than jumping back on forth merely to witness your life would be the more interesting option?" Taking a sip from her water, she relaxed a little bit in her chair. Theories, that she could discuss. Easily. "I can't imagine what it is like to knowingly be a time traveler, but what is the point of said travel unless it's to actually live? I know that if I could choose an adventure like that, given the right circumstances, I would want to experience as much as possible."

Taking another sip, she nodded as Vereshin accepted her offer. Her position as Knight Commander had not yet been announced, but a sufficient amount of the paperwork had already been dealt with. She could recruit him into their ranks, and Archivist did seem like a very suitable option. While the Archivist compound was not yet ready to accept non-construction visitors, the Citadel on Geonosis was more than good for it, and it offered lodgings as well as other forms of accommodation that Vereshin would be able to use until he was back on his feet.

An eyebrow raised at the outburst, but said nothing to that.

"I have given you help, but I am not a charity," she said, raising her hand to stop him before he could protest, "yet that does not mean I will not help. There are robes on my ship that you can use, and we will fly directly to Geonosis, where you can join the Confederacy, the Archivists of the Knights Obsidian, and receive accommodation as part of your perks pack for joining. This time of the year, the barracks tend to be nearly empty so you could enjoy a private room for at least a few weeks, which should give you plenty of time to get settled and start working. About an hour of paperwork is all it would require once we're actually there."

Of course, the man could easily deny her. But then he would be on his own.

"And no smoking on my ship please," she asked in advance with a little smile, "I don't mind if we wait here for you to get a few more cigarettes in, but once we're on the Nutcracker, it stops until we get off it."

If he agreed, she was ready to rise and walk to the docks at a moment's notice.