Private In This World Or The Next

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani had wandered off to do her own thing, settling up an inflatable tent under the tree. Meanwhile Arlo continued to stare at the approaching figure, which was gradually becoming clearer: a young woman with tanned skin and a mane of dark, curly hair. She wore a blue dress, and gold jewelry dangled at her ears, neck, wrists and ankles.

"Lara," Arlo's lips mouthed the name soundlessly. He forced himself to turn away from the apparition, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. "Ishani, wait—"

She had already disappeared inside the tent—only to stumble backwards almost immediately with a sudden sharp cry. Arlo broke into a run, crossing the field in a flash, and he grabbed Ishani, pulling her away. "What is it? What's the matter?"

Ishani's eyes were wide, and she could only babble and sputter. "They—they're dead—but how—?"

Arlo left her side for only a second to peer inside the tent. He reared back, a grim expression on his face. "It's all right, Ishani. It's only a nightmare."

"No, I—" Ishani's expression suddenly crumpled, and she covered her mouth with her hand. "I killed them, didn't I?" she whispered, her voice hitching.

"You didn't kill anyone. What you saw wasn't real." When she shook her head, he grabbed her shoulders and tried to shake her out of it. "I've been here the whole time, watching you. You didn't kill them! It was a dream!"

"What's in me, if I kill them in my dreams?" she whimpered into her hand. "I'm not fit... not fit to be a mother..."

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Dreams did become nightmares. Alina closed her eyes. Listened. What Arlo saw. What Ishani Dinn saw. Their worst fears, their dread, buried deep in their minds. What did that mean for Alina? What would she see? She didn't want to find out. Too many fears came to mind, all wanting to warp into reality but only making an amalgamation of them all. Her mother's face. The First and what they wanted for Alina and the others. The sob of a baby.

"No."

Then she reached out. The Nether was a world born of the Force. Part of it. Her influence cut it, broke it. Where her fears tried to manifest it instead broke and shattered. The grass, bloodied or not, withered. Disappeared. The land turned barren, blank. Empty. She stepped over to the tent, still exuding her influence. The dead zone, absent from the Force around her.

"Your nightmares are dreams too. Don't confuse the two."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Alina seemed to leech the life from her surroundings. The grass withered and died; the field became barren and black. Ishani initially thought it was someone's dream altering this reality once more, until she felt how hollow their immediate area seemed to have become, shucked of its essence.

On the other hand, it provided relief from their current plight. Their surroundings were lifeless, but they stayed lifeless. Ishani shivered, drying her tears.

"Then... we'll make camp here?"

"It's a good spot," Arlo said, in a tone that suggested he was still trying to reassure her. But Ishani drew away from his grasp, hugging her arms to her. She flinched as Arlo pulled back the tent flaps, peering inside. Evidently the vision of horror had vanished.

"All right," Arlo muttered. "We all have our own tents." He turned to Alina. "How long can you keep this going for?"

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Long enough for you two to sleep." Another blessing and curse for the young Vampire. No need to sleep. She took a seat beside the pairs tents, letting out a needless breath in a sigh. It took more focus than she'd like to admit to avoid draining Ishani Dinn or Arlo in the process. That's what she would focus on. No dreams, no thoughts about what she could see here if she learned how. Well, she did her best to ignore that she was thinking about it.

She was thinking about it. Alina couldn't turn off those thoughts as much as she wanted to.

".. So hurry up and go to bed. I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

In the early hours of the following “morning”, Ishani emerged from her tent. It was obvious she had barely slept, kept up for hours by racing thoughts and worries. She was carrying some rations in her hand, but they remained unopened.

Instead, she sat down across from Alina and looked at the vampiress. “Could I… talk to you for a little bit?” she asked.

The question probably seemed odd. After a moment’s pause, she added, “I don’t want to bother you, but—I dunno, I thought it would be nice to talk. I’d confide in Arlo if I wasn’t afraid I’d get another lecture about how I’m going down the wrong path, coming here and trying to make things right...”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Her.. Meditation wasn't the best. Alina was still seated cross legged, but her fingers were rapidly tapping the ground. She'd been doing that long enough for the indents of each impact to be easily seen. Something to keep her mind off her curiosity. All her dreams, put into reality. If she could control it, could she have everything she wanted finally? Fake or not, the temptation was there.

Ishani Dinn 's emergence was a welcome distraction from that. She opened her glowing eyes, gazing over to the woman. Then blinked.

"I- uh. Yeah, you can talk to me about whatever you'd like to." Ah, yeah. Alina was the only option to speak to without getting a lecture. That made more sense. Her gaze drifted to Arlo's tent, watching it for a moment. Who was he to Ishani anyway? Questions to save for later.

"I'm all ears."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

With Alina having expressed a willingness to talk (or at least, to listen), Ishani rubbed her tired eyes and sighed. She didn't know where to begin, and part of her felt like she'd been talking too much about Arc and about herself. It would do her some good to discuss a different topic for a change.

"How did you wind up at the Royal Academy?" she asked. "And what did you want out of becoming a Sith? At the time, I mean." Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to dredge up the past, but she had wondered what drove others to seek out the Dark Side willingly, given its reputation and the dangers involved.

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

That.. Wasn't the question Alina expected. It showed in her expression as she stared Ishani Dinn . Should.. Was it okay to tell people now? What set her down the path that she'd eventually forsake? Her gaze lowered as she pulled out a small gem. Ironically a gift from Arcturus Dinn , so long ago. She drank from it. Not much, but she still needed blood. Just draining her surroundings wasn't going to be enough to keep her fed.

Helped her from feeling too cranky, too.

"Freedom. When.. My sister, older sister, died, I became the heir to the family. Which, for a failure of an experiment that I was, horrified my mother. .. Not my mother. It's hard to explain. Uh. Doesn't matter. I was going to be killed if I didn't get strong. She sent me to die as the apprentice of some Sith so my younger sister would become heir. .. So uh, I mean. I didn't really choose this life?"

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Of course, Alina was surprised. She probably expected Ishani to say or ask something about Arcturus. Everyone who had been around Ishani lately expected to hear about nothing other than Arcturus.

Ishani listened to her explanation, and watched her drink from the blood vial. What she said was confusing, certainly, mostly because she was withholding details, perhaps thinking Ishani wouldn’t care. But she did care, or else she wouldn’t have asked about it in the first place.

“You were an experiment?” she prompted, wanting to know more. A failed experiment, too.

“So, you joined the Sith because you wanted freedom from your family’s expectations… but you didn’t make the choice to become a Sith yourself? It was forced on you?” She didn’t say it out loud, but she was thinking how is that freedom?

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Yeah, all Tremiru are. It's uh.. Complicated. Just a lot of alchemy manipulation to try and make the perfect life form or something. Where I should've been able to completely control the Force, I can only.. Remove it?" Saying it aloud was confusing, even to Alina. She never really thought much on it to begin with. "I was a failure. While my sister was alive my only worth was to be some trophy wife to some Sith my mother wanted an alliance with. When my sister died, I was to follow in suit. Die quietly so there'd be no embarrassment for the family. .. Who are Sith. If I didn't say that already the Tremiru are Sith Sorcerers and Alchemists."

Right. Ishani wasn't part of the Empire.

"To get free I had to fight my way through the Sith. I figured if I got strong enough, I'd be free. .. Quinn showed me I was wrong, before I couldn't come back."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"Where I should've been able to completely control the Force, I can only... Remove it?"

“The Chaldean Mystics do that too,” Ishani murmured. “Only we don’t, um, drain the Force from others. We just suppress it, or cut off people’s connection to it.”

The rest of Alina’s story was jarring to Ishani. Trophy wives and arranged marriages—people still did that? She’d thought the Sith Empire was supposed to be… well, she’d thought the greater galaxy as a whole didn’t behave like it was the fething dark ages, but apparently not the Sith. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised.

"If I were Lord, would that make you Lady?"

No, she shouldn’t have been surprised at all.

Shaking her head free of thoughts of Arcturus—she had plenty of time to spend thinking far too much about him—she chewed her lip. All of this was just a normal part of Alina’s life, from the sound of it. She’d been raised to think the Sith represented freedom, then found out the hard way that wasn’t really the case. Ishani could sympathize to a certain extent, although what she was hearing made her own upbringing seem almost comically tame in comparison. Her parents were pious and overbearing, but they had certainly never tried to kill her.

“That makes more sense,” she said softly. “I found out the same thing, only… I never really left the Sith behind. I fled Korriban because I had no choice—I would’ve been killed if I had stayed, or worse. I used to dream about changing things… reforming the Sith, remaking them into something better. Freedom and power without corruption or oppression…”

She trailed off, afraid to say more. Her thoughts on the matter felt half-formed, and she was afraid of the implications. If she admitted that she wished she hadn’t left the Sith, even if it was only some small buried part of her that lingered while the rest of her knew it was folly, what would that mean? Now, when everyone was constantly reminding her that she was a mother, a senator, and had responsibilities, it wasn't hard to believe she could look back on the Sith doctrines of breaking chains with some degree of nostalgia.

“...Was Quinn the one who ‘saved’ you?” she asked, calling back to their earlier conversation in Ishani’s apartment. “I don’t remember anyone named Quinn, I don’t think… who was she?”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"It's the only thing I can do. And I didn't figure it out until I got farther along my path as a Sith. I was just a girl who couldn't use the Force pretending to be Sith for a while." The horrors that brought were obvious in her eyes. The fear of not being able to keep up with her fellow students or just being picked off because she couldn't use the Force lingered even now. "It's why I pushed so hard to get stronger. And when it finally cost me my arms and I learned of the Sangnir and the power they offered while giving me my arms back? .. This is the closest I've ever been to be able to feel the Force. And all it is is feeling the pulse of blood in people around me."

She sighed, pulling her knees to her chest. Thinking about this all was depressing. Though something Ishani Dinn said caught her off guard, again.

"... I used to dream about changing things… reforming the Sith, remaking them into something better. Freedom and power without corruption or oppression…”

"If I'd met you sooner, maybe I'd still be trying to do the same." Then the topic of Quinn Varanin came up. Her own lost lover. She nodded, hiding her face in her knees as she stared at the ground between them.

"She's a good person. She.. I don't think she was part of our Sith order. Just the Empire. .. We had the same master. She was everything I wasn't. Strong in the Force, confident. Beautiful and free. I did everything I could to keep up, try to get ahead. And I fell in love. She helped me get away. Hid me from the hunters. Gave me a home. .. I just didn't want to make her have to choose between me or the other person she loves. It's not like I'm anything that special. She'll grow old, and I won't. I'll never change. Anyone would grow bored of that, right?"

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Maybe having the Force isn’t all it's cracked up to be,” Ishani suggested. “Most people in the galaxy can’t feel it. But people act like it’s this amazing exalted thing—if anything, it’s a fething curse. You’re born with it, and suddenly people expect you to be either a servant of the Light or a harbinger of Darkness, with little to no in-between.”

"If I'd met you sooner, maybe I'd still be trying to do the same."

Ishani smiled, but shook her head. "I used to think the only thing keeping me with the Sith was Arc. But there had to have been more to it than that." She had never liked the 'abandon ship' mentality, and she supposed that if the Sith Eternal hadn't collapsed, she would've tried to make something more out of it with Arc. Alina too, from the sound of it. But that dream was gone now, and there was no use clinging to it.

Not even in the Dreamlands.

Alina spoke of Quinn Varanin. The name still didn't ring a bell. Ishani frowned, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

"I was in the opposite position. I was the one who wanted to give Arc a home, hide him and protect him. I'd had... other suitors while he was gone, men who I could've had something with, but I just..." She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I wonder if he thinks I'm crazy for still doggedly pursuing him. Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy. But it's like... I feel like I'm not alive without him. I was sleepwalking through life until I met him and he woke me up. When he left, I closed my eyes again, and when he came back... I haven't been able to sleep since that night. I won't rest until I find him again."

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"You really are his fan girl, huh?" Too sad. For too long. Ishani Dinn had given Alina more to think about than she wanted to. The importance of the Force, what it meant to her, if she could go free or not from the path her mother wanted, even now with her mother dead. But, she understood. Especially now that she was alone. A simple, small smile was all Alina had as she rested her chin on her knees. In a way, she looked even more like the teenager her body was stuck as.

"It's his choice if he wants to be with you or not. That I believe. And, maybe it's time for you to move on. .. It's hard to do, but we can't hold on to someone who doesn't want us to, right?" She nodded once. ".. But, he's your kids father. I bet he's in a dark place right now. Thinking it's better to stay in the dark than try to be a dad. So when we find him I'm going to kick his ass and make him come back. Every kid deserves having both their parents."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Fangirl. Handmaiden. Bride perpetually waiting at the altar. Whatever.

Ishani sighed again, realizing she had wound up talking about Arc after all, despite telling herself she wouldn’t. Everything always came back to him. If that wasn’t proof of just how deeply he had affected her, she didn’t know what was.

The idea of letting go was more painful than Ishani would ever admit, though in a way she had done it before. Crying alone in her room at night, she had repeated the mantra of you can never be mine over and over again, all through those four years. It was just going to hurt worse now than it had then, when she’d had no clue where he was or what had happened to him. She could have gone on believing that he was dead, or that he’d been entrapped, and if only things had gone differently, they could be together… but not this time. Now she would have to move on knowing that he simply didn’t want her, and there was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise.

Alina bringing up the children had quite the adverse effect on Ishani. She was instantly reminded of the nightmare she’d had earlier, a vision in which she had killed her own children. Both Arlo and Alina had called it a mere nightmare, but what were nightmares but reflections of our worst fears and suppressed emotions?

“When I found out I was pregnant, I remember thinking at least I wouldn’t be alone once they were born. I’d have a piece of him that I could love and cherish. But in some ways that was terribly selfish of me. I didn’t want them for themselves, only because they were his. Sometimes I wonder if I should have put them up for adoption instead, given them a better chance at a normal life…”

Even now, she had shuffled off responsibility for them onto her parents. Take care of the kids while I chase after their father, and have visions in which I smother them in their beds. Thoughts too terrible to imagine had been dredged up from the deepest recesses of her psyche. The fear that she might be driven to hate them, to see them as obstacles to her relationship with Arc, to wish they were out of the picture…

Arc thought he was too Dark for them, that his mere presence would endanger them. Maybe she, the resentful mother, was more dangerous than he was.

Arlo’s tent opened and the old man stepped out, putting an end to Ishani’s dark ruminations. He stretched, cracking every joint in his body, then glanced over at his traveling companions.

“We should get going.”

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina watched Ishani Dinn for a moment longer. Then.. Realized it. Something she should've sooner. She gave a lot of credit to the Senator that she was, but that wasn't really her, was it? Ishani was a love sick girl who had children alone far before she was ready. But before she could say anything Arlo emerged. She let out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. Right, they needed to get out of here before any more dreams turned to reality.

"Do you know which way we're going from here?"

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Nope,” Arlo answered. His blunt honesty was underscored by a careless snort. “But since this is the Dreamlands, in theory all we have to do is dream that we’re going the right way, and before you know it, we’ll be in Masque.”

Masque. The nearest thing the Netherworld had to a marketplace. Ishani wondered if it would feel like a mere facsimile, a fake version of the real thing, or something more twisted. A perversion of the concept of the bazaar, that which was so married to the idea of life and liveliness, distorted here in the land of the dead.

As they put away their tents and gathered up their gear, Ishani began to feel that old sense of shame and regret. Why had she seen fit to pour her heart out to Alina, of all people? Perhaps because there was no one left in whom she could confide. She would feel guilty confessing her feelings to someone like her mother, and Arlo wouldn’t understand. All Ishani’s friends, few and far between as they had been, were gone.

Arlo fiddled a bit with their compass before stowing the device away. “Okay, here goes nothing.” He took a few steps forward, leaving the safety of Alina’s anti-Nether bubble, his confidence immutable—and the world suddenly pinched, the ground propelling him forward as if he were on a starport walkway. He was jolted hard enough to knock him flat on his face, the grassy meadow beneath his feet replaced by hard cobblestone.

“Dragon’s arse!” he bellowed a Chaldean curse, thought the impact had shocked more than harmed him. Ishani was quick to close the distance, helping him to his feet.

Their surroundings had changed; a marketplace had sprung up around them, with stalls and stores and shopfronts. But it was impossible to tell whether this was a dream or reality—perhaps there was no true difference to begin with. Either way, they were in Masque.

“Now what?” Ishani asked.

Arlo looked at her as if she were stupid. “Go to every shopkeeper, every hawker and barker, every attendant and clerk and assistant manager, and ask them if they’ve seen your man. Do what you came here for!”

“But—where do I start?”

He threw his hands in the air. “With the first person you see, how about?”

“But this place is massive!” That it was, and still growing steadily as more structures were erected along its edges. She could be here for days, and still not have explored everything.

“Do you love him or not, child? ‘In this world or the next’ indeed!”

“All right, all right,” she muttered, dusting herself off. “I was just asking for pointers. What are you going to do while I’m running around?”

“I’m going to stand here and wait.” Arlo crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall. “I’m no use to you in here. Remember your training, and you’ll not be led into temptation. And uh, your friend should help you.”

Ishani glanced at Alina, then shrugged and started walking down the street. Time to explore Masque.

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

As much as she didn't want to, Alina knew it'd probably be best to drop the bubble. Asides, they knew what they were dealing with now, right? They could focus their thoughts. They could handle- Oh Arlo fell on his face. The Vampiress blinked in surprise as he suddenly jetted off before quickly following. The zone around her faded as she caught up with him and Ishani Dinn .

Only for them to end up in the Masque. Alina shivered.

She never did like how easy it was to cross boundaries and have everything change here.

"I-.. Huh? .. Oh." Only half listening to the conversation between the monks, she hadn't realized Arlo was talking to her specifically. Help Ishani search through to find Arcturus. Right, sure. That'd be easy. Totally.

"Just uh, don't say yes or no. To anything. Ever." Well that was her own paranoia, but she was pretty sure there were things here that could loop them into a contract just by them saying yes or no, even if it wasn't directly speaking to someo- she didn't just agree to something did she? Her gaze scanned around them, making sure she hadn't. .. No one close by. Good.

She motioned Ishani to lead the way, following after. She was quiet, at least until Arlo was out of earshot.

".. So why are you doing this? Going to hell to find Arc. Just for yourself?"

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Yeah, I get that. Somebody asks for my firstborn in exchange for information on Arcturus, I’m obviously not gonna agree to that.” Never mind all that talk from earlier about how she sometimes wished she’d put her children up for adoption. She wasn’t about to give them to a freaking Netherworld entity.

So far they had yet to actually see anyone here. Weird.

"...So why are you doing this? Going to hell to find Arc. Just for yourself?"

“Well, obviously I’m doing it to get laid. I dunno if you noticed, but that ass is absolutely worth going to hell for.” Her attempt at a joke might’ve seemed out of place, but the mere fact that they had actually reached their destination was enough to lift her spirits. This type of humor was the norm for her. She continued in a more serious tone, “He told me he thought he might get pulled into the Nether again, so I’m making preparations for that. I want to be… available, I guess, no matter what happens.”

Anything else that might come of all this, whether he reconciled with her, changed his mind about the kids, or any other hopeful outcome her heart dreamed of, would all depend on her ability to find him.

Ahead of them, she spotted a dark shape hovering over the cobblestones. It might’ve been a Shadow, or something similar. She quickened her pace, trying to follow it as it snaked between buildings.

Alina Tremiru​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

“Well, obviously I’m doing it to get laid. I dunno if you noticed, but that ass is absolutely worth going to hell for.”

"I did, he turned me down." After she kicked the shit out of him the first time. .. Right? God, years back was hard to remember for her. Still, seeing Ishani laugh about it and crack a joke instead of the sorrowful display earlier was a much better outlook. She grinned, nodding her head. Best to be prepared, just in case. Alina could respect that. Though before she could say anything more Ishani had taken off. Literally chasing shadows.

Anywhere else and that'd be a joke or a concern. Not here. Alina followed for a moment, then ducked around the corner. Bursting off to cut off the shadow. Pincer them in an alley. As the shadow creature tried to emerge the Vampiress would step into view, smiling.

"My friend has a question for you."