Just a dream

[Darth Zilti]

For the first time in…well for the first time ever, Maja slept in her own bed. She'd never actually had a proper bed to sleep in before, let alone her very own.

She was so tired after the day with Alexandra that the moment her head hit the pillow she fell fast asleep.

On another day the softness of the sheets might have felt so alien and strange to her but tonight she was so weary she was just past caring. Typically she never dreamed – or at least she never remembered them. But tonight was different.

No sooner had she fallen to sleep than she was in space – a variety of ships flashed through her mind. Some she recognised – she’d served on them – but others weren’t so familiar.

Interspersed with the ships were images of a woman – but they didn't remain long enough for her to fix the face in her mind. And the more she tried to, the more elusive the woman became.

Then the ships faded and were replaced by people. She didn’t know why - but she immediately knew they were tall. And still that woman’s face kept appearing. Nothing about it was familiar but at the same time she recognised it.

There was also a feeling of loss. And a new woman’s face looking into her eyes. “She has red hair – she’s been blessed by Vahl.”

And then the original woman’s face again – but every time she tried to focus on it, the image would change. Even in her dream state the frustration was palpable. Despite being asleep, she somehow consciously reached out to the woman.

“Who are you? What do you want?” She heard her own voice calling out – a desperate tone evident. Pleading almost.

[member="Darth Sinna"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Every night for the Sith apprentice was a waking nightmare - very rarely was she spared the pains of the force lightning that her new master seemed to enjoy subjecting her to, citing something of rage and emotions beyond passion, things which would spur her to become one of, if not the, most powerful Sith Lords to walk the galaxy. She knew she was chosen for something less than that, at least by the Dark Lord; but deep down the Vahla was particularly aware that such a lofty doom was too easy for her - some way, some how, the Sith would find a destiny greater than all material goals, yet still as cruel and dark as the blonde's black heart. But in all of her subjected misery, Silara had eventually passed out after an extensive "training", and thus drifted off to sleep, and dreamed.

Within her nebulous state of mind, as she faded further back to her repressed memories, most notably to those of her childhood, Silara slowly began to recall bits and pieces of a time where she seemed to have never recalled nor wished to remember - blurred images and convoluted sounds actively slamming into her like lights and loud noises to a drug addict whom had gone beyond their high. With each repeated sound, each image flashing like a high-speed camera reeling before her, the echoes of words, screams, shouts, phrases, everything all at once grew louder, louder, until she could only hear the white noise and the vision that was presented to her was a continuous white and gray blur.

And then everything went silent. Perhaps the most convenient of torturing techniques known to the sith was to make noise at intervals, and then gradually slow down the interval between each sound until eventually they stopped altogether. It was maddening. This silence was maddening.

"Who ...? What do you want?"

A voice rang out in the silence, and the bright white and gray shattered to reveal a blank, black, canvas of darkness, and she was swallowed by it as images began to shimmer around her, as if she was falling down a hole that knew no boundaries, that had no ties to logic and physics - all around her were images of red hair and various blurred faces of someone whom had a slight resemblance to what Silara recalled her mother appearing as - then it all stopped, and the Sith awoke in a cold sweat, her body still pressed against the cold stone wall of her master's quarter's. Slow, deliberated, breaths escaped her lips before she exhaled a silent question, now conscious of the bond through the force that she must share with another.

"Who is she?"

[member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja sensed pain – but unlike most dreams it was not her own. And this was extreme agony but one that she knew had to be endured – but why she did not know.

So many of the images and emotions that flashed into her mind were foreign to her – yet familiar. The contradiction was possibly the most confusing aspect.

New images filled her mind. Somehow she knew they weren’t her images – as if she was having someone else’s dream. Even though unconscious, her rational brain fed the stimuli. Is this somehow linked to Alexandra’s demonstrations today? Are these her thoughts? Has something been awoken in me due to my contact with the Force? Am I going mad? Is this what the Force is all about?

Then one of the images was hers – except it wasn't – it was Alexandra’s or whoever’s dream this was. But that woman? She was the same woman who commented on her red hair. Her mother!

Maja didn’t know why she made that connection but the feeling was compelling. It was her mother. Did Alexandra know her mother?

And then the images faded. Maja wanted them to come back so badly. She wanted to see her mother again. But the pictures in her mind became blurred and the noise increased to compensate. No sounds of anything real or remembered, just white noise interspersed with words, screams, shouts, phrases. Nothing familiar but everything experienced before. The contradictions continued.

And then everything went silent. To Maja this was a comfort but at the same time it was like torture. She was going mad, that was clear to her now. Destined to die alone and with some sort of split personality. How could the Force that had been described as so wonderful be like this? What sort of a cruel trick was this to play?

And suddenly it was dark and she was awake. But she knew she wasn’t. Because she was sitting with her back against a cold stone wall and she knew – deep down – that the room that housed the bed she was in wasn't stone. She was still asleep but also awake.

And then a voice as clear as if she was sitting beside her and breathing it into her ear. "Who is she?"

“Who is she? Who is who? Who are you? Am I going mad? Are you the voice of the Force?” Maja was aware that her own words sounded as clear in her head as the other woman’s voice.

[member="Darth Sinna"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

The words she spoke had barely began to linger on her lips when she felt the shudder of something else - someone else - sitting both beside her and within her simultaneously with yet more words whispered inside of her ear, in her head even. She knew this ability, this power of the force, but she could not understand why it was so obviously presented to her - was she being tricked by her master? Another mind game by Mierin to make her suffer and succumb further to the hatred and will to kill, perhaps? No, it was too inexperienced, perhaps even accidental - and no Sith would question whom she was as of late, at least none within the One Sith. The image of her mother on another, younger, body, however, was far too unnerving. She'd killed her parents with her own hands, and she had spent ample time ripping her mother apart with the force and reveled in the blood that soaked the mattress and the floorboards beneath the bed while she lay atop her ruined body - but this vision to her, it meant that she had a sibling, perhaps a younger sister, whom was gifted with the force, and judging by her red hair, even more than herself.

That thought in and of itself was frightening, Mierin and much of the Sith Lords had described her as a chosen prodigy of the Vahla people, and if her sister was greater than she, it would mean the end for the blonde Sith Knight. For a moment she considered the thought of seeking her sister out for the sole purpose of ending her, as she had her mother, but the bond she and her sister had evidently shared tugged at what little compassion she had and exposed to her the pain of emotional weakness - the most dangerous aspect of the passionate love that she was renown within the Sith for possessing, though normally applicable to the Dark Side rather than any living or mortal soul. As if to answer the whispering voice in her head, she spoke again, "I am Silara. Who are you?" Silara whispered, her words echoing through the bond they shared via telepathy - a skill she had innate prowess with, and she opened her eyes to look down at a puddle of water to project an image of her face to her.

[member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja was awake and asleep. She felt confusion and confusion. Hers and someone else’s.

And then overwhelming emotions. Hatred, fear and…compassion.

And finally a voice. "I am Silara. Who are you?" The voice was in one sense was thousands of miles away and in another was whispered into her ear.

And an image of a girl? A woman? Like Maja but not Maja.

“Silara?” Even in her dream state she tried the name for size. “Silara. I am…Maja.” She wasn’t sure if she should reveal her name but felt compelled to. As if she owed this person this small scrap of information.

A thousand questions flashed through her mind in a split second but only one could be offered – less she only had time for the single request. “Who are you?”

[member="Darth Sinna"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

A tinge of confusion struck the blonde as she realized the weight of the question - who was she to this person? She had suspicions, but without literally seeing her face to face, she could not cement them as fact. "I am your sister." Silara replied, though unsure of her answer's legitimacy. The only reason she truly had to believe this to be correct, aside from her visions of what seemed to be the past, was the bond they shared through the force, and it was with someone she had never truly met before. The unending curiosity sparked one last question from her, or at least a request. "Where are you?" The Vahla asked, though her link began to put a strain on her conscious mind. Now that she knew she had a living family - one that had not beaten her and starved her - she would go at any lengths to find her, and perhaps even bring them back with her. First, she needed to know where.

[member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja sensed the confusion in the other person, because the feeling manifested itself in her own head.

And then the words that made no sense but she knew to be true. “MY SISTER? MY SISTER? LIAR. You're a liar. I have no sister. Who are you? You can’t be…”

If it was possible to cry in a dream, Maja did now. An overwhelming feeling of sadness overcame her. She was an orphan. She was an only child. That was the truth. Except she knew, deep-down she didn’t know for sure she was an only child – the fact had never been mentioned one way or another.

She had a sister. YES. She had a sister. She knew it now. She didn’t realise how incomplete she felt until this moment. It was as if a part of her that she never knew existed was suddenly handed to her – and now she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever managed to live and breathe without her sibling. Without knowing her sister.

The voice returned to her head. Her sister’s voice returned to her head. "Where are you?"

Maja almost laughed as she realised she didn’t truly know. The concept of which planet she was on had never entered her head. She’d jumped a ship and got off at the first stop and then met Alexandra. A kidnap victim probably had a better idea of their location.

“I’m at a Temple. The Order of the Grey. I…I don’t actually know which planet. Alexandra Lianne Feanor owns the property. They teach Force users. Sith, Jedi and whatever else there is inbetween. I’m sorry.”

Maja felt distraught that she couldn’t tell Silara where she was. She just hoped what she had shared would be enough. Enough for what though? Would her sister come and find her? She daren’t ask the question, in case the answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

[member="Darth Sinna"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Perhaps for the first time since her childhood, since the moment that she realized how unwanted she was by her parents, Silara felt a sense of rejection by the protests of her newly discovered sibling. While [member="Maja Vern"] was seemingly outraged that she even make the suggestion of their relationship, Silara was silent and bewildered at how hurt she felt. 'So this is weakness', the thought ringing in her ears like cymbals. For a moment she was beside herself, wondering if their mother felt the same way in her final moments - and for a fleeting, twisted, moment she wished that in her mother's last breaths that she understood the pain she felt and felt the same rejection she was pushed to. While her sister spoke she was lost in thought, and the mention of Alexandra snapped her out of her reverie with recognition of the name. "Alexandra?" Silara repeated, knowing of the woman from her time with the Shadow Empire, before her own abrupt and sudden exile from the group, though she knew of her due specifically because of a task that was handed to her by her prior master in the Sith. Pausing to take this information in, two thoughts entered her mind. The first was the elimination of Alexandra, whom she was tasked with a secret mission to assassinate, and the other was to forget the woman and find her sister. What she would do then would be decided later, for now she only wanted to find her and meet her.

 

[Darth Zilti]

“Yes, Alexandra…” Maja was coming to terms with having someone else’s voice in her head and acted as if this form of conversation was quite natural.

“Do you know her?” Maja sensed conflict within Silara’s mind. Well, not exactly true. She thought she sensed conflict – but then that could have been her own thoughts, her own emotions. She really wasn’t sure at the moment where Silara ended and Maja began.

And then a thought struck her. 'Perhaps I have become a schizophrenic. Maybe the Force has done this to me?' Maja lurched from complete understanding and comfort with the situation to utter confusion and panic.

“Are you real?...As if you’d say if you weren’t! You feel real. I mean, if my mind was going to play a trick on me, it would make it more believable, right?”

And now she was rambling. But then for Maja this was normal, pouring her thoughts out, reviewing them and then putting them back in the right order when she’d made sense of them.

“And if you’re my sister, did you know my, I mean our parents? I was told they died in an explosion on a ship we were on? Where were you? They did die, didn’t they? I know that’s a crazy question, yes, they must be dead. They wouldn’t just abandon me and keep you, would they?”

And finally the question she’d been wanting to ask from the very beginning but was afraid to. Afraid of the answer more specifically.

“Will you…can you…I mean…will you…come and find me?”

[member="Darth Sinna"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59X8R1NAc48[/media]​

Silence was her answer to her sister's response, though her eyes widened as her sister spoke in questioning of her own existence, and the blonde pushed herself up from the ground as her slack muscles went rigid and she began to protest the assertion of Silara being merely an illusion, delusions of the force, though was immediately silenced by a troubling set of questions that she held the answers to.

"I will come for you, Maja." Were the words she spoke.
'I am not our parents.' She thought, resisting the urge to speak it.

Though she had conveniently remained silent on the subject of their parents, she knew it was a topic that would have to be spoken painfully in private, face to face, once she could be reunited with who had become a beacon for the Sith to seek out. It was indescribable to her, the blonde, that she had found someone that was as important to her as her Dark Lord, the Emperor, someone as warm to her as the force itself. With that thought in mind, and that pain weighing heavy on her heart, she stumbled towards the broken door, which she had been thrown against the night prior, letting out a sigh to break the silence.

[member="Maja Vern"]

 

[Darth Zilti]

The confusion in Maja’s mind was unabated – as was the bipolar nature of her emotions. The silence seemed to last an eternity – all the more painful because every second that passed added to the fear and doubt that this was, in any way, real.

Or worse still she concluded, that this was real but her sister – her own flesh and blood – was going to say no. Or just not sure if she should say yes.

Silara’s words were food to a starving man. They weren’t just morale boosting, they were life-saving.

Perhaps the better analogy was like drugs to a new user. She’d never experienced a high like it and craved more – knowing nothing and caring naught for the risks attached, for the possible (in reality inevitable) consequences that the dependency would create. In truth, even if the unavoidable pain that comes with relationships was explained to her now, Maja would ignore the warning and jump in regardless. For love was the most powerful drug in the galaxy and its highs and lows could not be matched by any synthetic stimulant.

If the first line was spoken directly to Maja, the second was felt. It made no sense but then Maja didn’t need it to make sense. Silara was coming!

And then guilt kicked in. Perhaps the first sign of the terrible addiction she was about to endure. Alexandra was known to her for under 24-hours but already felt like the mother she never knew – never had. Was Maja to discard her? But if not, was she to reject Silara? From a position of having nobody to love, Maja had found two in a day. How would she balance her feelings for both? The optimist in her wanted to keep both relationships exactly as they were – independent and fulfilling in different ways. The pessimist in her told her she’d end up with nothing – both sides would reject her and she’d end up just as she was only a matter of hours ago – lonely and unloved. For that was the only reality she could truly relate to. Happiness was for other people – not her.

Maja heard the sigh. ”I’ll wait for you…forever,” she said and her eyes snapped open.

[member="Silara Vantai"]