Lost It To Trying

[NightSister]

Korriban​

​

It had been years since her first visit to Korriban - only a handful, but it could easily have been a different lifetime. She had never regarded herself as a different person since accepting the Dark, but it was impossible to pretend nothing had changed except circumstance. The same Aria, shifting between lifetimes. That was what she did. She changed. Evolved.

Transformed.

The skies were darkening, and although she was among allied peoples Aria was grateful for the cover lack of sunlight gave her. She'd had little that she really cared to hide. She just didn't feel like standing out today. Things were simpler when Aria was undisturbed. Quieter. Aria didn't like the quiet so much these days (it meant just her and her thoughts, and her thoughts were not such wonderful company), but whether or not solitude was peaceful it served her purpose infinitely better. And she'd grown to appreciate how things sought a purpose. Aimlessness had been her way for a long time but recently Aria had found that there was more reward in searching. Today, she was searching.

Dark hair climbing past her shoulders like a cloak, she was crouched by a ruin, nails running lines through the coarseness of the ground. As though she were hoping to draw something to light, and definitely as though she'd gotten caught up enough to miss that she was no longer alone.

The ruin had most certainly belonged to some group of Sith or another before it had fallen by the wayside and become prey to destruction - that aura was still there, though. She'd realised quickly from her first time on the planet that that aura could be found easily just by searching, prying through the waters into black obscured depths.

When she thought about it, she had been searching too the first time she had been here. Answers. Freedom. Funny how these things turned out.

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

Ruins of Deprivation​

Korriban​

​

Oh, sweet irony.

How cruel a mistress this life was proving to be, the strands of time and fate woven together until no one could have a hand in affecting either. She had had but a taste of freedom, a mere speck of sand in an otherwise untouchable desert, and now she was back in the spider's web. Bound in silk, injected with venom, laid bare beneath the cool orange sun of the world she had purposefully escaped.

It seemed as though her oppressors did not allow their little doves to fly free. They had broken her wings, and brought her tumbling back down to the orange land of subjugation where she faced pain like no other. For days on end it had been all she knew, until her throat was cracked from the screams it had bore and her body held a layer of sweat borne from adversity.

Then they had simply left her. Back bent, arms outstretched and bound with chains to walls which felt a thousand miles apart, the girl had been abandoned to a world of solitary, to wounds which had not been tended to, left to fester in the open air. She felt the eyes of countless predators upon her, creatures that would love nothing more than to tear out her throat if they could. Yet something seemed to hold them back, close enough to be a constant reminder, to leave her on edge, yet not enough to end her suffering.

Her cheeks were red, streaked where tears had fallen hours, days, possibly weeks ago. Time had become meaningless, after all. There was nothing to measure it by. Something was sustaining her, but she knew that her lips had not been graced with water and her stomach was empty of nutrients. Something was keeping her in this suspended state.

She had thought that the trials she had endured on Thirty-Two had been the worst humanity could think up. She had foolishly believed she had faced all that there was to experience. How wrong she had been. Her back was cut through with deep ravines and purple welts, there was a foul stench to the wounds which looked equally as disgusting. Nobody had tried to clean up the blood which was caked there, nobody had tried to close the lacerations.

Was this how she was to die? From drawn out infection? She had witnessed it before, back on that dreaded world, between the Eclipses, when medicine was not available, and the stars fell from the sky. The agony, the fevers, the sickness. That was not the way she wanted to go, yet she didn't even have the strength to lift her head, never mind pull at the chains which held her so firmly in place.

Had she already died? Was this her purgatory?

No. Her Hell would feature much more of the Beasts from her past. And Mr-Know-It-All whispering in her ears.

This was reality. Even if she didn't wish to face it.

[member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

The ruins were dimly lit, obscured and cast into shadow by the disarray of a crumbled building. A shambles, but somehow you could tell it had once been beautiful. But it must have been a long time ago.

Of course, her focus wasn't on the scenery. Aria had never cared for the idea that the Force was some deity, a great otherness whose will was intertwined with fate, but to her the Dark side of the Force most certainly had a life of its own even if she preferred to coexist with it than to serve. And her curiosity in the dark had been revived in recent times. So when she had the time she'd explore, search for whatever twisted version of peace the dark brought. She supposed it was a pretty picture.

Not through wandering the area hoping to find her calling, of course. Too aimless, too much placed on hope and Aria didn't believe in hope so much these days. No, she was following stories she'd heard. Rumors. Whispers. Ideas were powerful things.

It was quiet within these walls, but she'd heard there were people to be found.

And as always, fate found a way to surprise her.

She sensed a second presence before her gaze could catch up, but the idea of another soul finding reason to be here was interesting enough that she followed simply out of instinct. Aria had always been a creature of curiosity.

A corpse. No- a prisoner. Blood, wounds, bindings, and a girl somewhere beneath. Cloudy amber gaze watched her, all curiosity with slim room for pity. Her thoughts were not of empathy, of imagining what she must be going through. Rather how she'd angered anyone enough to merit this, how she was still breathing despite what seemed like her captor's best efforts to ensure otherwise.

Aria was not a benevolent person, and hadn't been for some time. She could do good things. Just for selfish reasons.
Like curiosity, and she was curious now.

"Who are you?"

She wasn't asking so much for her name.

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

Her world had shrunk into a tiny speck, one spot on the ground which was all she could see, orange like much of this oppressive land; there was a pain at her back, a burning in her shoulders and her arms from having been held outstretched for so long, in fact she couldn't feel her fingertips at all. She wondered how long it would take for the rest of her limbs to follow suit.

It was eerily silent. Though she knew the creatures were watching, at the moment she could not hear them, it was as though they were holding their breaths, pensive and on edge. Her mind wandered, curious as to what it was they could be doing, were they plotting a way down to where she was, to gorge on her fallen form? Were they sneering at her? Amused by the situation she had found herself within?

Are they there at all, is the real question, girl... Have you gone mad? Is this all in your head? Tick-tock-tick-tock, do you really think you could survive this long? If all of this was real? Stupid child, your ignorance knows no bounds. You're already dead, or mostly there. Another minute and you'll be gone. But how long is a minute, hm? Can you remember how to count to sixty? Count with me, girlie... One... Two...

"Shut... Up..." Those two words tore much of her remaining energy from her; her cracked lips began to bleed, her hoarse throat felt as though someone had forced razor blades down there, and her tongue felt heavy and dry. They were quiet, so ridiculously quiet, in fact they sounded more like a raspy breath, but she knew Mr-Know-It-All heard her all the same.

No, no... After two comes three. Remember? Didn't they teach you that in school? Oh, right... I forgot... You didn't go to school. No wonder you're so st---

The voice faded as another cut through her senses, effeminate. Was it the Spider? Hers was the only female voice that Llevana had heard in an eternity... So it was true, then, she had been caught back in her web, this was her punishment for thinking herself capable of leaving. And yet when she focused on what had been said, when her lagging mind caught up with her, she knew it could not be so.

Who was she?

Did she even remember that herself, at this point?

She did not respond at first, in fact it would seem as though she had no intention to at all. All she did was breathe her ragged breaths, and try to focus on something other than the pain. Everything was on fire, though, so that was nigh on impossible.

Who are you? Other than a stupid girl? You're nothing. You're worthless. You're a mad dog, and remember what they do to mad dogs, girl? They put them down. Here she is now, your executioner. A shot to the head ought to do it, though that would be too painless. After all they've put you through, I doubt they'll let you go so easily into the abyss.

"N-N..." she cut herself off before the stutter could become too intense, and let out a breath through her nose, "Nothing" she finally managed to respond, though her voice was tense and her expression wrought with confusion, almost as though she didn't believe what she had said. She was something. Someone. Had she ever really known who, though?

[member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

She saw little point arguing, but her interest was piqued. Drawing reactions strong enough to wind up with a fate like this- it took something. Aria could make her guesses, hedge her bets, but the stranger wasn't in much of a state to confirm or deny; she wouldn't get very far, no doubt.

And an ending like that?

Well, that took the fun out of it.

Few could ever call Aria a philanthropist, but few could say she was devoid of goodness either. What she was was selfish. The Sith Lord was very able to show kindness, to offer help, to risk her own neck for another - but damned if she wasn't getting something in return. And she didn't presume to expect much from [member="Llevana Helas"], but letting curiosity rest was its own payment.

Aria folded her arms, eyes an unusual kind of appraising. At the same time, both chains severed as though by chance, splitting suddenly across their length. She had barely moved - somehow, she never seemed to shift as much as she ought to - and she barely moved still.

"You want to stay nothing?"

The options were laid out plain as day. Aria could go on searching in some other direction if it came to naught. But life got so boring when you never took risks. She'd never gone far without gambling once or twice.