Private Mirror Image

[Zaavik Perl]

Not remembering was the worst part. Not being able to picture his mother's face no matter how hard he tried had robbed Zaavik of more sleep than he cared to admit. But unlike Aradia, he was too young to even remember how they were seperated. It was so fuzzy and distant that he might as well have never known her to begin with. Aradia must have been older, she made it sound like she had more recollections than he did. More to cherish, yet so much more to long and mourn for. He didn't envy her for that reason, despite her having more to hold onto.

"Do you ever wonder, though?" he asked. He couldn't be the only one, right? "Ever think you should go and find out yourself?" More than a little, Zaavik was projecting. It almost appeared as if he thought there was some virtue in digging up painful befores. Hidden in his curiosity was a search for affirmation from someone who would understand. Someone who was also taken from their place.

Blind, he brushed a strand of her from her face with cold fingertips as he added, "Even if for no other reason than to prove that you've overcome everything?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia shook her head, liquid leaking silently into his fingertips.

"It's not that simple. I can't remember her name-- or even the planet. I've nothing to go off of." She swallowed hard, then uttered in a tight voice. "She'sprobablydeadanyway."

She smushed her face into his hands, letting a wave of old grief leak out against his touch. It had been a long time since she last thought about her lost mother. She didn't think she cared, but here she was... oddly broken down and vulnerable in this bed that didn't feel like her own. She was more honest in that moment than she had ever been with herself before.

At her heart she was just a girl without a family. It hurt.

She sniffled it away against his skin, then peered up at the darkness. "We don't need them. We've already proved that. You and me."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Aradia's conclusion was one Zaavik had often drawn himself. His Mother, his Father, whoever they are, could be long dead and gone. The elusive optimist hidden inside him often dismissed it on the rare occassion he was feeling hopeful. The nights where he lay alone, eyes glued to the ceiling, wondering what could of been. The days when he felt like he could take on the world. Recently, though, he hadn't felt like he needed those dreamy optimisms to get by. Not anymore.

Slowly, Zaavik's thumb wiped a tear. Gingerly, as to not jab her in the eye. The dark overawed the eyes, leaving touch as the only reliable sense. "We have," he agreed. Right there was the reason those dreams ceased to be the icon of his hopes. Something tangible had replaced them. "You're all I need." Oblivious to how banal or cheesy it might have sounded, he didn't even cringe immediately following the sentiment as he might have months ago. Platitudinous it may have been, but it took little away from the sincerity.

A moment later, he tacked on, "You do have a family, though." The roof over their head was irrefutable proof. "I know its hard for you to let them in," he claimed. "But they love you. Honestly, I'm almost jealous."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia crinkled her nose, his final words almost killing it for her.

"Jealous?" She echoed. "Of what? Two years ago I wouldn't have been allowed in. This wasn't my room, I didn't eat at dinners. I'm not their daughter. In two years I bet they'll say the same." Her voice hit a bitter note. As much as she fought to keep the past out of their relationship, she failed in all regards with this family.

All she knew was loss. It was one thing to lose peers or a friend, but family?

She pulled away, closing off to the thought. "If you like them so much you can have them. They liked you." Zaavik had melded right into the family event, easier than Aradia had at the start. He was jumpy and paranoid, but he willing to be engaged.

He wanted this.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Zaavik's expression was hidden, thankfully, as the contortion of his features might have come off visibly as a challenge. "What?" There was a hint of that same fight in his voice, which unfortunately wasn't hidden whatsoever. "You think they would just suddenly change their mind? That doesn't make any sense." Was there a piece he was missing? The mental effort he dedicated to unpacking her assertion was almost tangible.

"Aradia, they liked me in part because they know I'm important to you. Because you're important to them. I would be able to tell if they were being disingenuous." He'd only trained most of his life to spot that kind of thing. It would have been the first thing he mentioned, had he picked up on any at all. When he asserted it wasn't the case, his confidence was of the usual inexorable flavor. An echo of his Jedi tendencies.

"Why do you think that?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia laughed. She couldn't help it. She pulled away and went up on her elbow. "Zaavik." The come on was clear and unspoken.

"You know what I am."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Why was she laughing? Okay, maybe there was a piece he was missing here.

"Uh... a woman?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

She snorted and jerked on the light, hair disheveled from her time in his arms.

"A slave."

It was the most obvious equation in the world. At least, she felt it was. "Its-its its physics," she asserted, catching the wrong word. "Or nature-- the way it is. Burning that paper doesn't change anything-- doesn't make this bed mine ."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Wha-?" Sudden adjustment of the eyes to light made Zaavik wince, squeeze his eyes shut momentarily. "Yes it does!" he contended while still trying to regain adequate use of his vision. He sat up to match her level. "That's not nature or physics, you gonk! You're no more a slave than I am a wrench rat," he asserted. Reassurance mingled with perturbation in his tone.

"You think that of me, too? That one day I'm going to decide you're nothing?" Contentious intensity gradually died into a deep frown. Was that the missing piece? Were all of her odd aversions, tendencies, and otherwise just projections of a lesser complex? Vaguely, he recalled learning about this during the espionage lessons, when manipulation was the prime object of study.

"What you're born into doesn't decide what you are. You do. You have that freedom now."

 

[Darth Daiara]

"You think that of me, too? That one day I'm going to decide you're nothing?"

Well... Yeah...

She took his strong response in stride, not perturbed by the manner in which he responded. It was like telling him there was no guy in a ship delivering presents at life day.

It's a pretty thought, but unrealistic.

"Zaavik... come on," she reasoned. "We both know no matter how much you say it, it doesn't make it true. It's fine. I don't need you to make me feel better over it. I've accepted it." She let out a long, heavy breath and tucked her hands into the blankets. She braced herself, then continued.

"I'm not meant for this. This house, these people-" her eyes flickered him, her words catch. You. "...Look I'm not saying this isn't great, cause it is. But I'm not gonna get myself too twisted over this borrowed time, ok? I just- I just don't think I could handle that."

That-- her crash back down to the ranks she had once been. Our of sight, out of mind. Property. You use it and put away.

"Chill."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"We both know?" A hand mopped his face, obscured a sigh. "You're serious?" It sounded ridiculous. Zaavik couldn't think of a single planet in the galaxy on which it wouldn't sound like total bullshit. It pained him to think of how much it tore at her, yet he remained almost adversarially insistent with his assertions to the contrary.

"Do you hear yourself!?" he blurted. "I love you, they love you, there's no borrowed time, and it doesn't just go away. You're not a commodity, you're a person for kark's sake!"

This had become a conniption nearly all its own. Zaavik pinched the bridge of his nose, becoming aware how futile it was to even try. Belligerent as ever, even to a wall. At least that hadn't changed. "Don't you want to be more than that?" he asked gingerly, suddenly sounding defeated. Or had it? "You don't have to hold yourself back."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia suddenly got very quiet, his outburst leaving her uncharacteristically withdrawn. A response held at the tip of her tongue but she didn't dare to speak it. All the time she had seen him pull up his lip at what she was-- what she did. He was no different than her, yet she could feel the way he looked down at the path that kept her alive.

The pain of it boiled, clawing its way up her throat until she burst, "I see the way you look at me. Stop this-- it's not-- I know what you really think." She shoved at the blankets to escape their weight. Trapped, trapped-- she needed air.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

This time, the quick blinking was born of surprise rather than sudden brightness. What was she on about now? Every curveball came at a different speed, from a different direction. Suddenly he wasn't anywhere near tired. Instead he was trying to understand something in his weakest realm of comprehension.

"I just told you what I think," he offered, still somewhat caught off guard. A quick mental recap of the conversation tried to pinpoint a wrong word or a misstep. It had to be somewhere, but he couldn't narrow it down. Instead, his head shook with small oscillations, trying to figure out where they were at. First some kind of servant's complex, and now... whatever this was.

"Aradia, talk to me."

 

[Darth Daiara]

How did they get here? How could she stop it?

The world was spinning out and she couldn't hold it tight enough. It was ending. Was it ending? She didn't want it to end. She crossed her arms over her chest, convinced for a moment that this was her worst fear come to life.

Borrowed time was up.

"Then why won't you train?" She snapped, lashing out in her fear. "Why do you hate Vesta-- why do you resist? You've made your opinion of what we are very clear. You regret the choice you made-- you think they're better. Well I didn't have a choice. It was slave, or this. And now its this, or death-- and you think you're better than it all. You look down on me."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

A slow shrug rose Zaavik's shoulders reticently. He withdrew into silence momentarily, trying to hold in a hostile outburst from being cornered. It was hard to question whether or not the double bind had been intentional. A deep breath put a rope around his composure.

"I don't look down on you," he contended, genuine. "Because I'm not Sith. I don't know what to call this, but I know what I am and what I'm not." Someone had called him a Dark Jedi once. It didn't really roll of the tongue the way Sith did, though. Something about it made him feel uncomfortable, too. "You're the one who taught me that it isn't so black and white. Why are you suddenly acting like you don't know better?"

Of course she brought Vesta into it. Darth Mori, the clandestine object of their visit. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was onto him. "Because I don't trust her. I don't like how she hurts and manipulates you." Aradia still wore the echoes of her Master's wrath, likely squashing most of denial's appeal.

"But I trust you, so I let it go." A falsehood that was destined to be insidious, but a necessary part of the façade he'd kept up since they got here. Zaavik did trust Aradia. There was no deception in that confession. Which made it all the more sufficient to hide the lie woven in.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Words, excuses, none of it explained that crawling feeling in his chest when he faced what he was. That discomfort-- that self hatred-- it stuck to her skin without words. She couldn't express what she sensed, but she sensed it.

She felt like she was going crazy and the lingering alcohol in her system wasn't helping. Her shoulders collapsed. She wanted to lay down again and pretend this never had occured. She rubbed at her face instead, not looking at him as she spoke.

"Then why are you so unhappy here? Why do you regret it. Why does being with me-- doing this bring you pain? Don't deny it, Zaavik. Just- .... don't."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Now he was tired again. This was quickly becoming exhausting. Maybe she's still canned, he thought. Was she really that oblivious to the comfort she brought? Had he done a poor job expressing it? He couldn't find a reason for either to be the case. Even worse was that she tried to bright forward the remorse he'd hidden Stress came to a head with his heart beating in his chest.

"Stop it," he snapped, toeing beyond the edge. Another deep exhale from scowled face kept him in line. Yet another allowed him to speak without yelling. "It's not like that," he insisted, an agitated edge to his diction. "Really." Emphasis. Every fiber of his being just wanted this to end. He didn't know how to handle this. He didn't want to handle this. It was too much.

"I'm never happier then when I'm with you. You're what keeps me going," he confessed. Having to open up that much, just to reassure, only exasperated the mental strain. "Believe me or don't." That final demand was hardly importunate, the hurt clear in his concessive tone. Zaavik unpropped himself, laying backward to stare at the ceiling. He granted her one more saddened glance before shutting his eyes.

"Can't we just go to bed?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

Things weren't matching up, her thoughts were too thick. She shook her head at him, overwhelmed and unsure how to break the tension that had built between them. How had they got here again? She pulled away, onto her feet where she could get air. She wasn't good at fighting. She was even less skilled at making up.

She couldn't quiet the memory of the pain he felt the morning she had died his hair. He held remorse and right or wrong she knew it was centered around where he was. Now. With her.

I dug this hole, it's mine to live in.

And she was that hole. She was his second choice, she was the least appealing, she was-- "I'm going for a walk," she choked, unable to suck breath into her lungs as she turned from the bed that should be hers.

But it wasn't.

Not by birthright.

She self-sabetgoued and tried to walk away.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

That would make whatever this was worse. Zaavik had known her long enough to know that alone with one's thoughts was the last place Aradia needed to be most of the time. Fleshy digits snapped forward, seized her forearm with a halting tug. His eyes remained closed, heavy.

"Stay," he implored. Grip released, almost contrarian to the spoken word. It showed his willingness to give her choice regardless of how poor one of the choices was. Zaavik was never one to be imperious, not even when he was right. A palpable effort pried his eyes open, checking if she was still stationary. They settled best they could for eye contact.

"Please."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia froze, her throat tight and pinched as she bore down his gaze. Emotions flipped in an instant. Maybe that's why she had wanted air. She felt herself unravel, the moment plucking the threads of her tapestry.

Tears blurred from her eyes before she could even understand what they fell for. They fell without permission, mourning the memory of a mother she had never forgotten, and the injustices of her life that had always left her... drowning.

She was drowning. Opened up like this, every facet of her aired, she was messy.

She pulled back, trying to compartmentalize the parts of her she had exposed. Everything went in nice little boxes, but now the shelves had tipped and the mess-- It was too late. The emotions ran free down her cheeks. She tried to babble an excuse but she tripped over the rug and ended up on her knees.

She wrapped her arms around her core and tried to hold the pieces of her in. They fell like sand through her fingers. She sobbed.