Rekindling the Dread [Sven]

[Dissero]

The man glanced briefly to the King, a crease settling into the corners of his expression that told of unspoken doubt. So much could go wrong here, much more than he would ever hope to bargain for. As he turned his gaze from man to the woman of the hour a long, painful sigh hissed through his teeth.

Dissero nodded to the attending Doctor within the lab to begin the process of deactivating the stasis chamber. The man stood waiting, watching, breath bated. He had to be patient, yes, as coming out of stasis was a delicate procedure, but he also had to be ready. Time was against him and neither Sven nor the Doctor could make physical contact with Sable or they risked being overcome by her corruption. When the chamber depressurized and the compartment face dislodged, Dissero waved a hand towards the pod and broke the seal with the Force, removing the duraglass lid. He stepped forward through the billowing mists and reached in, exposed brawny arms quickly and carefully scooping the woman's slight, featherweight form out of her bed.

The feeling of malaise took him over immediately and it was with a clenched jaw and a Mastery of his will that he walked her to the nearby medical table and set her down. His skin burned mightily wherever he'd made contact, but he motioned for the Doctor to engage the sensor instruments to monitor her heartrate and slowly increasing body temperature. After clearing away the remaining life-support nodes from her bare figure he covered her with a blanket and gently reached for the chain around her neck. It resisted him but managed a quick removal of the locket and pocketing it.

"Heart rate is slowing, body temperature is dropping - we're losing her -" the Doctor commented from the panel nearby, glancing meekly to Sven in his corner.

"Not yet, I just need some time," his hands moved to her head now, gently brushing aside those golden locks from her brow. The man placed his fingers at her temples and closed his eyes, mentally staving off the pain of the contact to focus his will.

Retrieving memories was a sort of specialty of his within the multitude of talents he possessed. This sort of skill often went hand-in-hand with holocron crafting, and it was what he employed here to help lift the fog of the Locket's powers from her mind. In her weakened state she had no defenses for him to break, but she had about 6 billion souls, utterly lost in her own identification crisis, to sift through. How on earth? He decided to pay this no mind and pressed on, seeking out the flashes of memories, lifting the veil of shadow over them.

But it was a jumbled mess. Between the corruption and the spell he was having a hard time placing things for her. She had memories of Silva Talith that superseded those of Sable, and without his own familiarity of the woman it was difficult to render which was the farce. Where had the line been drawn between delusion and self awareness?

 

[Subject 37]

Sven watched the ordeal through hazy and blurred eyes. He had no idea what to do with himself. He was useless here, more than useless in fact. He had no medical ability, he could use none of these machines, he could not understand what was going on, he could not even reach out and touch his beloved. He wanted to, that was for sure, but he knew such a thing was likely dangerous, even for him.

Never before had he more desperately wished for a way to use the force.

He knew that if he had the capability, that if his father hadn't taken that gift away from him, that he would've been able to help. But alas he could do nothing. He stood and watched as his wife died. He stood there with his hands balled into fists, anger welling up within him as he watched her fade away.

“Save her.” He whispered to no one in particular, it was not a plea however, but a command.

 

[Dissero]

"She's flatlining-" the Doctor said with some urgency, instinctively moving towards her as any Doctor would to help.

"DON'T TOUCH HER," came Dissero's convulsive response over a guttural snarl, his eyes winced shut as he worked, feverishly, to lift the spell from her mind. He'd turned from sifting through her own memories to simply following the trail of the powers at work there.

"You're losing her!" yelled the Doctor.

"No," he growled, allowing his own anger to seep forth. The fingers of his left hand curled at the side of her head as he moved to place his palm against her bossom, issuing forth a heavy jolt of Force Lightening. Sable's body convulsed, but he felt her consciousness flicker back, and for the briefest of moments the woman's eyes shuddered open, revealing green irises paled by her fading life.

The honey hue from her hair seemed to be seeping away. The black mark of corruption that ran the length of her right arm began to reappear. Veins of darkside taint spread from her eyes. She was coming back...!

But then her eyes closed again and her dark marks began to fade.

Damnit. He grit his teeth, looking up at Sven and then to the Doctor, eyes passing around the chamber. He needed something...something of great power to jumpstart her own. But what? Force Lightning alone wasn't enough.

Then, in a moment of clarity, Dissero locked eyes with Sven. He drew the Truesword from his side and in one swift motion, before the King could react, plunged it into her chest.

The result was explosive - a flash of molten fury, a Force Storm of pain and dread and terror, it errupted from the sword and blasted the contents of the lab away. That Doctor? His death had been the swiftest of all. The stasis pod? Decimated. All the instruments? Dust.

 

[Subject 37]

Sven's eyes popped open until they resembled two large saucer plates. Black pupils almost completely took over the amber or his iris' as the shock hit him of what Dissero had just done. Anger and rage flew through him and before he could even think about what he was doing the lamenting King reached for the blade piercing his beloveds heart.

Before he could reach it however a flash erupted, an explosion born of the force and registering of the darkside of the force.

Like all things born of the force it did not effect him fully. It did not even really touch him. The sundering disintegrating blast did not tear into his skin and rip apart his molecules, but instead only threw him back slightly, sending him flying a few feet away from Sable. His clothes were not so lucky as he however. What was left of his fine leather coat was torn into shreds, his shirt ripped into small pieces and his pants nearly being entirely decimated

Sven slid across the floor, coming to a stop only a short few meters away from the table side.

His eyes seemingly became even bigger, and without surveying the room or the destruction around him the mad King dashed back towards his wife. He called out to her as he reached her, his hands sliding beneath her head and cradling it softly “Sable!”

He looked down into her face, now once again the face of the woman he had fallen in love with. With one hand he reached over and grasped the hilt of the truesword, attempting to pull it free from betwixt her bosom.

 

[Quietus]

"...no."

The voice that left the haggard woman's lips was dry, rough, and angry. It was followed by a well of viscous black fluid from which she coughed and sputtered. Though her appearance had returned to that of her original form, it still bore the aftermath of her duel with Moridin and all the resulting consequences. Black scars of Darkside corruption riddled her figure, she was gaunt and pale, weak. A mere shadow of her former self.

A skeletal hand reached up to clutch at those of Sven wrapped around the hilt of the Truesword, "no," she uttered again.

Sable's eyes opened, a ghostly green hue, and struggled to focus on his face, "Leave it," she gave a struggling breath, the pain showing clearly on her face, "it's keeping me alive. Sven, am I alive?"

 

[Subject 37]

Almost instantly Sven's hand seemed to shy away from the Truesword, as if it were the source of all the galaxies woes. Instead he snatched up his lovers hand in a tight, but not crushing embrace. He grasped her hand in one hand, and her head in the other, leaning over her and holding her as much as he could. The Kings entire body seemed to be shaking, a rainbow of emotions pouring through him like water from a cliff.

“Yes.” A simple syllable, but filled with so much emotion that one would think it was impossible. There was a large smile on his face, though he still quite unsure if they had entirely succeeded.

Just the sound of Sables voice was enough to throw him into a whirlwind of passion, of love. He wanted to say a thousand things, and yet none of them could reach his tongue. Sven desperately tried to speak, but all that came out were deep haggard breaths. For a minute or so he simply stood there, holding Sable and taking deep, calming breaths, his chest rising and falling steadily until finally he found words.

“Even death cannot keep you from me for long I'm afraid.” He let out a slight chuckle, as if it were a joke. “You don't get to escape me that easily.”

 

[Quietus]

Sable groaned, coughed, and shuddered on the table, her free hand seemed to seize. The black liquid continued to bubble from her lips and was now seeping from her nostrils and the wound around the blade in her chest. She tried to squeeze his hand with her own but found she had no strength to her. Life seemed fleeting, and in those moments she felt for certain she was on borrowed time.

Moridin's corruption was still there in full force, staved off by the Truesword's power, but for how long she couldn't say.

She closed her eyes against the warmth of Sven's touch, her mind still foggy but now capable of accessing those memories - the real memories, of her past. The Locket's spell had been lifted.

"I remember you," the words were strained over a terrible grimace of pain, she began to mutter incoherently about things that had happened in the other realm. Her focus waned.

 

[Subject 37]

“You damned well better.” Sven quipped before realizing that his wife was once again fading into the Abyss. Panic reigned supreme in him for those few moments. While she was within his hands he could feel her fading, the softness of her touch was growing ever weaker and he knew it. His eyes darted away from her, and then towards the other figure left in the room. “Dissero!”

He yelled to him, screeched really, he had to get the man up, but he could not leave Sables side. Not now, not when she needed him most. “Dissero! She needs...help!”

This time his yell was more forceful, an echo of his fathers commanding voice. Sables voice broke through his mind again, incoherent ramblings about Sith Lords and dead men. The King grimaces, tears forming in his eyes. He whispered to himself.

“No. No no no no. I can't lose you again.” The words were hardly audible, but they were there.

 

[Dissero]

In a heap against the wall at the far end of the lab, Dissero cracked an eye open at the sound of Sven's screeching yell. The man groaned, pushing himself to sit up and lifted a hand to the pounding of his head. His fingers raced through the mess of black hair, finding the slick sensation of blood at the back of his skull. Grimacing, the man decided not to persue the wound and slowly, painfully pushed himself to his feet. His clothing was burned and tattered, skin of his chest and arms bubbling with blackened corruption. The Mark of Darkness branded into his sternum glowed a faint red, angry and reactive to the power of the Truesword.

A hiss emitted from between clenched jaws as the young man turned seething blue eyes rimmed in an acidic yellow upon the dying woman and her husband. His lip twitched, his joints ached and his heart beat within his chest so hard he thought it might burst forth. There was a strangely thrilling spark on the air - the aftermath of entropy from the cataclysmic reaction. A dark, burning malevolence originating from the blade, one that could only be appreciated by those of blacker souls. Dissero glared at the thing, wrapping his will around the anger it seethed to keep it from polluting his thoughts, and slowly stepped forward.

Force he wanted a drink.

This had all been an unexpected and... interesting turn of events.

He stood over the table, his tall and brawny figure now marred and baring angry blisters seemed to cast a shadow over the pair. Expression grave, he shook his head and leaned to place a hand on the woman's forehead. She was deathly cold, her breathing shallow, "There's something else at work here. The Locket's spell is lifted, I thought..." the man's jaw set rigidly as he dared to glance to the crumbling Sven, "I thought it would work. I don't know what else to do..." this darkness was beyond his understanding.

 

[Subject 37]

Sven's eyes opened, and then almost immediately narrowed in range. He would not have his wife come back and then die before his eyes once she had retaken the form of his true love. He would not survive such a thing, he could not stand for her suffering. His hands grasped at Sables hair, scrunching it in his fists as rage spiked through him.

“No.” It was a whisper at first, barely audible himself, much less Dissero. “No!”

This time it was a yell, a scream. His arms slipped form below Sables head, and his hand extracted from hers. With lightning like speed Sven grabbed for Dissero, one hand on the scruff of his neck the other shooting for his gut. He grasped the man, and quite literally threw him onto the table besides Sable, his legs hanging off the side.

“Fix Her!” It was an order this time, a demand. One that defied all logic.

 

[Dissero]

The instinctive reaction, the Sith reaction, would have been to immediately fight back.

Dissero did not fight back. Perhaps he'd gone soft over the time spent persuing his own endeavors after the fall of the Empire. Or perhaps the loss of Verie weighed more heavily on his mind than he'd even admit to himself. The girl hadn't died, but her absence from his life had left a great void within him, something that helped him fathom the frantic rage overtaking the King now.

"I can't," the man growled, blue eyes flashing furiously. He wasn't sure if his anger was greater for his failure or for the aggression posed to him. His hands sought out the edge of the table, grasping for a hold, "I don't know how."

He didn't notice the pieces of Moridin's holocron missing from his robes, but he did notice the sensation of the woman suddenly seizing on the table.

 

[Subject 37]

Without Sven's notice at firs the two silvery cylindrical pieces fell onto his wifes body, The her stomach. For a few seconds, nothing happened. The two silver halves of the holocron simply lay in place. Then a shift occurred.

A bright red light gleamed from Sables stomach, a powerful ethereal glow that seemed to radiate darkness. The Silver responded in kind, dark etching shifting and moving about, spreading to cover the length of the silver until each end of the holocron took on a fierce look, as if burning. Sven's eyes opened to the size of saucers as he watched the two silver pieces, only opening wider as they began to move on their own.

The two cylinders shifted and moved about within the glow emitting from Sable's stomach, dancing and twirling in a circle for only a few seconds before lining up perfectly with one another as they had never before. The two cylinders fit together with a loud snap, becoming one long tube.

The glow around the tube intensified, certain runes growing bright and brighter as the holocron lifted itself into the air, sustained by some magic of the force. Then suddenly the cylinder snapped open, revealing an empty space.

The glow in Sables stomach lurched through her body, moving up her chest past her breasts and into her throat. Her lips that had been clamped shut slammed open, and a dark red cloud of smog poured from between her teeth. It rushed out of her with a great surge, forming a massive pluming cloud above the three inheritors of Moridins legacy. There it hung for a second, and then it slammed down into the empty space of the cylinder.

A great spark erupted, lightning jumping into the air as the smog crammed itself into the holocron. This went on for a few more seconds, until finally the smog in the air was gone, and inside of the long tube like cylinder a deep red crystal had formed.

For only the briefest second the crystal was viewable, and then the holocron slammed shut, falling onto Sables stomach.

 

[Dissero]

"Feth me," straining to watch this occur while still being held down by the King, Dissero eyed the phenomenon with a wide, wondering gaze, "the holocron..."

Of course, as the pieces of the Dreadlord's legacy slowly formed together, so too did the pieces of this woman's unknown ailment. She'd been Moridin's undoing and the one to bring about his final demise, knowing the man he would have made some effort to remain. Some attempt to continue his wrath. He'd passed his essence to her, and within her it festered like an incurable sickness. His corruption had been her disease. No small wonder he hadn't the power to overcome it. There were likely few who did.

With Sven fully distracted he wrenched himself free of the man's grasp and pulled away from the table to put plenty of distance between himself and the mad King. His eyes trained on Sable and the holocron that settled at her middle, wary for the fate of his prize. He could likely snatch it and make for an escape, but it was too soon to tell, too soon to make a move. If the woman didn't survive, if he had truly failed and potentially caused her death there would no doubt be consequences. Dissero wasn't willing to die for his efforts, but he wasn't a man of dishonor either.

Gaze uncertain, it moved carefully from the artifact to the woman, watching, waiting, willing her to live.

 

[Quietus]

Time stood still in that room for only a brief few moments, though to Sable it felt like an eternity. Her mind traveled back to that nightmaric scene on Byss, far beyond in the other realm when Moridin, her Demon, had made his last summons for her. There she watched the man who was her savior, her mentor, and in many ways her father break down before the gates of Chaos. He'd given to her that very day his pure essence, his knowledge, his powers. He'd given her his everything. Receiving his gifts had been one of the most painful experiences she could recall, and nothing, but nothing, had come close to matching the agony.

Nothing until this.

It was fire. It was embers. It was the raging malice of the man burning through her core. It was Chaos contained and now escaping and she felt the most wonderful, most familiar agony yet again. Pain was home, darkness was love, this nightmare was her life.

A black hand shot up, frail and skeletal fingers grasping at the blade of the Truesword with the unearthly strength of the undead. Clasping the edge, they squeezed and heaved upwards, sliding along the blade until they met the base of the hilt where their strength could push against it. The weapon pulled free, ochre blood oozing and dripping along its length as Sable took a long, rasping breath and struggled to sit up. With her other hand she grasped at the holocron, fingers ensnaring the article, and with both hands full she pushed herself up. Movements stilted with a raw burden of lingering death, the woman released a demonic groan.

When finally she was up, the blanket that had once covered her nakedness fell away and and sat there utterly uncaring of her current state. That malignant gaze of pale green leveled upon the Archivist who watched her with such rapt attention, "Lock him up," her words were ghoulish, thick with the taste of her own blood.

She coughed, spitting up more, ignoring the sensation of the fluid running down her chin, "Sven, take me to the nexus."

 

[Subject 37]

Without even a thought for Dissero Sven moved to enact his Queens commands. With strong arms her scooped her up, her fragile forming fitting perfectly against his body and her weight meaning almost nothing to him. From a corridor to the side of the laboratory guards appeared, though where they had come from was unsure. Sven moved past them and away from Dissero, not really caring about what they did with the Archivist, though of course they would follow Sables command, even now they knew who she was.

He moved with startling speed, almost running down the halls.

In his mind Sable needed the nexus to finish her recovery, so he would bring her there as fast as he possibly could. His boots rang out within the halls, trampling as fast as he could. A few times servants got in his way, thought as they felt the presence of the reborn Dreadlady they seemed to instantly turn about and cower.

Sven did not even recognize them.

Within a few minutes Sven had moved down into the Citadel into the deepest blackest pits of his fathers Throne world. They stood before the black gates of the Nexus, carved with images of a Demon, the Demon Moridin. Sven looked at the gates, and then to his wife, ready to heed her commands.

 

[Quietus]

Nigh limp in his arms, the woman lost her grasp on the Truesword and the holocron as he traveled. They dropped from her fingers, clattering to the hallway floor. Nobody touched them, nobody would dare.

When Sven stopped before the gates of the Nexus she opened her eyes again and gazed upon the doors with a queer fondness - something fare more fitting for a mother looking upon her child. With great effort Sable lifted her blackened hand once more and slowly reached forth to gingerly caress her blood-covered fingers across the stone facade. She only had to think it and the doors quite suddenly parted to grant them passage.

Staring out into oblivion, the greatest darkside nexus of the galaxy raged before them; a contained storm of such power it likely could destroy the planet. This was her sanctuary.

Sable uttered the command to take her in and as she knew he would, Sven obeyed.

The effects of the whirling, raging nexus were instantaneous on the woman who had lain nearly dead for the better part of a year. The energies licked across her figure, like a tumultuous wind caressing her skin it sought out fractures in her being and seeped to fill them. Darkside energy flooded the woman, saturating her to the core of her existence. Slowly the frailty of her body gave way to regenerating muscles. Her skin, pallid and taught over her malnourished and starved figure drew pink and healthy. Her wounds healed over, marred as ever by the black scars of corruption. The dark auburn twists of hair that had slowly begun to fall from her scalp through stasis now fully shed from her flesh, flying away as dark wisps into the nexus, leaving her head bare save the veins of black that stretched from her eyes.

Still weak but feeling her strength continue to regrow, Sable reached up to stroke a hand across Sven's face and with it guided his chin down for a kiss.

"No more tears," she told him in a low voice, "I am here now."

 

[Subject 37]

Sven at that moment could have lifted the entire Citadel off its foundation, he could have fought an entire army, he could have taken on the entire Jedi Council, and won. He felt as though he had never felt before. A single kiss from his lost love, a single touch of her warm skin, it was all that it took to make Sven feel more alive than he had felt in months...in years now.

His face broke into a smile, and he fell to his knee's, Sable still in his arms. He kissed her once, then twice, then a third time, each one filled with passion saved for years on end. He was happy as he had not been in a long time. Finally he stopped, he looked her in the eyes, blazing amber once again filled with life and love, he felt as though he was himself again.

“Miss me?” It was all he could think to say.

Their relationship had always been an odd one. His constant quipping, her bare acknowledgment of his jokes. It was how they worked, and Sven thrived on it.

 

[Quietus]

"I was nearly dead," the woman replied simply, "a state of being that is not conducive for emotion or sentiment." It seemed the man had the true self of his love back once again - all parts corruption, all parts logic, with that odd hint of social void.

Sable blinked slowly, feeling the weight of her eyes as though they were stones, and for a moment as she inhaled and slowly released that breath, she felt heavy in Sven's arms. A burden. It was not a feeling she liked, but her mind was far too tired to protest. When she opened her eyes again the woman looked up at her partner and peered at his face quizzically, "You have changed," her black hand touched at his sallow cheeks and his black hair, now far longer than she ever remembered seeing it, "how long did I sleep Sven?"

 

[Subject 37]

He smiled at her, a genuine smile. It was the reply that he had wanted, the one he had been searching for. She had not changed, and he was grateful to whatever deity looked out for him for that. He shifted slightly at her question, it had been some time...years in fact, and she did not want to upset her. For a moment Sven did not answer, trying to find the right words.

“A lot has happened since you were gone.” Oh the stories he would have to tell her, Moridins other children. His brother...his sister, he frowned slightly at the thought of Anwen, though the mirth in him quickly made her memory fade. “One thousand eight hundred and nineteen days.”

Finally he answered, deciding that he couldn't keep prattling on. Then he decided she likely couldn't do complex math right now.

"Five years." Without you, he thought after speaking.

 

[Quietus]

It took some time for her mind to comprehend his answer.

Five years.

Five years.

She had slept for five years? It had felt like an eternity - it had felt like just a moment. Time was an elusive, arbitrary thing while one slept. Curious, moreover, that even though she had slept for one thousand, eight hundred and nineteen days, the Dread Lady was utterly exhausted. Fighting death in stasis was no easier than fighting it while alive, it seemed.

"Leave me now," she uttered quietly, "I must...recuperate. Put the garhoon in solitary and starve him. Place my sword and the holocron in the chest."

Sven knew of what she spoke - a chest once belonging to Moridin, sealed by Sith Sorcery and with only a single key. Sven owned that key, and it was where she had stored her most treasured items, though they were very few, for safe keeping.

[member="Sven Talith"]