Private The Last of Her

[Onrai]

Onrai dusted herself off as she surveyed over the River of the Dead. It was ironic - here she had been talking with Ashin Cardé Varanin a mere few weeks prior, yet now she actually was once more in the Netherworld. “No.” She said. “This was my first time creating an interdimensional gateway. Every other rift I’ve opened was based off of a preexisting gate that had been sealed, which I ended up reopening. This one... this one is new, and the rift is evidently in flux. We can either keep going through here, or we alternatively can go back through the rift and see where it takes us.”

Her entire attitude had changed - there was no reason to be antagonistic when Inanna was as confused as she was. She decided to poke the ear, however, with a comment: “Have any relatives you want to say hello to while we’re here?”

Perhaos there were some. Who knew?

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

So they were in trouble, though hope wasn’t completely dead. It was just a finicky rift. Inanna was not panicking. She was not. This was not permanent. She could get out of here.

But not without Vanessa. Inanna had no idea how to navigate this place, whereas Vanessa obviously had some prior experience roaming the land of the dead. Continuing to fight here was illogical, maybe even dangerous. Vanessa seemed to realize this as well and hadn’t attempted to attack her since their arrival.

Inanna’s head jerked sharply toward Vanessa, automatically assuming a defensive stance as soon as the woman brought up her relatives. She remembered how Vanessa had talked about her family, threatening to kill them because they had taken a stand against the Sith and even suggesting that she might use Inanna’s elderly mother as a womb for her Sithspawn abominations. “Even if I did,” Inanna hissed. “I wouldn’t risk leading you anywhere near them.” She did actually have a few people she might like to see again—her two elder brothers Orcas and Samyaza, for instance, and a couple of old friends whom she had outlived. Maybe even Adrian Vandiir, though she sorely doubted he’d tolerate her presence mucking up his afterlife. Perhaps there wasn’t much Vanessa could do to a departed spirit, but Inanna wasn’t taking any chances with those she cared about.

“We keep going until we find a stable rift. I don’t want to risk winding up somewhere totally uncharted. We stay together and don’t fight until we’re out of here.” She glared at Vanessa with a raised eyebrow. “Does that suit you?”

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

“I see no reason to pointlessly waste any effort on trying to harm you here.” She said succinctly. “That said, what’s to stop us from simply going through the rift again and seeing where it leads us? I doubt it’ll take us elsewhere in the Netherworld.” Truthfully, she was completely unsure. There were few times she had been fortunate enough in order to effectively manage things with a rift - Ingrid L'lerim was one of the few people she trusted with the secrets of the Endor Gate, but that was locked to the Otherworld specifically. Perhaps the Demonsgate portal would be an appropriate location to go to, or the one on Abrloth’s planet.

“I haven’t been here in a long time. Not since Akala.” She said. “I do have the advantage you lack, admittedly - I can defy the linear course of time while you cannot. Surveying the netherworld is not going to be an issue unless we want to take the simple solution of walking back through the rift and hoping for the best.”

She offered her hand to the Shi’ido. “So we won’t lose each other. There is no sentiment in me doing this.”

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

Grimacing, Inanna took Vanessa’s offered hand. “Don’t make this any more complicated than it already is. You don’t know where the rift might take us. It’s too dangerous.”

Her grimace deepened into a snarl as it occurred to her that Vanessa was well and truly caught up in this “goddess” thing. It probably didn’t matter to her where she wound up, seeing as she believed herself immortal and outside of time.

“The rift isn’t the simple solution. It’s a wild card. The simple solution would be to find a recognizable, reliable portal that you know will take us back to our galaxy. Or our dimension. Reality. Whatever the feth.” She sighed. “I just want to go home.”

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

“So feisty.” She said in response to Inanna’s snarl. “Let’s go.” Through the portal Onrai would drag her former apprentice, and once more the two were ensconced in a flurry of light and energy before emerging onto a landscape the goddess had only personally visited once before.

“Ohoho... I can’t believe it!” Onrai celebrated, looking around at the barren wastes as she pointed up at the monastery melded into the rock of the very planet they stood upon. “Do you know what that is? What that means?” Sh asked, hand free of Inanna’s own. “We’re within a pocket dimension. Not just any pocket dimension - the Ones’ pocket dimension. We’re actually in Mortis.”

Clearly Onrai was excited - her last time here had seen her come with the now Empress Joycelyn Zambrano after reopening the gateway used by the Ones to flee from their original world, before closing the gateway and stranding Abeloth on their former planet.

“And if we’re here... the carcasses of dead gods await.” The duo would have only been able to notice that the rift had actually closed once more, having evidently stabilized as a connection to some other location. Onrai in the meantime eagerly began to head towards the monastery, eager to see what was within.

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

A nudge from the Force prickled Inanna’s consciousness just before Vanessa started to drag her toward the rift. The one which she had just announced her unwillingness to go through. Ugh. Give Vanessa an inch and she’ll take a mile.

Inanna dug her heels in and let go. Vanessa sped on ahead, still holding her former apprentice’s hand, and went through the unstable portal. It closed seconds afterwards, leaving behind Inanna—missing her limb from the elbow down—sprawled on her back on the ground, still in the Netherworld.

“I hope you get lost in-between dimensions,” Inanna spat at the empty air where Vanessa had been. “Nobody makes me go where I don’t want to tread.”

But now she was trapped here, with no sense of direction or idea of where to go. Not to mention she was wounded, though her severed hand, oozing blood, was healing rapidly. She stood up and started to hobble away, her destination being home, however the means.

To be continued...

Onrai​