Private There and Back Again

[Darth Daiara]

She had played her part well. Not perfect. But well.

When Aradia was sent off to serve in Bastion it was under the expressed expectations that she fight in the brewing war and then return to her Master. Alive. It was her first trial as Darth Avacyn's acolyte. It was to her that Aradia limped back to.

The stolen vessel landed on the family's estate in Dromund Kaas, tearing up the lawn. Blood covered the front of her ill-fitting clothing. It wasn't what she had gone to war in, but it was what the jedi who had saved her life had provided.

He was dead now.

So were the others she had failed to protect in her Academy.

The vessel's doors opened, revealing her crippled form half held up on the door jam. Her face was sickly white against the sun that bore down on her. She squinted against it and stumbled her way down, a hand clutching her stomach. Head over heels, she fell into the grass. She laid there, her single minded drive relaxing into the dirt. She had done it. She was home.

A patch of brown began to grow around her, the energy sapped out of the ground and into her weaken form. In the heat of battle Little Aradia had discovered a natural proclivity to force drain. Her blood-stained fingered dug into the ground as the patch grew without restraint.

Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

The message sent to her by the Force tipped Kaalia off first. A mixture of mild shock and surprise filled the woman even before the vessel had landed. Part of her knew Aradia was still alive, out there somewhere after vanishing during the assault on Bastion, but she had expected to have to retrieve the girl herself. Instead, there was now a ship landing right in front of her home, and it could have been only one person.

Aradia was home. She was even tougher than Kaalia thought.

Whatever transpired during the battle, Kaalia did not put the blame on Aradia for any failure. Instead her anger was directed towards those who were tasked with looking after her. Frustratingly enough, they had all vanished as well. Her apprentice had been thrown into the deep, even more so than she had planned. And still the girl had found her way home.

Kaalia left her twin daughters to their own devices for a moment, Ishana wasn't home, and looked out of the window that had a view on the lawn where the ship landed. The damage done was going to have to be fixed though, to her annoyance.

Not even a minute after Aradia collapsed to the ground she would find herself in Kaalia's company, who had quickly made her way over. She was dressed much more casually than she had come to expect from the Sith Lady, making her look much less of one and more like just another woman.

"I'd rather see the grass intact, Aradia," Kaalia remarked as she approached, a small tinge of humor laced into a tone that sounded primarily relieved. "I must say, I'm both glad and impressed you're back."

"Now come on," she added as she carefully picked up the girl, putting her arm over the woman's shoulders for support, "let's get you patched up."

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia leaned heavily on Kaalia, the world feeling like molasses as she tried to push her legs to support herself. At first glance nothing seemed broken. Nothing bled freely. The truth was much more complex-- a lethal blow to the gut had been subsequently stabilized by the jedi who had dealt it. It was a horrible fate, to hang impaled on a statue. Those final moments replayed through her mind like a broken halo flick.

There was no forgetting.

Her eyes opened, the once blue hue stained tainted red. "They're all dead," she breathed, her fingers finding purchase on Kaalia's clothing instead. Kaalia would feel the pull at once, her body taking the brunt of the force drain. Aradia managed to put her weight onto her next step, unaware of what she was doing.

"The Academy- they purged it."

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

"I know."

The words were short, to the point, and on the verge of uncaring. By the time the New Imperials reached the planet, the Sith had already finished their preparations in case they lost their former capitol, a status it already shared with Dromund Kaas before. To Kaalia, whether they held Bastion or not was of little importance. As long as she could raise her family without any direct thread looming over their home, the Sith Empire's exploits were nigh inconsequential to her.

Kaalia had seen what Aradia had done to the ground around her, and it was clear to her what her apprentice had learned to do. She herself had been exposed to Force Drain when she was an apprentice to her Sith master Krest, and so when she felt that pull move from the ground to her own person, she grasped the girl's wrist to block it. Chances were she wasn't even aware of her newfound ability, but the Sith lady would address that later.

"But you are alive. Learn from their deaths, lest you end up the same." Aradia's wish to be free, live free, would no doubt be reason enough to heed those words. "Had I not learned those lessons in the first warzone I was dispatched to, I wouldn't have been here to teach you."

Kaeshana was, in many ways, a turning point in Kaalia's life. It was where she truly lost her innocence, where her trust in the dark side began to outweigh what she had in the light, and where she was faced by the simple truth that the galaxy couldn't ever be at peace. She was no Sith then, but those lessons shaped her into the woman she was now.

It wasn't common for Aradia to be let into the Pavanos family home, but the situation called for an exception. Quickly after being guided inside she was brought to the kitchen, where Kaalia brought her to a chair.

"Any wounds you know of? Has anything been taken care of already?"

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

But why.

The question echoed through her, like her heart beating in her ears. "All dead," was all she could whisper again, her hand going limp in the hold that protected Kaalia. It had been days since the fall of Bastion, but to Aradia it felt like hours. The jedi had pumped his own life force into her body, stemming the hole the statue's hand had punctured through her abdomen.

It took all that gifted strength to kill him in turn. Circle of life and all, she guessed.

Her head lulled onto Kaalia's shoulder, unseeing as she was lead into the home.

The seat drew her back to, along with the pressing question, "Any wounds you know of? Has anything been taken care of already?"

"My stomach," she gritted, lifting her shirt to reveal the puckered skin that had hastily been healed over the wound. Her hand shook at the effort, emotions finally reaching her as she realized where she had been brought. Her face contorted, fighting to hold back tears. Despite it all, she was back. It had felt impossible.

"Bastion?" The news had not reached her yet.

​

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

Kaalia's eyebrows furrowed at the sight of the wound Aradia showed her. It looked serious, a wound that when left untreated would've killed the girl in minutes. Yet here she was, the wound itself partially healed already somehow. It only added to the mysteries surrounding her apprentice and what happened on Bastion, but this was not the time to ask questions. Not yet.

"Bastion fell to the New Imperials," the woman answered plainly as she continued to inspect the wound. As far as she could tell, time would be the only thing it needed to heal, but knew better than to leave it up to chance. "An unfortunate loss, but such is the way of things. We'll discuss everything later, after you've rested up."

When one embraced the Dark side, they also opened the floodgates for emotions to hit in overwhelming ways. Control over such power came with practice and experience, but Aradia still needed more of both. She didn't blame the girl for her tears, but made a mental note to bring it up when she was of sound mind.

The empire would learn from their loss and adapt, or continue to lose ground until they collapsed. Kaalia didn't consider the latter a particularly likely scenario to come to pass, though she had plans in place in the event it did. Her family was infinitely more important to her than an empire in its death throes.

"We do need to talk about what you just did to the grass outside, though. In case you're not aware, you have been using Force Drain this entire time."

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Echos of the past reached Aradia, her own scream ringing in her ears as the battle field played before her eyes. The air tasted of betrayal, the surge of dark energy seizing her as the soldier's souls pulled from their bodies and-

Her eyes snapped open, a wild edge to the red hue.

"I'm so hungry," she confessed, pained as her features contorted. She was tired. Existing hurt. There was one thing that would expedite her recovery. She didn't know it, but her body did. The pull returned against Kaalia's energy returned, subtle but insistent as it gained strength.

She locked eyes with her master, unaware and overcome by the power that consumed her.

Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

Aradia clearly hadn't fully healed yet. While Kaalia understood the instinctual urge of her apprentice she wasn't much in the mood to have her own energy sapped away, not with the four children running around the rest of the house. There were other methods of recovery, though it was going to require more than simple first aid.

"Hang in there, I'm calling an ambulance," the woman remarked, her tone shifting into something more serious. This was going to need more than just some rest. She took out her holodevice and walked away for a short moment to make the call. "I'll be back in a moment."

A few minutes later Kaalia returned to the kitchen, where she took a seat herself. "Help is on its way," she explained, though there was one thing Aradia did need to understand. "I know it's difficult, but you need to focus on the Force for a moment. Right now, you're uncontrollably draining from everything and everyone you touch. You can't be doing that to the medical staff when they arrive."

As an idea shot through the woman's mind, she stood up once more and took the basket of fruit from the countertop, placing it on the table in front of Aradia. "Take one, but don't sap it dry before you can eat it, okay?"

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

She rubbed at her face, struggling to stay conscious. She had been pushing hard for this moment for... "How long have I been gone?" It felt like forever. Even before the fall of Bastion, when Kaalia had sent her off to serve under Joycelyn and prepare for the war, she had thought continuously on retuning to Kaalia's side. She had grown a lot from that malnourished slave Kaalia had freed all those years ago, but her time serving had made the budding young woman realize one thing.

"I missed you." Delusional, probably. But death brought unspoken feelings closer to mind.

She leaned forward, slumping on the counter as she reached for the apple. She didn't understand what was happening to hear but she could process Kaalia's request.

Focus on the force. Don't take its energy.

Her shaky fingers wrapped around it, the life pulsing ever so faintly below her finger tips. She tried not to respond to it, bringing the precious food to her lips. She got three bites before it shriveled black under her touch. It rolled out of her fingers and plunked in a rotten slab on the counter. She gaped down, horrified.

"What's happening to me?"

Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

She was getting sentimental. How lucky she was that Kaalia was her master, instead of a more traditional Sith master. As long as Aradia continued to become more independent, the woman wasn't particularly bothered by it. Her efforts on Bastion was a step in the right direction. She herself would've lied if she ever said she didn't care about the girl, but Aradia was still her apprentice and not her daughter.

Aradia then took an apple and tried to do as instructed, but it didn't take all too long until her instinctual urge sapped the fruit dry. The shock on her face showed she finally realized what she had unknowingly been doing for some time already. Hopefully she would be able to get it under control before the medics showed up at the doorstep.

"It is called Force Drain. The most common way for someone to learn it is by being drained themselves. That is how I ended up inheriting it from my own master," Kaalia explained. "Somehow, the technique was unlocked within you as well, likely on Bastion."

The woman set down another apple in front of Aradia. "You have to keep it under control. Try again."

Kaalia herself never had to actively prevent herself from draining anything or anyone. Perhaps Aradia had acquired this power in a different way.

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia's forehead clunked into the counter. A week ago she would have done anything to stand before Kaalia and receive another of her master's lessons. Her trials at Bastion had shone a light on the many holes still left inside her training, from bomb management to detoxication to whatever the hell she had done with those soldier's souls.

She should feel proud of her ability to come out alive when so many others had died.

Instead she felt insufficient. The apple in front of her felt like an insurmountable hill, her struggle with it leaving her irrationally angry.

"I do not care," she retorted. "Let them come, let them die. Better to me than those imperial scum--" Aradia had never spoken so callously before, the girl always a delicate balance of practical and neutral under Kaalia's instruction. Things had changed, maybe it was just the stress, or the power still pulsing fainting through her, feeding her her strength.

She reached out, taking the apple and squeezing it through her fingers. It soured in an instant, the ever so faint surge registering inside of her. She recognized it now, which was perhaps, in its own way, another way to train.

She let the mulch slip through her fingers, a fierce edge hitting her voice. "Next time I will do this to them."

Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

"Get a hold of yourself."

Kaalia's tone made it very clear that she was no longer asking, but demanding. Anger made one powerful, but it had to be kept under control. Unrestrained rage would cause nothing but destruction, and more directly would bring harm to the medical personnel that were not too far now.

"You are losing control over your anger. Remember the difference between a Sith and a slave to the Dark side," the woman told Aradia. A Sith was to carefully channel their emotions to fuel them. It was easy to lose control and that was the reason few would truly ascend. It had to simmer beneath the surface, but safely kept there until it was time to call upon that power.

"One more time." Kaalia placed a third apple before her, though keeping her hand on it for a moment. "Calm down and get your emotions in check. Then you try again. Am I clear?"

The girl could unleash that rage on the battlefield. Not here.

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Kaalia's simple words cut Araadia to her core, blood rushing to her cheeks as she stared at the gunk dripping off her features. She understood it in that moment-- what it meant to black out to your anger.

She had seen it in many people over her lifetime, a majority of her scars reflecting back to Masters of the past that had unleashed their anger thoughtlessly on her. She had been a slave to their emotions.

"Remember the difference between a Sith and a slave to the Dark side,"

The simple words brought back old lessons. She blinked hard, disturbed to hear she might be dancing the line herself.

She was a slave to nothing.

She took a deep breath, biting back her furious exclamations and obeying Kaalia's orders instead. -- All of the school, dead-- She took another deep breath, her attention cutting back to the apple. -- Allyson Locke , Adriana Fortemps --

A tear slipped down her cheeks, her lips pressing to a thin line. It was disservice to forget them. It was a disservice to not avenge them. But that wasn't what Kaalia was asking of her here. There would be no ascending without control.

Her fingers wrapped around the apple, snot dripped down her nose as she breathed out her grief... and brought the fruit to her lips.

Crunch.Crunch. Crunch.

It remained undissolved in her hands. The once proud girl took this feat with no celebration, the apple rolling unmolested out of her grasp and across the counter.

"I have to go back there, Kaalia. I can't let this happen again. You have to make ready."

Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Kaalia Pavanos]

The words, as harsh as they were, worked. It was a lesson all aspirants of the Dark side had to learn one way or another if they were to succeed. Hopefully this would be one of only few reminders Aradia would need to keep her emotions under control. Lose your grip at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and it would end much worse than receiving a stern talking to.

As the girl finally managed to get her draining under control and with the many feelings from the events on Bastion she held close to her heart, she could now learn to use them, rather than letting them use her. Aradia already knew the galaxy wasn't a kind place, but now she had seen the full extent of it. The reason why one had to become powerful to not just survive, but thrive. The moment that taught Kaalia this lesson was a much more personal one than a wide-scale war, but it shaped her into the woman she was today.

"There is nothing left for any of us there."

Too much time had passed. It was New Imperial territory now, whether the Sith liked it or not. The best Aradia could do was be prepared for the next time they would strike, for it would certainly happen sooner or later.

"All you can do now is learn from your experiences. Recognize your mistakes, so you won't make them again."

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Kaalia's words hit her heavily, the simply practicality too much for her to bare. Aradia had never been a vigilante. She had never applied much thought to others and she knew all too well of the dangerous of putting them before yourself. The galaxy did not care. The galaxy did not have empathy. The galaxy took exactly what it wanted and the galaxy would apologize or look back.

Still, as she sat in the stool she thought she'd never live to see again, there was a sense of injustice stirring inside of her.

Just because it was the way of the things didn't mean it was right.

She hadn't had the powers to stop the abuse of her masters, but she should have had the power to stop this.

She wanted to tell Kaalia what had happened to her. She wanted to tell the woman the troubling things she had done. Instead she slumped forward, struggling to maintain consciousness without the subtle drain of energy around her. The fact that she made it alive was a feat in itself. She slowly began to relax-- to trust that she was safe.

"I kill one," was what she finally murmured, eyes half-lided as she clung for consciousness. "A jedi. I didn't take him back, I wouldn't-- protected you," came the near incomprehensible report. Kaalia had no clue how close she was to having a land a jedi on her door step.

But Aradia remembered her training.

The family home had been preserved at all costs.