Private Waking Up

[Elise Ahana-Gwyneira]

Who am I?

Why is this galaxy so cruel?​

What am I here for?

Have the Force forsaken us all?​

What am I supposed to be?

Am I doomed to leave the galaxy unchanged?​

Ancient Ones? Will you tell me what to do?

Mother. I know you're not proud of me.

Father. I never knew you... and I will will.​

Sister, I'm sorry.

Lover, I can't bother you in with my pain.​

Master, I'm sorry if I let you down.

Teacher, I don't know who I am.​

I'm sorry, everyone...

Ansisa, maybe you should have him... I'm just... a weed. Here today, withered tomorrow...
​

I'm just a weed. Here today, withered tomorrow.

Useless!
​

If I can't save everyone, what am I here for?

Nothing!
​

What am I good for?

Nothing!
​

Am I worth saving down here?

No!
​

Would I have been better if never born?

Yes!
​

Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Trai-
​

-Shut up!

Help me!​

Someone!

I'm lost!​

No!

Don't!​

I can't bother you!

I won't burden you!​

Help!

Help!​

Who am I?

What am I supposed to be?

Waking Up

Once more, the door to the library opened. And once more, that signature red cloak and hood silently slipped through the halls. She was gaunt, a wisp, a ghost. Barely anyone, not the servants nor the guards, batted an eye. They were used to her presence, faint and scarce detected. She was in the background, always, and she was insignificant.

Insignificant, perhaps, in all but alias and title.

She was the lover of this castle's noble. But who could possibly guess that, when all she ever did was lock herself away in the darkest corners of the library.

She looked up, circles under her eyes. Her eyes were a gorgeous red, but who could see them beneath her cowl? She looked ahead, and she saw a familiar sight. Her lover, the one person who remained by her side, Darth Malum of House Marr . The faintest of smiles spread across her pale face. Her ear twitched in a sign of life, beneath her hood. But he was walking through the hallway with a stressed expression. Focused on a datapad, he was talking both to a servant beside him and a third person through the comlink channel he was on, debating how to resolve a political matter concerning his planet. Her smile faded. As always, he was so, so busy. And she would not burden him with herself, or bother him with her own internal ravings of a mad woman. Her eyes darted away, as she pulled her cloak over her body. The two passed each other in the hallway, Force Signatures bumping while their bodies remained distant. As she left the hallway, left him, she did not notice him longingly look back. Because what if... she was more than a shadow? And what if he wanted to reach out to her? And what if... her insignificance was merely a deadly lapse in her thinking?

You can't save anyone.

You can't save your loved ones.

You can't save your home.

You can't save yourself.

Worthless!

Pathetic! Insignificant! Weak! You're good for nothing! You traitor! Dar'Manda! You-

The lightsaber crystal before her started to turn red, burning as the Dark Side seeped into it. Suffering. Anguish. Despair. Shame.​

You ungratful child!

You careless elder sister!

You neglectful lover!

The blue crystal was losing its light, as the darkness was pumped in like sewage.​

This galaxy is ugly!
Horrid!
Terrible!
Monsters prowl and destroy all!
There is nothing for you here but-

-A flower was caressed by the sunlight. Grass grew tall and prosperous as the cool winds acted as the flower's dance partner. There was... light still.​

The lightsaber crystal stopped glowing red. Instead, a strange pink left the kyber a merely half-bled hybrid.

She once again woke up, laying on a cold, hard training floor. Her lightsabers had rolled halfway across the room. Her nightmares were her only friends in her sleep, and her only waking feelings were feelings of insignificance. Why was an ant like her still training? Furthermore, why was an ant like her training in Sith lightsaber and Force techniques? But did it matter anyways? Did anything matter? Did she matter?

The wayward Dreamseer pushed herself up, calling the lightsabers to herself as she exited the training room.

She supposed, she had to eat at some point. When she had lost track of day and night long ago, she only ate when she remembered that she was starving.

The life of a noble was new to her, and she shied away from all the spoilings and luxuries Malum kept trying to give her. She didn't deserve it. She was Dar'Manda, after all. What was it even worth to her? She grabbed some bread from the kitchens, unnoticed, and ate in a silent hallway, alone, as her hood and cloak covered her as always. The bread was tasteless and inedible in her mouth, and only the pain in her stomach gave her the strength to swallow. Slowly, agonizingly, she chewed long before gagging and swallowing every bite. When that torturous necessity was over, she pushed herself off the wall she was leaning on, alone, to go do the same things she had always done. Read, train. pass out from exhaustion, force herself to eat and drink, repeat.

It was a misery she condemned herself to, when she lost control of everything. And when she forsook what little she had.

But today, something would change. That cycle would be broken... and she was in for a rude awakening, and sweet deliverance.

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

Guilt.

Guilt had kept him from her side.

Guilt of so many different avenues and reasons. He had known from the very beginning that the woman that he had met upon Archais was simply to be one for his heart to pine after, one who presented a door that he could never cross, a chance at a life that he could so visualise...

...But never would be reality.

Until it had.

The anguish of Fiviune.

The despair of Csilla.

Had brought him to ruined Mor- Mandalore.

Had brought him face-to-face with the red eyes, and golden hair of a woman that he had thought he would never see again, a woman that he had met on the other side of the galaxy, a woman from a people who...

...He was meant to hate.

And she part of a culture who were meant to hate him just as much.

Yet, there they were, and unlike upon Archais there had been no excuse for hidden identities, though it had been through the companionship of Tae'l Vizsla , a cousin of sorts to this once Viszla, that had broken him from his childish, uneducated, fear of the Mor- Mandalorians, she had no such compulsion.

She should have hated the Sith.

She did.

But she had not hated him.

She had distrusted him, she had demanded him leave out of hurt on Archais.

But upon the orbit of Mori- Mandalore, when he had felt her presence, it had been her who accepted his terms.

When he had been upon the grounds of Mori- Mandalore, it had been her... it had been her who had tended to his wounds.

And it was after that day that all had suddenly clicked into place, the anguish of his mind, the battle between two souls thrown aside, the agony of all which had come after Csilla, all which had happened between him and Ansisa ... Kara... put aside, as he simply looked for comfort toward the one person.

The one person who remained unchanged, from a time before Fiviune, a time before he committed his original sin.

His Elsie.

She was the only one who brought peace to a man who was always at war with himself.

From planets across the galaxy they had met in secret, even as Mia Monroe found out about them, they found themselves in each other's arms, in a galaxy that was so difficult, so tiresome, they found a simplicity within each other. Even as the coiling tentacles of a bond he so despised connected to a woman he so loved, called out to him, he pushed past, falling in love all over again.

For one who thought he could never love.

He fell so hard.

Fell so deeply.

It had been him that had brought her to Trayze Tesar , and through that way her psychometry brought under her control.

It had been upon Naboo, where through the periphery of his gaze he had found Kara, only to rapidly find himself nestled against his Elsie, to warm her form, to reassure her doubts, where the temptation to confess had been so clear.

Yet, something had stopped him, and even now, months after, he could not truly claim to know what it was, even as he labelled and sorted all the different factors...

...It had been at Mor- Mandalore, that it had become so clear to him.

As he lost himself to madness, utter and entire madness all in order to save her...

...He had almost killed her.

He had confessed his love to her upon Ordo, when he had realised that death was at his door, yet cowardice had kept him from her side.

Only for Yavin... Yavin... all the horrors that it had held.

He had told her he loved her.

And for three days he had thought she was dead.

She stepped forth out of the ordeal, having abandoned the Resol'nare, abandoning her Buy'ce, fully embracing into his arms, and all he could feel was the innate wrongness of it all.

Mia had already lost one daughter.

Now two abandoned her.

And... how could he stand, and allow her to abandon her people? Her culture? Her name? And her identity?

Yet he did.

Her Buy'ce was still in his possession, waiting for the day she would wield it again, but as she brought herself to him, as she willingly brought herself into the darkness... where had he been? Had he guided her? Had he supported her? Had he loved her?

No.

As she encased herself further and further with fortresses of books, as he had found himself growing more and more busy as the strain of all his different titles piled onto him, as the noose tightened around his neck, Lord of the Tsis'Kaar, Emperor of Alvaria, Dark Councillor.

As his allies found themselves in trouble, with only him, their salvation.

As she drifted away into her spiral.

Where had he been?

Guilt.

Guilt as his eyes trailed to others.

Guilt as his heart still beat for another.

Guilt as she fell deeper and deeper, and he was not there.

It would change today.

Alas, he could only have wished that this change would have been his decision, instead as cowardice won out day after day, as he watched her condition grow worse those rare times they passed each other silently by hallways. It had not been by his will this status quo would shift, instead, as the powerplays struck out like lightning bolts across the Order, he was forced into this.

Forced into a conversation long overdue.

A conversation that he desperately did not want to have considering the circumstances they were now in.

...Yet, considering tomorrow he might well be dead, a conversation they needed to have.

---

He found her, so small, hooded and cloaked, raven locks reaching his shoulders framed the aristocratic face of Malum, an aquiline nose, thinned lips, and concerned glimmering red orbs, all leading down to robes of red and black, trimmed with gold, appearing out of the darkness of the hallways as a spectre marching through the night.

He had kept tabs on her even when he was not at the Palace.

Yet seeing her know...

Theirs was a contrast that he so hated.

She had always been shorter than him... but now... so small, it was obvious she had not been eating... the scent across his nostrils evident that she had not been washing, if her locks once gold, even shimmering to be white, now dark, was not evident enough of that, as her red eyes.

Those red eyes so similar to his.

Had dark circles around their base.

...Another reason to be guilty.

...Another regret to add to an unending list.

He blinked as he felt the pricks in his eyes, as without thought, his arms fell forward to lock her into an embrace, as his breathing grew measured and heavier tempo, and his heart hammered at his chest, how had he let it fester this much?

"I'm sorry," He whispered, a voice full of emotions, as he caked his face into her locks, as he felt her warmth, and provided as much as he could.

Knowing.

Knowing that they did not have much time.

Elise Ahana-Gwyneira