Wasted Time, Wasted Space

[Liliane]

Lilin didn't know why he was on the planet of Taris that day. There was really no need for her to be there, no clear mission or objective he had, nothing. And even though she'd once been an explorer, a wanderer even, she was nothing like that anymore. Her depression had turned her into a person she didn't like to be, yet there seemed to be no way out of that.

Sitting right next to her starship, she thought about life and its meaning. Was all of that there just for her to suffer? Why was there the need to feel pain for years and then just leave this life? Was life even worth living?

She didn't know the answers. She rarely knew anything anymore. She was afraid to find answers to these questions, mainly because she was worried the answer would not have made her feel any better. Truth be told, she didn't even know what answer would have been something she would have liked to hear.

Everything seemed so taunting.

Anything happy or joyful was heartbreaking, yet she didn't want to feel sad, either. It was difficult, there was nothing to do. It was a dead end.

The wastelands of this planet were no better. They didn't make her feel a lot better -- they just provided her with an environment which would suit her current situation. But what if she would have never gone to the planet? What if she would have gone to Naboo? Or even better, to Zeltros? Would she have changed as the environment changed?

She didn't have the answer.

[ [member="Elpsis Kallikora"] ]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]


What a lovely poodoohole I ended up on, Elpsis thought to herself, most crassly, as she made her way across the wasteland of the old ecumenopolis. Taris was a world mired in violent history and steeped in blood. The redhead had watched a popular holovid series about how the world had been glassed because a jawless Sith Lord had had a temper tantrum.


Supposedly it had something to do with some Jedi woman. Figures. Many of the Galaxy's problem were caused by Jedi-Sith drama. Story of her life. Further ahead massive skyscrapers rose high into the sky, their faces to the planet's star and their hands outstretched as if trying to reach for the heavens. Beneath their feet, a couple levels below where our ladies were, lived the downtrodden, the poor and bestial mutants called Rakghouls.


The name made Elpsis shudder a bit, though she would not admit it. Auntie Sio'd told her about slaughtering those monsters on Denon and Taris. Even if you disregarded them, the planet was infested with criminal low-life and slavers. Word was that a group of beskar-clad hooligans called DeathWatch was also mucking around. What a lovely combination.


Oh, and the air was most foul, since pollution had gotten out of control a couple millennia. That's what you got when you turned an entire planet into a fething huge city! The rankid air made her suffer from an annoying cough when she sauntered out of the bar, all confidence and attitude. A good portion of the former was more fake than real. Fortunately she'd brought a breath mask. Taris was risky, but also lucrative for salvagers and all sorts of shady characters.


Bolt pistol on her hip, scattergun slung over her shoulder, lightsabre on her belt. All within easy reach if one of the thugs outside gave her grief, but they seemed to let her pass without trouble. She pulled the bandana tighter around her head as she stepped across the not particularly clean streets. Ouch. A painful throbbing began in the back of her head as her empathy sprang to life, just when she was about to light a cigarette! Unfortunately for Elpsis, she was an empath and that made her rather sensitive to others' emotions. Like those of the lost girl sitting right next to a starship.

 

[Liliane]

Lilin took a piece of rubbish from the ground, looked at it, and threw it away. A piece of metal which held no real meaning. Just like she felt inside. She could feel how every little bad thought she had tore her deeper into depression, but it was really difficult to keep thinking good thoughts if they didn't make you feel any better at all. It was like a curse, a terrible disease.

She wouldn't have wanted that even for her nemesis.

Such thoughts made her sigh and bite her lower lip. Life was difficult, especially when you were born to become a Sith but you decided to fight against it. Fighting against one's destiny was a difficult task and she had no idea how people managed to do that. How had they not fallen into depression like she had? Or had they?

Her eyes stumbled from one piece of rubbish to another until she noticed another person nearby.

She didn't like meeting new people, but she had to do that. People were able to pull her back to happiness and therefore, she had to let them come to her life. She had to step out of her comfort zone.

[ [member="Elpsis Kallikora"] ]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]


Elpsis finally managed to get her aching headache under control. Force, that girl over there was emoting so much it might have been a flood. Right now she seemed to be trying to hide inside her shell. The redhead thought for a moment, then decided to walk over.


"Ain't much to stare at. Just lots of rubbish," Elpsis spoke sardonically when she walked over, indicating the pieces of rubbish that seemed to have commanded Lilin's attention.


"I take it you're not from here? Got that whole lost and far from home look on you. You want a smoke?" Totally the way to start a conversation. Reaching into her jacket pocket, Elpsis picked out a packet and removed a cigarette before lighting up for herself.

 

[Liliane]

"No, thank you," Lilin muttered with a polite tone, yet with a voice which didn't manage to hide her feelings of tiredness and annoyance. She was tired of the depression, tired of the fight inside her. But she did not want to give up. She didn't want to fall to the Dark Side. Her fight had to continue even if it would have been beneficial to her health to fall.

She couldn't give up.

She patted on the ground right next to her as a gesture for the woman to sit. And even though it was not the best place to take a seat, she didn't care. Her mind was full of rubbish, all of her head was shattered. Just like this place over here. Thinking about where to sit was the smallest of a problem there was.

"Sometimes rubbish is the closest thing to what's going on in our heads."

[ [member="Elpsis Kallikora"] ]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]


Elpsis shrugged nonchalantly and took a dee drag from her cigarette, savouring it. Always remember, kiddies, smoking kills. You don't want lung cancer by the time you're thirty! Even though she'd kept her mental walls up, she could not blot out the feelings of tiredness, annoyance and depression that were coming off the woman in waves.


Oh, great. Just my luck to stumble on someone who's a total basketcase, Elpsis thought to herself. Totally not self-centred. "Amen to that, sister," she commented as she sat down. Tone was gruff, but not unsympathetic. Perhaps it was not the best place to take a seat, but she'd spent most of her life in the scumholes of the Galaxy, so she was not that picky. Hand remained close enough to her gun to be drawn if needed. You never knew when trouble would find you on a planet like this.


"Name's Elpsis? What's yours? And are you here for something specific or just because you're a mess?" Elpsis was not going to win any awards for tact. It did not escape her significant senses that the woman was probably a Force-user.

 

[Liliane]

Lilin looked at the girl as she took a seat.

"Nice to meet you, Elpsis," she said with not a lot emotion to it. Something made her think like she was a pathetic human being, mainly because recently, she had been so self-centered, everything was about her. But she couldn't think about others anymore. It was just something she couldn't comprehend in a situation like that.

"I am Lilin and I'm a mess."

The best way to summarize the way she felt inside and how she appeared outside. Everything was so crazy that she could have considered herself a garbage bin.

Yeah, she had pretty low self-esteem at that moment.

[ [member="Elpsis Kallikora"] ]

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]


Well, this was awkward! Dealing with a situation like Lilin's issues probably required things such as tact and understanding. Unfortunately, Eileithya Saedaris or Siobhan Kerrigan were not here, rather the girl was stuck with...Elpsis. Who was not particularly empathic for an empath.


Oh, Force, does she want a hug? Elpsis wondered to herself. Totally tactful. "Well, garbage land isn't the best place to hang then. Neighbourhood's kinf od dangerous," Elpsis said. Self-fulfilling prophecy. "You mind going somewhere. Good bar nearby with plenty of cheap booze," she was about to indicate it when she turned around and five individuals of the thuggish persuasion approach them.


"Leaving so soon, Elpsis, darling? Like you left me hangin' on Korriban?!" An insistent, clearly pissed off voice demanded. The voice's owner was Zeltron woman who wore a leather duster and had two heavy blaster pistols holstered on her hips. Her four minions seemed to surround the pair, like guard dogs baring their teeth and waiting for their mistress to take them off the leash so that they could pounce.


Elpsis felt like rolling her eyes at the accumulation of cliches in this post. "Oh, who is that? Right, Raisa! Or something like that. Hate to burst your bubble, but I told you it was just a one night stand. I know it's horribly difficult to get over me." Snarky lines, totally not the thing to say to heavily armed thugs pointing guns at you. Especially if one had a disruptor.


"Cut the crap, girl. You broke the deal, stole my merchandise and left me in the dry. So awfully convenient that you had to piss off the Hutts as well."


Oh, come on, just shoot at last. Talking is not a free action. Elpsis seemed intent on bringing down the integrity of this post with a flood of meta. "Deal was drugs, that merchandise was kids. I got standards. And the Hutts can feth off."


"I'm sure a buyer on the slave market will love to do that to you! Hmm. And your friend..." The thugs produced heavy blaster pistols and disruptors. Well, the lattere were a lot more concerning.


Surprisingly enough, Elpsis' hand did not reach for a gun. Rather she curled the fingers slightly into a fist "Y'know, your future ain't pretty. See, I'm a prophetess."


"Oh, really, what do you see?"


"You." Then suddenly through her power she gathered up dust from the ground and sent it flying into the Zeltron's eyes. Well, that was unpleasant! While the woman was dealing with the pain and disorientation caused by this, Elpsis surged into action. "Bleeding."


Her hands caught the Zeltron's head and she headbutted her, ramming her skull right onto her nose. A disruptor pistol was raised and a thug was about to pull the trigger and send a beam of doom to disintegrate her, but then suddenly he cried out in pain when, as if by magic, his gun turned red-hot and he dropped it.


All the distraction Elpsis needed to bring up her bolt pistol and fire. Boom. A significant portion of his skull was blown apart when an Anti-Personnel Explosive Round impacted upon his cranium, splattering brain matter across beer bottles someone had thoughtlessly tossed on the ground.