[EDIT: changed her full name a bit, because I’d botched it lore-wise.]
(Moving this post here, because I realized I began posting this in the wrong part of the forum!)
Getting used to Viscara was a slow process. It wasn’t anything specific that made it hard to feel acquainted with that particular ball of rock floating in the void. Tiny little things about it always felt a little… off to Kthira’s senses. The smells were sometimes just a bit too pungent. The colors at times a touch too dull or too bright. Perhaps it had to do with the Force itself? Regardless, it was a puzzle not to be solved in the near future.
One thing, however, she could appreciate with a sigh: the sunset. The view from the clearing just past Veles’ gates always seemed to be a good one. As she passed by the brazier (and the varying crowd that always surrounded it), the flames caught the setting sun’s light in a way that made her feel like she just had to stop. To stop and admire the horizon.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d stopped to see the sight of the brazier and the sunset. Perhaps it just had that inherent je ne sais quois about it.
Or perhaps her feelings and her passions were just flying that high, that day.
Kthira looked away from the sunset, closed her eyes to a recent memory, and bit her lips. She couldn’t recall any time before that a kiss had felt so good. Warm. Thrilling. Lingered on her for so long. A grin came to her lips, and then a giggle. ‘This is going to get me into trouble, isn’t it?’ She mused to herself, still feeling the warmth and the taste on her lips, before starting back again towards the colony’s gates, dirt crunching underfoot.
Ah, yes. Another bothersome thing about the planet came as soon as she slipped into the city: the air in the colony. It never smelled… right. Maybe it was the desperation of the refugees that she could feel through the Force - passions that she could subtly detect and subtly resented not by their nature but by the situation they hinted to. There was more. Perhaps it was just the presence of Czerka corp. She’d had worked here and there for them in the past - credits are credits - that didn’t mean she didn’t particularly enjoy working against them.
She held her lips curled from the moment she stepped past Veles’ gates, until she got to her apartment building in the colony’s southwest. With a cursory glance of full-crimson eyes over her shoulder (old habits died hard), the dark-blue woman swiftly punched in her new apartment’s entry code and rode the short turbolift ride to her floor.
Stepping into her apartment held the familiar and long-missed sense of safe haven. It also helped that she splurged on a lavishly furnished one. Damn the teachings she’d left in her past - luxury is luxury! With a satisfied grin as she looked around her apartment, noting that she’d left the floor-to-ceiling viewscreen turned on and a half-finished meal on the table by the sofa in front.
“Hm. Hmmm… later.” She said, dismissing the to-be-done cleaning for some future version of her self. The floaty giddiness bubbling inside her was far more important. Sighing again, she left her red coat and belt holsters by the plasteel hanger near the door, and the rest of her belongings in a messy trail across the living room as she made her way to the pool and bath room on the far end of the apartment.
First things first! A bath, then dinner. She’d take an hour or two afterwards to review her findings so far. She had rented a probe droid or two to roam Viscara’s surface in search for signals of Jhedok’s ship. The little rat had somehow gotten good at covering his tracks - she’d expected to find something by now…
… still, there wasn’t much to be done about it. The rising hate inside her and the taste of blood on her tongue both had to be quelled for now. She’d have her moment, she would. With the giddiness of her day somewhat stained by the smear of vengeace yet unslaked, she turned to the bedroom, leaving her datapad next to her dirty dinner dishes.
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“Master! We’re surrounded!” It was her own voice - younger by a few years - screaming. Short, but steep canyon walls surrounded them on both sides. Behind them, republic soldiers numbered just shy of a hundred - not even a third of them were fit for battle, all were wounded from the Wars in some way. To their sides, atop the canyon walls, the roar of jetpacks and flashes of Mandalorian armor coming down upon them.
Right beside her: a young Zabrak male, with a blue lightsaber activating in his hand. In front of her, an imposing Mirialan female in robes and armor, a green lightsaber in each hand. The sight of her was the only thing that held back the fear roiling in her heart. She looked down at her own blue hands and the long lightsaber they held. She activated it, two green blades, one on each side, sparked to life.
To their credit, the few republic soldiers that could hold a blaster were the first ones to fire before the Mandalorians ever did.
Chaos ensued. Scenes. Memory jagged and torn. Screams. Hails of blaster fire. Orders shouted. The telltale sounds of slice after slice after slice of a lightsaber cutting through armor. It was a dream, of course. She saw the battle - rather, the ambush - at the same time with her own two eyes, yet also outside of herself, as if watching from above.
There was no order to the events in her memory. All happened at the same time. Things she knew had happened at the beginning, happened at the end. Other things were mirrored. Others seemed to happen to someone else entirely.
The one memory that didn’t change: she was rushing ahead - the Zabrak male nowhere to be seen - down the canyon path with the surviving republic wounded right in front of her. She’d been told not to hesitate, not to turn back. They only had to round a corner to safely leave the canyon, and back to the safe cover of Republic fighters overhead. But she did hesitate. She did turn back. And the sight burned itself into her memory.
The Mirialan in armored robes, surrounded by dead mandalorians. But she was wounded. Too wounded to go on, her robes scorched by blasters. More mandalorians were coming, this time from the canyon path just behind her master. She saw the mirialan shut her sabers and raise both hands to the top of the canyon walls. The mandalorians opened fired at her, but no blaster shot connected. The canyon walls began to shake, then crumble, until they collapsed inwards with a mountain of rubble falling over everyone underneath. In an instant, the mirialan and the mandalorians were gone.
The sound of the falling rocks did not drown out her screams.
She woke up in a panic, still hearing her screams. She was screaming. Cold sweat dotted her forehead. Just before she fully woke, that face came to her mind again: the Zabrak, that same male Zabrak. Grinning, eyes red with hate.
A hate that was nothing compared to the one that welled inside her.
In a raging rush, she launched herself out of her bed and rushed outside her room. Despite having just awoken, she felt the need to move, to run, to fight, to hurt, to inflict pain, to -…
She stopped when she got to the window. It was night, of course. A clear sky. A clear moon shining through with the stars beside it. The sight stilled her enough to stop her movement. To make her stop, and… simply gaze outside, and let her thoughts fly.
He would pay. Oh, he would pay.
Crimson eyes finally focused on what was actually past her window. Veles, a few feet below. Empty streets. Straight ahead, past the colony’s walls, the clearing. She could see the light of the brazier still lit. It brought a smirk to her lips.
And then… something drew her eyes just a little further past it. Something… subtle. She realized, after a moment, that she was looking precisely at where she new the entrance of the Crystal Cave to be. Her own realization was the only warning she got.
A spike of pain in her skull. Ache. Like a knife pushing through. She immediately fell to her knees, gripping both sides of her head. Images flashed in her mind. She saw them again: the crystals growing in her boots, in her legs, swirling around her thighs. Before her eyes flashed visions of more crystals. Walls of them, surrounding. An endless maze. Countless legs skittering everywhere - floor, walls and ceiling. Over her. All over her skin.
“You will be mine.” A voice echoed in her head.
And just like that, it ended.
And once again, she felt the cold sweat on her forehead. Yet this time, the sights outside her window were no comfort.