Sohma Anantasari - Private Meditations

[Endrak]

I sat cross-legged in my room, feeling the flow of Force energy both within and without my body. My saberstaff bobbed gently in the air in front of me, spinning on its axis in time with my breath. Though it had been a long time since I had left the poisonous halls of the hidden temple, I still imagined the burning sensation of the gas in my lungs. As a child, I had struggled for weeks to meditate through that pain. Now, I leaned on it to aid my focus. How times changed.

So, too, had my powers. My time on Viscara had allowed me to refine them in a way that I never could at the temple. Perhaps, in cloistering us, my old Master had hindered me and me alone. The other children had not struggled, but Phthalo was always an expert in theory and Ascheron… was Ascheron. Kataria had been too headstrong to focus, but could fight Acheron to a standstill with electrofoils. The strange ritual Yseeda and Lizhar had undergone left them so connected they were practically one person in two bodies.

I, on the other hand, was the weakest with foils, and my masterful control meant nothing if I could not bring power to bear with it. Kataria had been trying to help me unlock the hidden depths of my passions, but she had died before we could make much progress. No. Only by leaving that place could I ever have achieved the heights I desired, the power I craved.

I channeled that feeling into my hands. They sparked weakly through my skin, enough to make me jump if I hadn’t been so focused. The pain ran up my legs and into my chest, the electricity making my heart to shudder. That pain, too, I made my own.

I did not know how long I had before my old Master came for me… or worse, sent Acheron in his stead. I had to grow as strong as possible before then. If I could not defeat them outright, at the very least I would make the cost of killing me too great for them to bear. If fate allowed, I would take Acheron’s other eye before he took my life. But I could not count on fate to save me if I was not up the task of saving myself.

And so, I channeled harder. I was close – so close – to another breakthrough. I could feel something in the Force, that familiar sensation of a string growing taut in my mind. It was responding to my pain, trying to remedy it, but it felt harsher somehow than the healing I would usually employ. Darker. But no matter how much I threw my willpower against it, commanded it to bend to my will, it did not yield. Not yet.

I let out an involuntary laugh. Maybe I wasn’t the strongest, or the fastest, or even the most adept in the Force, but I feared nothing. Not death, not Asch, not the man in black, and certainly not the monster inside me. Even now, it waited below me, eager to swallow me up given the slightest opportunity.

I was vaguely aware of my body chanting as I fell deeper into my trance, and paid it no mind. Instead, I formed my memory palace. A palace in name only, it was little more than a tree upon a hill. It was much like a place I had used to visit, on the homeworld I’d long forgotten. I felt a sense of warmth looking upon it, but quickly cast it aside. I was not ready to leave just yet. I was ready to go deeper. Behind the tree, a city burned. The sound of screaming and blaster fire carried here on the breeze, along with the smell of smoke and death.

I turned to the figure beneath the tree, placing a hand delicately on her shoulder. I gave her my best smile, looked into her wide eyes, and said, “Wait for me. I’ll be back soon.”

The shade of my anchor existed solely within my mind, but it smiled and nodded just like the person it was designed to imitate. “I know you will, Sohma. I’ll be waiting for you.” She stepped back from my touch and, reaching up, drew down a noose which she placed loosely around her neck.

I spared a single glance up the tree, whereupon a higher branch hung the corpse of Kataria, my previous anchor. Even in death, the rawness of my betrayal was still evident on her face. Though this entire world was my creation, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that her ghost was behind those eyes, judging me from beyond death, my true name lingering upon her pale lips.

As I ran toward the city, saberstaff at the ready, I couldn’t help but wonder if Vilnia would look at me the same way in the end.

[Endrak]

Flames licked at my face from bombed-out buildings, casting my mask in deeper shadows and brighter reds. Blaster fire seared by me as I ducked and weaved, my shielded bodysuit diffusing the few bolts which made it through my defenses. In the streets, Mandalorians and Jedi battled fiercely, the Jedi screaming and shouting while the Mandalorians were calm, collected, and silent even as they died. Ironic.

Bodies of both combatants and civilians piled up in my path, on street corners, and in ruined buildings. One side, or perhaps both, bombarded the planet from orbit, turning it into a broken shell even as their own soldiers fought and died to claim it. The planetary defense forces, panicked beyond all reason, attacked anything with a gun or a lightsaber, including each other… and me.

“This isn’t how it happened!” screamed a militia soldier as I deflected his blaster shot back into his chest. I ignored him and continued my mad dash through what had once been my neighborhood. The buildings appeared familiar now, stucco walls guiding me down twisting pathways. The few faces I saw, either dead or alive, melted away from my mind’s eye before I had the chance to recognize them, but that underlying sense of familiarity never quite went away. Perhaps I had known them, but like so much of my past, they had been forgotten beneath my former Master’s torturous education. Only certain things managed to pierce through the fog, and even then, I could never escape that feeling that my memories were… wrong, somehow. Had the Jedi and the Mandalorians truly fought here? I shook my head to clear it. I could not afford distractions.

I rounded a corner to find three men standing in my way. They wore no helmets, and were dressed all in black. From bandoliers about their chests hung grenades, knives, and other sundry equipment, and blaster rifles were slung loosely over their shoulders. The man in the middle had a long scar traveling from his left cheekbone to his chin, and was missing a front tooth. It had been replaced by a shiny, silvery artificial one.

“Well, well,” he said. “What we got here? One of the local kids, huh?” He took a step forward and dramatically sniffed the air, then leered at me, his tooth shining in the light of little fires all around. “You sm–”

My saberstaff cut clean through his skull, just above his nose. The smell of burnt fat singed my nostrils as the skin around the wound charred and his brain liquified. His tongue continued to wag tauntingly as he collapsed in a heap at my feet, hand stretching outward to grab me. The two at his flanks backpedaled away from their fallen comrade, the shock of my attack turning them frantic.

“Wait!” said the one on the left. “This isn’t how it happened!”

“You’re supposed to run! We catch you!” added the one on the right.

I flourished my saberstaff and took a menacing step forward. “I am fighting,” I belted out. “Adapt or die.” At that last, I flung out my hand, sending a spark of electricity through the air. Leftie took the blast to the chest, convulsing in his place as pain ripped through him. Righty lost a leg as my saberstaff whirled beneath him under my telekinetic manipulations. It spun around and lanced through Leftie’s chest, putting him out of his misery. I leaped forward, taking the saberstaff in my hand and flourishing it once more as I closed the distance. It opened Righty from pelvis to collarbone on the backswing before he’d had a chance to hit the ground.

My blood ran thick and slow like tar as I surveyed the damage I had caused. My movements were still sloppy. Untrained. I had not yet been instructed in any advanced saber techniques. Forced to clumsily adapt Shii-cho to a weapon it was never designed for… Of course my results would be poor. It was a good thing I was only fighting figments of my –

“'You… mon…”

My slow heart rate accelerated in an instant when the whisper reached my ears, and I flung my saberstaff without thinking. With no telekinesis guiding its movements, it clattered loudly to the ground and deactivated. There was no one there.

No one except the scarred man. His corpse was in the same place it had fallen, but the extended arm had followed my movements to reach for me still. Within the top half of his skull, his one good eye was fixed on me. It bore no hatred for my killing him. Instead…

“Ee… oooo.” His ruined body croaked.

I was hyperventilating when my eyes opened, and I clutched my chest with a clawed hand. Some combination of sweat and tears ran down my cheeks, and I could feel my eyes sting in the cold air of my room. My heart slammed against my rib cage, fear driving it to escape from the prison of my body. I willed myself calm as hard as I could, reminding myself there was no one else here. Nothing in the dark but my bedroll and satchel of personal belongings. Even my friends were gone. Vilnia was probably out partying somewhere. And Kiki…

She was still angry at me.

Paradoxically, that was what grounded me, allowing me to control myself until my panic attack subsided. Perhaps it was well that no one was here to witness this. Were I not to appear stoic and austere, were my inner thoughts laid bare, my enemies were not the only ones who would take advantage of my weakness.

What kind of Sith was I, to be so worked up over mere words? Words of a dead man, no less. Dead for years, and dead forever. He hadn’t even said them, after all. He couldn’t. I had killed him too quickly this time. That was why I use this meditation technique, I reminded myself. To confront my past. To learn from my mistakes. To never forget what made me who I am.

It mattered not how quickly I killed that man in my Force-induced visions. I could be strong enough to obliterate every fiber of his being with naught but a wave of my finger, and still it would mean nothing. I could not change my past, and I could never forget what he said to me.

I stood up, brushed myself off, and donned my mask, making my way outside. Perhaps I would merely walk for a while, admiring the stars. They were quite beautiful on rare, cloudless nights like tonight. I would stroll through the wooded area south of the colony. Stop at the shrine I found hidden in the hollow tree trunk. I would spend some much needed time alone, thinking about all that I had lost… and how I would use that pain to gain more than I ever dreamed.

[Endrak]

Within the scintillating semi-darkness of the crystal caves, inside the tiny crevice I had sealed myself into, I clutched the kyber crystal I had taken from the Jedi Padawan on Kashyyyk, and wondered what I would do with it. Yes, the time had come to construct my very own lightsaber, and I was forced to admit that, despite my show of arrogance to Lord Valerius and Kiki, I had no idea what I was doing.

I knew, in broad strokes, what my goal was. To infuse the crystal with my negative emotions. To make its energies share in my suffering, so that it would become the core to a weapon of my will, as much as of my arm and my eye. But that was easier said than done. A lesser Sith would flood it with all manner of feelings, without care for how well it attuned for them. And if I sought to amount to anything, to fulfill my most heartfelt desires, I could not be a lesser Sith.

It was not strange, I thought, that in my time at the hidden temple I had never truly thought about myself. The concept of “self” had practically been beaten out of me. There had been only service to the Master, advancement in the Dark Side. Pain. Even when we meditated, half our energy was devoted to cleansing the poison in the air from our lungs. There was hardly anything left of me by the end.

I thought of Ascheron, Lizhar, and Yseeda. They had clearly not suffered the same drawbacks. Their constant little victories only served to drive Phthalo, Kataria, and I further and further behind.

Jealousy? Is that it?

No. Jealousy was too ephemeral. When Phthalo won an argument during our free periods, I felt pride, even if it meant I had lost. When Kataria defeated the twins in a sparring match, I felt satisfaction that her hard work had paid off. I enjoyed that she would always turn to me and smile after she hammered them into the floor of the sparring ring. At the time I had never imagined myself capable of such a feat.

Hatred, then?

Ascheron… his effortless perfection. His intrinsic superiority. He could do naught but scratch his ass and the Master would praise him for how swiftly he eliminated the itch. In combat, grace. In the Force, a blade of singular will. And yet I hated him, and he hated me. I thought I would die to tear him down. I nearly did.

I took your eye, you wicked bastard.

But hatred of one man seemed… hollow. Although it seemed a distant and impossible dream, there may come a day when I could be strong enough to kill him. And then what? Would my strength bleed from my body as Asch’s life bled from his? I would be nothing without another target for my fury, an endless parade of enemies for as long as I lived. That would be stupid. Stupid and pointless.

Anger?

Anger at what? At the galaxy, for subjecting me to all these torments? At my friends, for never seeking to understand me beyond the strength of my powers? At Kataria, for betraying me to escape punishment? At the Jedi, for refusing to recognize the obvious hypocrisy of their Order? At myself, for clinging to my meaningless, agonizing excuse of a life, when I should have just been a dutiful daughter and died when I was fated to?!

No! None of that makes me angry enough! I am too empty! There is nothing left of me but pain! Pain and–

…

…

…

…Sorrow.

The crystal flickered in my hands.

[Endrak]

It had been so simple to take in, like breathing. But I’d known even then it wouldn’t remain that way. Perhaps I had acted hastily, but if nothing else, my decision was befitting of a Sith. That decision was what brought me here, kneeling in the cockpit of my ship and facing the first of the consequences I had brought upon myself.

THIS LAND IS MINE.

“Silence, beast,” I whispered in my soul. “We are not even on Viscara anymore.”

The entity railed against my internal defenses, upsetting the delicate balance of power I had created in my core. Ghostly claws raked at my meridians as illusory teeth closed around my organs. It was an almost physical pain, but I was used to pain. My defenses held. I absently wiped away a gobbet of black sludge I had coughed up during the struggle.

EVERYTHING IS MINE.

I took a deep breath and constricted the lump of primal energy floating in my well of darkness. The entity recoiled, and in my mind’s eye I saw the image of a black dog whimpering after being struck. Its tail was between its legs, its head down, but its eyes still blazed with defiance.

I WILL DEVOUR. I WILL BE FREE. AND I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER, WITCH.

“You are nothing anymore but fuel,” I said internally. “Perhaps some small spark of you will remain once I have processed you. Take heart in the knowledge that through me, you will go on to do great things.”

THAT IS NOT FREEDOM. I MUST BE FREE.

I ignored the entity’s complaints. It lacked the wit, let alone the intelligence, to understand any explanation I could give it for my actions. It could not even explain its own desires. That was a quality it shared with most Sith. Another would have released it without a second thought, simply to spite that Flame Priest for his annoying rhetoric. Any efforts to control it would have been a secondary consideration, and likely doomed to failure. How unfortunate, then, that I had been the one tasked to enter that cavern. The entity was a creature of brute strength, and so made no attempt to manipulate me in any way that mattered.

…Well, fortunate for me, I supposed, if not the entity. Without a foreign influence on my mind, all I had to do was endure its desperate attacks as I converted its rampant energies into my own. That process, however, was easier said than done. Although we were both dark-aspected, my aura was deep and cold, like a black ocean swirling within my soul. The entity’s, on the other hand, was like an oil slick. Seeping, sucking, corrupting, and slippery. It resisted my attempts to control its flow, and I could already sense my own aura darkening under its influence.

But that was no matter. I would overcome, and grow more powerful for my efforts. That was the way of things, after all. The beast could fight, and scream, and squirm, and beg all it wished. I would not allow it a single measure of victory over me. Soon, I would enjoy watching its delusions crumble as I tamed it, until at last I made it wholly mine.

MINE.

I smiled.

“We shall see,” I said aloud, and continued my meditation.

[Endrak]

A warm wind drifted in from the west and caressed my face, the salt scent of the ocean like the barest hint of spice within it. Grass swayed around me, ticking my legs, and filling my ears with a rush of pleasant sounds. I spread my arms wide and let my dress billow, enjoying the feel of the soft material swaying around my arms and legs.

I took it in, a deep breath in, and out again.

I opened my eyes, and the mountainside spread out before me. Rows upon rows of trees swept down it like strands of hair upon the head of an ancient earthen deity. Beneath their shade, men and women with sun-kissed skin worked to keep them healthy. They talked among themselves, and the occasional peal of laughter made its way up to me on the breeze. Spirits were high. The harvest was almost here, and that meant feasts, celebrations…

But I was getting ahead of myself. There were still a few weeks of hard work ahead, and though at seven standard years I was not old enough to assist, I could still help them in other ways. I blinked, put on my best smile, and picked up the basket of water canisters I had brought with me. It was heavy, but I was strong for my age, and carried it well. My bare feet padded easily down the slope, years of play ensuring every dip and swell of this land was familiar to me.

The nearest two workers waved at me as they noticed my approach. “Water girl,” they called. "Did you save any for us, or did you drink it all?"

"Don’t worry, my baba taught me well," I said, handing them one canister each. "I sipped a little off the top of all of them, so no one would notice."

They grinned at the lazy humor as they popped the seals and drank deeply. "Too clever by far. You’ll own this operation when you grow up, mark my words."

"Thanks, sir," I replied. "But I don’t think I will."

"Ah," said the other. "Then what is it you wish to do with yourself, child?"

I gave them a cutesy smile and started to walk off. "I want to finish handing out the water. Good now!"

"Ha! You wound me, young serpent-tongue! Off with you!" The men drank deeply of the water and resumed their work. Small knives gripped between their thumbs and forefingers pried boring insects from the bark, dropping them into a bucket filled with mild acid. The things didn’t die easily otherwise, their carapaces designed to protect them from predatory birds.

I wondered what it would be like to join them. I could likely do it next year, despite my mother’s protests that the family didn’t need an additional source of income right now. She’d always tell me I should just enjoy my childhood while I had the chance. But I was a willful girl. I longed to be an adult.

My mother and sister waved at me when they saw me, but it took me another ten minutes of handing out water before I got to them. My sister, Nisa, was twelve. She had our father’s lighter skin and hook nose. Some of the boys in the colony said she looked like a horse, but they never saw her as I did. knew the way she would look up at the stars, her face lit by the subtle glow of our planet’s red moon, and wish that she was up there. A ship and a crew of her own. The way she smiled when she thought of what awaited her up in space made my heart swell. If no one else could see that beauty, that was their loss.

She was only a few thousand credits away from buying that ship, a small light freighter called the Betuvian whose pilot had retired here. She would save enough by the time she was sixteen, and join the merchant league which exported our produce.

I didn’t know my mother’s name. She had always been Mama, and my father called her by a different nickname every few days. At the moment, that nickname was “jaseena”, which I guessed was the name of a flower or meant “beautiful” in some dialect or another. She looked much as I thought I would as an adult. Short, but with strong legs and shoulders. Wavy black hair which she had styled into dreadlocks and bound with a cord. A wide nose with a single mole on the right nostril over full, expressive lips. And when she smiled, her brows dipped in the middle, which always made her look like she was up to some sort of mischief.

The tattoo of the flaming skull on the inside of her right forearm was something we never spoke of, and never would.

My mother called my name, but it passed over me like a ghost in the night, and I heard nothing. “We’re making solid progress today,” she said. "But I could drink a lake at this point."

She reached into my basket and grabbed a canister before I could even think to hand her one, popping the seal and upending it immediately.

Nisa rolled her eyes. “She made a bet with the Rylens that we could get to more trees than them before lunch. We’re leading by two.” I handed her some water, and although she pretended to be judgmental, I knew she was just as dedicated the competition as our mother was.

My mother came up for air, gasping and holding the cold metal of the canister to her head. "It’s not a bet, children. Bets involve money. This is just… a sport."

"I prefer Huttball," said a worker one tree over. My mother almost flashed him a rude gesture before realizing we were watching her. Instead, she settled for a glare. It was most effective.

We chatted for a while longer before I moved on down the row, passing out water canister by canister until I had given it all away. I left the basket behind; the workers would collect the empties and bring them back to the colony to be refilled.

As I walked away from the grove and back toward the colony, a black dog emerged from the shadows at the edge of the tree line. Its steps were silent, its presence almost phantasmagorical, and where it walked, a thin layer of oily darkness appeared to shed from it before dissipating into nothing. It padded up alongside me, keeping pace.

THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED, said the dog. THIS MEMORY IS TOO HAPPY. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SAD ALL THE TIME, LIKE THE PATHETIC LITTLE MORTAL WORM-THING YOU ARE.

I side-eyed the dog, frowning. "Not one mention of hunger or freedom so far. Interesting. Has your imprisonment in my core allowed you to develop a personality?"

The dog threw its head and stamped a bit, its form swirling like stirred paint. THERE IS NOTHING IN YOUR DUMB SLUG SOUL BUT HISTORICAL ANECDOTES, PITIFUL WHINGING, AND SADISM. IF THAT IS A PERSONALITY, I DO NOT WANT ONE.

"Come now," I said, teasingly, although my expression didn’t change. "Surely it is not as bad as you say."

YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT YOUR MATE KILLING YOU AND CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP. IT IS BAD. The dog shuffled about, then ran a few steps ahead of me. It scrabbled soundlessly up a rock, and then turned its head about to look back upon the grove. AND SO IS THIS. IT IS BAD BECAUSE IT IS GOOD. IT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE AND I WANT TO DESTROY IT.

I allowed a different set of memories to seep into the vision. For a brief moment, we watched from the hill and saw the trees alight, the sound of crackling flame broken only by the distant peals of kinetic rounds entering the atmosphere. Smoke choked out the sunny sky, black and acrid. Beneath the burning boughs, the workers had sought shelter where they could, in the little nooks and crannies of the trunks. Yet there was no escape from this inferno, and they knew it. So they were there still, huddled together in fear and certainty, eyes shut. Waiting.

"Then you’d be too late," I said.

The dog chuffed. I WOULD HAVE DESTROYED IT BETTER THAN THIS.

I suppose I was a fool for expecting a different response.

We walked for about ten or fifteen more minutes before either of us spoke again.

WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF? The dog wondered aloud. YOU HAVE MADE DISGUSTING HAPPY MEMORIES SINCE YOU HAVE LEFT THIS PLACE, AND THAT SMELLY TEMPLE IN THE STARS.

I considered the best way to answer the dog. "Hm… it is what I use to drive myself forward. Happiness will not help me achieve my goals. It will only breed complacency."

BUT YOU ARE STAGNANT. YOU SIT AROUND ALL DAY MEDITATING, TEACHING, STARING AT NERFS AND PRETENDING THEY’RE YOUR FATHER. EVEN I THINK THAT IS ODD, AND I AM A CREATURE WROUGHT FROM POISON AND HUNGER WITHOUT END.

"I am taking my time," I replied, trying to keep my cool. It was difficult for me to admit that I did feel… stagnant. It had been some time since I advanced, since I participated in a real battle. I was swiftly becoming a footnote in the advancement of my students. "When the opportunity arises, I will be there to seize it."

The dog bared its teeth in an oozing facsimile of a mocking grin.

OF COURSE YOU WILL.

[Endrak]

YOU’RE DOING IT AGAIN.

Sohma removed her gauntlets and rubbed her baggy eyelids. Her eyes, raw and reddened, were staring to sting. She had run out of tears to moisturize them, and though rubbing them seemed to help, it was probably making the problem worse in the long run.

"Doing what again," she drawled, weariness seeping into her voice.

She felt her cloak ripple, and from the space between it and her back stepped a dog the color of night, with four golden eyes and miasma on its breath. The dog turned to stare at her, its teeth bared in annoyance.

STARING AT NERFS AND PRETENDING THEY’RE YOUR FATHER.

Sohma sighed, squeezing against her eyes with her thumb and forefinger in an attempt to summon more tears. It wasn’t working.

"This is one of my weaker abilities," replied the Sith Lord. "But it has the potential to be among my strongest. I need to practice."

The dog laughed. OH YES. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. A SITH LORD SHOULD BE ABLE TO WIN ANY STARING CONTEST, EVEN AGAINST ENEMIES WHO DON’T KNOW THEY’RE IN ONE.

Indeed, the Nerf Sohma had chosen as her practice target today had long ago stopped reacting to her presence. She sat, unmoving, while it grazed (and occasionally shat) a few meters down the gentle hillside. Every once in a while she’d had to shift her body, and the Nerf would swivel its huge head toward her. Its eyes would be wide and its mouth slightly open, as if asking itself ‘Is the scary lady going to kill me now? No? Yes? Yes? No? No? Okay. No.’ before returning its attention to its verdant meal.

Sohma hadn’t had the opportunity to practice her Deadly Sight while undercover, since she’d been totally invested in recovering that dagger from Keylis’ agents. A dagger which she hadn’t even gotten the chance to study before handing it over to Lord Valerius. Maybe he’d let her take a look at it lat-- she was getting off track. The point being, it had been almost eight months since she’d last had a chance to seriously practice, and the setback had cost her. She felt like she’d regressed since the last time she was on Viscara.

HEY.

Logically, she knew that was not the case, but emotions were not logical. Sohma hated the idea of losing progress and falling behind. She had finally, after all this time, achieved recognition, and was no longer considered the weakest of her peers. It would be tragic to return to that old status quo, to the judging glances when she was given something no one else thought she had earned.

HEY.

Such a failure would mean that everything she’d done would be for naught. She would need to rebuild Redmoon Hall again. She would need to make a reputation for herself again. She would need to convince Lord Valerius to trust her again. And all her pain–

HEY HUMAN.

–all her guilt–

HEY SMELLY HUMAN.

–and all the sorrowful things that had happened to her would be wasted.

HUMAN!

PAY!

ATTENTION!

TO ME!

"WHAAAAT?!" Sohma snapped at her familiar as she was drawn out the trance she’d accidentally put herself in.

YOU DID A THING, the dog deadpanned, all pretense at anger gone now that Sohma had responded as it had wanted.

Sohma didn’t know what the dog meant at first, but then she realized the Nerf had stopped grazing. No, it hadn’t just stopped grazing, it… it didn’t move. At all. It was still as a statue, looking at her with that same dumb expression.

She stood up slowly, her joints and muscles crying out as they were forced to move for the first time in hours, and hobbled down the slop toward the hairy beast. She regarded it carefully from a stone’s throw away, her head cocking to the side. It still did not move.

She approached closer, whistling to draw its attention to her. Nothing. She whislted louder. The nerf still did not move.

Then she drew Witch Cross, its twin blades firing with a thrum of dark energy. She spun the weapon, one of the blades descending in an arc toward the Nerf’s head. She stopped just before it would sever the creature’s spine, and watched as the glow of the saber reflected in its wide eyes.

And the nerf… the nerf still did not move.

The dog bounded up beside Sohma, its snout extending toward the nerf, and it sniffed cautiously.

IT’S DEAD, the dog said, sniffing again. ITS WEAK PREY HEART GAVE OUT.

"No," whispered Sohma, disbelieving. She deactivated Witch Cross, and reached out to touch the Nerf’s snout. It still did not move.

IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, CUT IT OPEN WITH YOUR PAIN STICK.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her familiar. It was just that she’d been trying so hard to do something…

That was it, she realized. It was the fact that she’d TRIED so hard. She was trying to draw forth the kind of emotional weight best found in a trance state, but her frustration at her lack of progress had acted as a sort of barrier. When she had begun thinking negative thoughts about herself, those thoughts had been unconsciously projected onto the Nerf, which had finally triggered her Deadly Sight.

She must have spoken aloud, because the dog grinned at her.

THAT’S GREAT. NOW FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT ON PURPOSE. I’M GOING TO EAT THIS NOW.

As her familiar feasted with abandon, Sohma turned inward, away from the splattering gore and the sounds of ripping flesh. She’d been in waking trances before, when she was starting her Golden Path training. But would those trances, which helped to contain her emotions, help or hinder her current goals?

Sohma sat down and crossed her legs, ignoring the horn that came flying over her shoulder to thump on the ground. She had a lot to think about.

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Deadly Sight - Aspirant (2/8)