Paranormal Activity
Posted on Mon Jun 25th, 2018 @ 7:12pm by Amare
2,307 words; about a 12 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Red Raptor, en route to the Caanus system
Timeline: Two nights after "The Key"
Tags: Burned face, omen, Sheyona, Shadrak, Dark Sector, levitation, force sight
"It is such a quiet thing to fall...but far more terrible it is to admit it." -- Kreia, from a lesson given to the Jedi Exile, Meetra Surik
ON
Zaracoda sat still under the cold stream of the shower in the refresher room. She was balled up with her legs curled up against her chest, and her arms wrapped around them as she stared at the metal bulkhead of the shower wall. She didn't bother with the soap, didn't think of hygiene or anything at all. She sat wordless and empty of thought. It went on for over fifteen minutes.
As if she were some kind of mindless automaton, she stood up with almost robotic rigidity, switched the shower off, stepped over to the mirror soaking wet, and stared at her face, motionless, arms at her side, and her eyes unblinking. While in reality the mirror reflected her normal youthful blue face, in her eyes she witnessed a large portion of the right side of her face burned off to the bone, skull exposed, right eye gone. This horrific image did nothing to sway her. She felt nothing. For ten minutes she was like a soulless creature who stared at this dark omen.
After pat-drying herself, she donned her clothes and wiped the slick floor with a towel like she did countless times as a slave. She then proceeded quietly into her quarters, locked the door behind her, stood next to her bed and slowly lowered her gaze at the open old tome that the givin loremaster gave her on Sheva. It was one among others she and Thane had taken, this particular tome covering the art of synthweaving practiced by both Jedi and Sith throughout the antiquated days of the Old Republic before the dark times of Palpatine's Galactic Empire. On the open page was an illustration of a long dark robe, flattering tunic and pants meant for the slender frame and curves of a woman. It was adorned with patterns of strange maze-like lines on the elegant drooping sleeves of the robe. She stood there, motionless, staring at the image on the old crinkled parchment page for over a solid hour. Then, the page turned with a small wave of her hand over the book and gazed at the ancient inscriptions. Page after page for another haunted hour before closing the book, switching the overhead light off, and crawling into bed.
She tossed and turned, her sleep restless, muttering random words under her breath over and over again.
"No...can't kill...shoot them...Capo...sorry..."
And then still more words from her second victim that night on Sheva.
"Claude...always hated you...stupid...dummy...never wanted...to kill you..."
After another hour passed, she settled on her back and her body became as still and rigid as a slab of plywood. Moments of silence in the darkness passed and then another stir of movement come over her. Her body began to slowly rise up, her bedsheet slipping off of her as she levitated in the air almost four feet above the mattress. Her head and its long smooth tendrils hung down from the pull of the ship's stable gravity, and her limbs hung limp as well. She was completely unaware of what was happening to her as she continued to sleep soundly in levitation for much of the night, drifting further into the spell that summoned her mind back into the peerless abyss...
Zara...my dear sweet little ocean puppet...
...Can you hear me? Of course you can...
...I have lost count how many times we've had these wonderful midnight conversations over the years. This time, however, is quite different. The gift of raw power you gave me in that old Sith dungeon has strengthened our bond more than ever...
...Do you feel it, Zara? Do you feel the birth of the latent power that was inside of you all along? My benefit was your gain. An ancient talent of concealment has awoken in you. Passed from mother to daughter, running deep in your aquatic bloodline, the mark of a living shadow. There is much history to it. Such power protected your forebears from ocean predators and shielded them as they rose to become the dominant species of Glee Anselm. Such powers of deception combined with ruthless cunning were the keys to the last great Sith conquest of the galaxy. I trust you will apply this gift of your ancestors quite well in the days to come. I suppose this also means you might survive a bit longer than anticipated...
...Survive...yes. Do try not to lose your head just yet. Your usefulness to me will expire in due time...
...'What do you mean?' you might ask? Oh, my dearest Zara. Do you have any idea of my most pure and incontestable feelings for you? No? Zara...my little scion, my most treasured creation...
...You have no idea just how much I want to kill you...
...That is, unless, your precious new lord of the dark, Thane, doesn't get you killed first. You are, after all, merely a means to his ends just as you are to me...
...When the time comes, I will seize your power and all that you are, body and soul, and use it to dispatch him in such a way that is to my most optimum satisfaction. I will also take great joy in slaying his pathetic, stalk-headed, beady-eyed Ithorian friend as well. Why the Force chooses to bless such weak, malformed beasts such as his kind I do not know, nor do I care. I shall then find suitable hounds to feast on the entrails of your friends, and I will use their artifacts to increase my power tenfold and become the new ever-living Dark Lord of the Sith...
...Oh, how quaint...I see you restless...struggling to break free. Good. Channel that hatred as much as you desire, but you cannot win. I own you. Those fools on Nar Shaddaa had no idea whom you truly served all along. The fools on this ship will never see me coming until it is too late, and by then...you will already be dead...
...You think you can resist me? You think you can save your friends from me? I dare you to try. When you inevitably evolve to a sufficient level of power, you will uncover the path leading to a distant uncharted place known to us as the Dark Sector. That is where you will go; the place of your birth; the place where my mortal shell was destroyed. A nexus of dark side energy powerful enough to fuel any and all Sith magick. And when you arrive...
...I will be waiting...
Coda gasped to wakefulness and found her view of her cramped quarters upside down, and her body afloat in the air. Upon noticing her confusing predicament, whatever held her aloft let go and she crashed suddenly with a frightened shriek onto the mattress and bounced off from it and toppled face-first to the hard cold floor.
She groaned in pain and struggled to her feet whilst rubbing her forehead. She knew she had some kind of bad dream, but she couldn't remember the details of the experience, or why she was levitating. Her memory of most of the previous night was hazy as well. Her last clear recollection was stepping into the shower in the refresher room and contemplating the terrible things she did on Sheva in defense of her master, Thane. Just as she was dwelling on the fading memories she stole from Sheyona (a.k.a. "Bunnie"), things suddenly became...hollow. It was like she knew she was awake, but didn't quite understand anything she saw. It was almost like she was sleepwalking and partially aware of it at the same time.
She turned and saw on the small desk next to her bed the open synthweaving book along with a small ink pen and the slender silver ring with small amethyst stone that she took from the corpse of Brent Chesto. The book was right where she left off on the page with the pretty monochrome illustration of the dark gray female robe with the intriguing pattern of lines on the sleeves. Something was different this time, however. Where the words on the page were written in a language she didn't understand the night before, now it all appeared to her eyes as classical Aurebesh with small scrawled-in footnotes in Nautila...in her own delicate native handwriting. When she blinked her eyes at the page, she saw the original writing for but a split second before it refocused as Aurebesh and Nautila again.
She read the little Nautila inscription as the memory of writing it came back to her: This design calls to me. I feel a deep connection to it. It is as if it were meant for me. Perhaps it was a message sent to me from someone long ago. Father once spoke on his beliefs in multiple lives. It is beautiful to imagine this being true. I wonder if he was right. Maybe I was the writer of this passage in another time as another person.
She took the book over to the bed and pondered for a minute what was going on. She thought anxiously about levitating again. She questioned if whether it was Shadrak's influence from the dungeon doing that to her, or that it might have been her own subconscious will to bask in the flow of the Force while she slept.
"I want to do that again," she quietly told herself. She sat on the bed cross-legged in a meditative lotus position and stared at the book trying to imagine what she needed to do next. She then took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She focused on her breathing, the constant subdued hum of the ship's hyperdrive engines, dwelt on the rise and fall of her lungs, and tried to envision herself floating again. She failed. Five minutes, then ten...no results.
She was on the verge of giving up in frustration, then heard the flapping of pages in front of her. When her eyes snapped open, the pages stopped turning. There was another intricate robe design meant for a man with the strange addition of an alloy breastplate and pauldrons. She closed her eyes again, and for the briefest of moments thought she saw another design through her mind's eye as the pages turned by her subconscious influence through the Force. When she peeled her lids open once more, she saw the exact same design on the page that flashed in her mind. She did it again and saw words that accompanied images of other robes and modest Jedi accessories.
She let her thoughts relax and slowed her breathing while smiling and "seeing" more of the ancient text flow into her mind. Her head tendrils began to curl up and move on their own. The pair of tendrils normally draped over her shoulders stretched and reached out towards the book while the others behind her rose and curled up and writhed towards the ceiling in an organic arrangement like the spokes of an old sailing ship's helm wheel.
She lost herself so deeply in the joy of the moment, hardly noticing she was levitating several inches above the bed just as she desired, and had no idea an entire hour had passed when the book closed and she softly lowered herself back to her bed. Her tendrils relaxed and she took a long, deep exhausted breath.
Having never done so before with any other book, she had just speed-read through an entire ancient text that normally would have taken her days or weeks of intense conventional study. She didn't quite understand all of the information she absorbed--there was a great deal of "thy's", "thou's", and other mystifying old school grammar choices--but she somehow got through it...all of it, and in such a short time. She resolved herself to mediate again the next chance she got and re-read the book several more times to fully comprehend it. She knew she would have to eventually attempt to craft one of those robes if she were ever to achieve mastery of her newfound knowledge.
Coda was giddy and eager to report to Bomoor and Thane the progress she just made when she stepped off the bed, but then she noticed she failed to make physical contact with the floor. Her bare blue feet had some kind of hold in the air above the metal, but they were still floating, her toes just inches off the floor. At first she thought there was something wrong with the Red Raptor's gravity plating, but everything else in the room was still held in place at 1 G.
A wave of euphoria tingled from her feet up through her legs, torso, and to her head. Her eyes fell shut again, her mouth slightly agape at the suddenness of what she felt. She had a sudden realization of...separation. Freedom. Self-determination. She took a long, slow breath, and willed herself to make contact with the floor. It felt almost as easy and natural to her as swimming.
When she opened her eyes, she embraced the emotions she felt and selfishly decided to hold them in herself. She felt the touch of the dark side just as it was on Sheva, and became aware and accepting of her instincts that told her not to trouble Thane with her small developments in power.
From somewhere in the deep cosmos near the torrent edge of the realm of Chaos itself, Shadrak was smiling...
END
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ZARACODA WOLPH
☼ New Ability - Levitation
☼ New Ability - Force Sight
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