Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Darth Bellious]

Moyr had had a difficult night, full of dark dreams that weren't prophetic, but reverberations of emptiness and loss she was feeling. When she finally emerged from this miasma, with yeserday's wounds burning, it was terrifying for her to discover how much she had depended emotionally on him just being somewhere out there. Durasay had faulted her for that detachment, but this had always been her implicit way to stay committed. Protracted closeness often brought calamity, she thought, Sith or not. Judging by the way he'd died, she wasn't wrong.

She had spat out recriminations, she had forsaken revenge, she had cried out blood, she had drunk herself into stupor, she had been tormenting herself with would-have-beens that were never-evers now. She felt as if she had aged years over one day. His death had drawn a line that couldn't be stepped back over, and it was filling her with dreadful finality.

The most miserable thing was that she had a kriffing song just for the occasion. Despite her better judgement of not salting an open wound, she started singing in husky, hollowed voice, lying naked on the floor, staring at the reflective metal ceiling.

"Lately I'm not feeling like myself
When I look into the glass, I see someone else
I hardly recognize this face I wear
When I stare into her eyes, I see no one there
Lately I'm not feeling like myself
Lately I've been losing all my time
All that mattered to me slipped my mind
Every time I hit another town
strangers appear to lock me down
Lately I've been losing all my time
The mystery that no one knows
Where does love go when it goes?
Lately words are missing from now on
Vanished in the haze of love gone wrong
There's no future, there's no past
In the present, nothing lasts
Lately someone's missing from now on
The mystery that no one knows
Where does love go when it goes?
The mystery that no one knows
Where does love go when it goes?"

[The Original Song]

[Sylvain Torsin]

Suddenly in the darkness of the ship…. And the darkness of her mind there was a voice.

“It never goes Moyr… Not the love for the ones who really matter to us.”

And then he was there… kneeling beside her… arm on one knee.

“Nor do they leave us.”

[Darth Bellious]

She blinked. And then again.

"Am I really hallucinating about you talking to me, Sylvain? Is this how desperate my mind is to see you again?"

[Sylvain Torsin]

“I believe your mind is desperate… but no… I am here.” He replied.

[Darth Bellious]

She was parsing it slowly, unlike herself. She was... shocked. To the point of staying immobile and staring.

"Is this what you are now, or is this what you do now?"

[Sylvain Torsin]

“What is the ‘this’ you are referring to in each question?” He asked.

“We are what we do… I am this and do this.”

[Darth Bellious]

"I mean, this ethereal form. Is this some new form of existence after death you've discovered, you've been doomed to, or you haven't really died?" The words felt silly to her when she uttered them, though she'd dealt with various forms of Force ghosts before, so it wasn't entirely inconceivable.

[Sylvain Torsin]

“More the first than anything else.” He replied.

“The ability to manifest oneself within the Living Force is not something one grasps through their own power… But is possible for those who have trained themselves to feel its influence… and have utility in remaining accessible to those in need.”

[Darth Bellious]

So had he turned Jedi before he died, or was it something more universal? She sighed deeply and looked down at her prone body as it undulated because of it.

"Do you find me in need, Syl?" She allowed him to take it however he wanted. She recalled maybe that one moment he could have turned her to the path he himself had followed. But it was all gone now. Like she had explained to Zeno, Sylvain's death sealed a lot of paths for her. His return in this form wasn't any true existence, was it?

[Sylvain Torsin]

"Not in any... condescending way..."

He smiled softly, "But laying naked and crying on the floor of one's ship doesn't exactly scream that you're doing just fine..."

[Darth Bellious]

"Ah, so you've noticed. Guess who's to blame for that." She puffed, with just a bit of resentment. "You know what my need is, Sylvain? I want to have passionate sex with the person I love. And you've taken that potentiality away from me. I am crying over my inadvertent celibacy."

[Sylvain Torsin]

He nodded and smiled, "That is indeed much more difficult. And certainly an enjoyable part of our youth... but only a part of the reason for our connection. One that time would eventually take away no matter how bodied either of us were."

He looked at her with soft eyes, "Some bonds... like love... Were never worth breaking for me. Even after death."

[Darth Bellious]

"You know I've had no men after you, bastard? None. For a time I thought it was trauma, but all this time it's been a barb of a different kind. I can't even count how many times I've sung my heart out for you." Her tears welled up again. "And now you come over, all ghost-like and very dead, and speak softly about connections that transcend death. What should I really be making of it, Sylvain? You have me at a loss." Her voice faltered.

[Sylvain Torsin]

"Just that I wasn't able to cut the ropes... And that is what brings me back to you." He replied.

"There are bonds that do not enslave... Connections that do not drain... Things more important to me than life itself."

He looked down from his kneeling posture. "I've always been a creature of light... and you of dark... The bond we share... I will never break. The further you go into the Dark will ultimately lead you away from me... perhaps cause you to sever what I extend... It's a thing I believe we both understood in the end."

He paused, "I would never constrain you... Never assume to tell you how you should conduct your life. You have devoted yourself to the Dark based off of intentions that I understand. What I extend though... is stronger than the Dark. Even if you were to sever it... it would always regrow should you ever require it. It is made to last."

[Darth Bellious]

"I will not sever it, Sylvain. I will cherish it. I will enshrine it at the end of the universe. You've always wanted balance, but your mistake - and mine - has been to seek it alone. You may be of Light and I may be of Dark, but this is this very alignment of the opposites that makes the connection like ours inseparable, and powerful." She thinner her lips for while her heart was beating as if it wanted to break free from her chest, there were important things to say else they may never be said. This moment of mutual epiphany ought not to be lost.

"Many after us will repeat the same mistake, but perhaps there will come those who will understand before it's too late, like it is for us now. The ropes need never have been cut. They should have been differently tied."

She was crying still, but her breath calmed.

"I don't know what I will be after I die. Most likely just another speckle of stardust, my consciousness gone forever. Perhaps an antithesis of you, a wraith to haunt the future generations of the Sith in ancient halls I'll build for them. But I can accept that as long as this truth, so basic and silly, lives on. I will make sure of it that it does. I promise it to you, Sylvain."

[Sylvain Torsin]

He smiled and nodded, "Then my worry subsides... Live your best life Moyr. And know that you will never be alone."

[Darth Bellious]

"I won't let you let me be alone any more than you already have. It is still going to be very lonely, but survivably so."

She sat up and wiped off her tears, just now realising that her physiology should not have allowed them in the first place. A small miracle of clearing a path onward. Her lekku were still trembling from emotion.

"Now go, before my heart breaks for not being able to hold you in this vaporous form."

[Sylvain Torsin]

He reached out and placed his hand over her heart. A warm sensation of life forces flowed around the area in place of concrete atomic collision.

"Farewell Moyr... For now."

And with a final smile he dissipated into the invisible realm...

[Darth Bellious]

For a time, she watched the place his contours had faded away, savouring the sensation he had left, shuddering at the chill that eventually returned. She didn't rage against this strange confluence of Light and Dark their bond represented; it was what it was, and she was comfortable leaving it abstract, underdefined, subsumed under the grandiose notion of love transcending all. She would eventually give it a name, but it was not now.

Now she would rise and get ready to all that needed to be done despite the galaxy-shattering war just getting started. Before she could be Moyr Ahaya again, there was a lot of being Darth Bellious ahead.

/scene