13 ASC
Ashaara Zavros, former padawan of the Jedi Order, crept silently through the corridors of her master's ship.
Feel your fear. Let it encompass your thoughts, and focus on what it is you fear. Fear is your ally; it keeps you from making mistakes. Use it to guide your actions, and then discard it, like a spent fuel cell.
Lord Kallig's words echoed in the young togruta's mind, as they always did, ever since the day her life had changed forever. The day when she had betrayed the Jedi Order.
I am afraid of being seen or heard, she thought, wondering how that fear could possibly help her, wishing she could just chant the Jedi Code to herself and ward off her emotions.
She focused on her fears.
Xalek, Lord Kallig's other apprentice, the taciturn bone-faced Kaleesh who could sneak up on Ashaara and kill her without warning or remorse. He was a skilled fighter, but it was his silence, his air of mystery, that truly terrified his jedi counterpart.
Khem Val… or Darth Zash, depending on the turn of the wind. A Dashade assassin capable of killing most force-users through sheer strength, with a shocking resistance to the Force and the unerring skill of a thousand battles to back it up. When Khem Val was in control, he was bloodthirsty and prone to eating little Jedi like Ashaara. On the other hand, when Darth Zash was in control, she was kind and instructive… until, Lord Kallig warned, one impeded her in any way. Then the body-displaced Sith Lord would find unnatural, cunning ways to dispose of her enemies.
Andronikos Revel, the pirate. Maybe Ashaara wasn't afraid of him. Still, she would never say they were friends. There was something dangerous about being close to that man, the feeling that an insult would create an unstoppable grudge.
But Ashaara was not afraid of being seen or heard by Andronikos, just as she was unafraid of Talos Drellik, the archaeologist. She'd never expect either to attack her, she just never spoke to them. All they did by being on the ship with her was make her loneliness that much sharper.
Khem, Zash, and Xalek, Ashaara listed to herself, just as her Master had taught her. I am afraid they might kill me.
What are your tools? How do you use them? Your plans can only include the tools you have, so be prepared. Win the battle before it begins, or avoid it. Anything else only invites failure and death.
Ashaara started her list with the most obvious tool: her lightsaber. She was good at fighting. Maybe better than a proper jedi should be. That didn't mean she could do anything to stop a monster like Khem or keep Xalek from sneaking up on her and…
She shook her head. Best just not to think about it.
Her Force powers were useless, too. Khem was pretty much immune to them, and Xalek was just as powerful as she was. She couldn't think of a single power she had that would impress him. Still, she sorted out the few that might slow him down. If she saw him coming.
Her Jedi education in diplomacy and Republic history, she listed because Lord Kallig would punish her for leaving out any tool, no matter how useless at first glance. There were also her hand-to-hand skills, the mental defenses Lord Kallig had taught her, and her armour. All tools of limited use, but important to remember.
Racking her brains, Ashaara realized she was forgetting something she took for granted. Again, something Lord Kallig would punish her for.
Ashaara Zavros was a togruta, a very rare species in Imperial space. She had her own special abilities Xalek and Khem would have never heard of, the most obvious of which lay in her horns. They weren't just pretty, even if they weren't weapons. She could feel vibrations with them. The hollow chambers were meant to help togruta judge their surroundings and sense incoming attacks. Years of Jedi training had made her reliant on the Force for her every action, had separated her from her own natural heritage.
It almost brought a smile to the padawan's lips, thinking of how satisfied Lord Kallig would be when Ashaara told her.
So Ashaara set out with eyes closed, letting the Force guide her silent footsteps and judging her progress by the senses of her horns. She could feel as she approached an obstacle or brushed against something that might cause noise. She listened through her horns for Xalek's approach or Khem's footsteps, and moved with greater confidence knowing they couldn't hear her and she'd know if they were close. She made it all the way to Lord Kallig's chambers, and Xalek and Khem never stirred from their rooms.
Ashaara did not knock, in part out of fear of discovery, in part for fear of disturbing her master. Instead, she focused her mind on calling out to Lord Kallig, knowing if the sorceress had attention to spare, Ashaara would be let in.
The door opened, and Lord Kallig's face peered out dispassionately. When she saw Ashaara, a glimmer of a smile appeared on the Sith Lord's face, one that said, "not much makes me happy, but this is alright." Then the door slid open fully, and Ashaara was allowed to enter.
The room was a mess, nothing like Ashaara'd expected when she first got on the ship. Kallig had told her that she liked the room that way, because it made it feel more personal.
Ashaara picked her way to a chair beside the bed, and Lord Kallig closed the door and sat down on another chair by her desk. With a flick of her hand, piles of datapads and boxes and things shifted out of the way, and the Sith woman turned her chair away from the room's desk to face her "apprentice".
Lord Kallig was a Twi'lek, a blue one, who had once been a slave, and she bore the tattoos that marked that heritage. Once, while explaining her reasons and plans for changing the Empire, Kallig had traced a few of the spiraling, spiking lines down her lekku and across her face and told Ashaara what they meant, how they indicated her role in the household of a particularly possessive owner. Ashaara had always wondered about the ones around her eyes, dark black ovals with small spikes tracing the sides of her nose and into the sides of where her eyebrows might be. A final spike shot down from beside each eye, tracing Kallig's cheekbones. Of all the intimidating and foreboding tattoos the twi'lek had, Ashaara had always thought those seemed the darkest.
Ashaara waited, as she always did, while Lord Kallig closed her eyes and focused. A ripple moved through the Force as the Lord sent out an aura that would distract people thinking of interrupting their conversation. Kallig said it played idle havoc with doubts and distractions, but Ashaara didn't have the knack for mental manipulation her master did, and had never attempted the technique.
Then Kallig opened grey-green eyes and asked, "what do you want, Ashaara?"
Always, "what do you want?" Not in the sense that Lord Kallig was being inconvenienced, but in the sense that she didn't so much care what Ashaara needed, but what the padawan hoped for. The way she asked the question always made Ashaara think twice. Among the Jedi, they'd never asked her what she wanted. It was always about the Force or the Jedi or the Republic.
"I wanted your opinion, master," Ashaara said with trepidation, before rushing out the words, "on me."
One of Kallig's oval tattoos grew more circular in her equivalent of raising an eyebrow.
"You fear this life is changing you, then," said Kallig in that caring tone she reserved only for their moments alone.
Ashaara nodded in relief. Her master always seemed to understand, to sympathize. It made her so easy to confide in. In spite of that, Ashaara had been worried about coming to Kallig with her concerns.
Why did she ever worry about talking to her master?
Then Ashaara realized she'd missed the last thing Kallig had said, distracted by an odd buzzing in her horns.
"I'm sorry, master," she said, embarrassed. She spoke more to her feet than her fellow force-user when she confessed, "I didn't hear that last part."
Lord Kallig gave Ashaara a reproachful look, still a zero on the one-to-ten scale of Kallig glares, which could include glowing purple eyes and floating lekku.
"I asked," Kallig repeated impatiently, "if you came tell me exactly what you think has changed? And, please, relax. It's not exactly dangerous to look me in the eyes, and fear does you no service here."
Ashaara closed her eyes and, breathing out slowly, thought, there is no emotion. There is peace. She had come here to talk with her master. She opened her eyes and met her master's gaze.
"I'm afraid," she confessed. "I feel hunted and alone, master. I try to use it or push it aside, like you've taught me, but it always comes back, as strong as ever. I'm afraid it's changing me, master. I don't think I can ever be the same person I was before I left the Jedi, but –"
Ashaara's voice cracked, and she bit back a sob, but Lord Kallig watched without comment, face betraying only a hint of concern, and none of the pity Ashaara half-hoped for.
"…but I want to be someone who could go back to them," Ashaara finished.
Lord Kallig waited, scanning Ashaara's face, before speaking. Then she said, "my crew poses no threat to you while I live, Ashaara. You have nothing to fear so long as you can call me friend."
Though Kallig's face betrayed little emotion, her words filled Ashaara with a warmth and confidence the padawan hadn't felt in months.
Shaking her head at the increasingly insistent buzzing, Ashaara smiled at her master gratefully.
Nodding incrementally, Kallig continued, "as for your mindset, padawan: do you remember the details of the mission you are helping me achieve?"
"You mean changing the Empire," Ashaara blurted out.
"The details," the twi'lek corrected her mildly. "As I've explained them to you, repeat them. This serves a purpose, I assure you."
Ashaara nodded, trusting her master, and the details of the plan seemed to spring to the front of her mind eagerly.
"Once you've completely stabilized your powers," she recited, "you plan to track down Darth Thanaton and trap him into personal combat, killing him and claiming his Sphere as part of the Kaggath. This will guarantee you a seat on the Dark Council, in spite of your species. From there, you intend to leverage your knowledge and acceptance of alien species into a superior power base. This, alongside garnering the attention of potentially sympathetic Sith Lords like Darth Malgus, Darth Marr, and Darth Vowrawn, including other candidates, should create a large enough movement amongst the Dark Council to begin a shift towards a more accepting Empire. At the same time, your resources and partnership with Lord Xel'zex, the Emperor's Wrath, should allow you to make headway against the practice of slavery in the Empire. Details for the abolition of slavery are yet to be determined, since it is such a long-term goal."
Ashaara blinked, a little stunned at the words that had poured from her mouth. Lord Kallig nodded languidly.
"What do you think about that?" Kallig asked. "Do you approve? Do you think it is feasible? What are your concerns about it?"
Lord Kallig sat back in her chair, watching her padawan with a hint of interest. Which, for her, was kind of like fascination.
Ashaara paused, stunned. She'd never been put on the spot like this before. She took a breath and went over the entire plan in her mind, grateful that the buzzing in her horns seemed to have subsided. She thought about the violence her master intended to use to gain power, and how the Empire made such methods unavoidable. She wished that weren't the case. Not that she was afraid of fighting, but if power weren't so commonly gained by killing rivals, she would probably be much less afraid of Xalek.
Then she thought about her master on the Dark Council, negotiating with the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. To be perfectly, terribly honest, she didn't think it would work. The Dark Council members were infamous for their cruelty and ruthlessness. Lord Kallig was a brilliant woman, more cunning than anything Ashaara could imagine, but what could she offer members of the Dark Council that wouldn't corrupt her into a person she never wanted to be? Kallig was not a kind woman, but her morals were ironclad, and Ashaara doubted any of the Dark Council could say the same.
Then there was Lord Xel'zex. Ashaara shuddered slightly at the thought of that man. He was a massive, powerful, unstoppable pure-blood Sith, and every bit the monster his background implied. The fact that he was allied with Lord Kallig… it unsettled Ashaara, made her wonder who else her master might accept as an ally if necessary. At what point did the end no longer justify the means?
For Ashaara, maybe it was already past that point, and she'd been too scared to say so.
Ashaara started to explain these thoughts to her master, but grew nervous. She trailed off twice, each time only continuing to explain at prompting from Lord Kallig. In the end, though, she told Lord Kallig everything.
The twi'lek woman's expression didn't change the entire time, not a bit. Except to prompt Ashaara to continue, she acted like she wasn't even there. Then, at the end, rather than respond to Ashaara's critique, Kallig asked, "are you alright?"
Tilting her head distractedly, Ashaara asked, "what?" It was barely more than a grunt.
"You seem to be twitching," Kallig noted, hiding a trace of concern. "Is there something wrong? Should we get you to the med bay?"
She was worrying about Ashaara? It wasn't even a week ago that Kallig had finally silenced the ghosts trapped in her mind, and she was worrying about Ashaara's health?
It was sweet, actually. In spite of her nerves, Ashaara almost smiled. She shook her head. "No," she said, "it's just a buzzing of some kind. It keeps coming and going. It's just very distracting."
Kallig nodded and visibly hesitated before saying anything, watching Ashaara as if she might fall over at any moment.
"If you're sure," the Sith said slowly. Then, when Ashaara only nodded, Kallig came to a decision. She nodded, swiped a new path through all her notes and treasures, and climbed onto her bed. The tension in the room increased, and Ashaara trembled, but Kallig just leaned forward, elbows on her knees and chin resting on the backs of her hands. She seemed as if she'd finally relaxed, if anything.
"I have a story to tell you," the twi'lek said in a tone that promised secrets. "I think it will make a big difference to how you think of my plans.
"My name is Dar'vao," she began, ignoring Ashaara's gasp of surprise. Nobody on the crew was allowed to speak their lord's real name, and Ashaara had never known it. "I was born a slave on Dromund Kaas, and never met my family…"
Ashaara awoke to a new day on the Siren Anathema and stretched happily. Today was going to be a good day, she could feel it. It must be that talk she'd had with D-
The young Jedi paused, trying to recall a half-remembered dream. Talking with Lord Kallig, maybe?
Then her uncertainty disappeared with the fleeting memories, and she was back to smiling.
She sat up and kicked out of bed, intent on challenging Xalek to a spar.
Lord Kallig sat on her bed. She'd been unable to sleep, but that wasn't unusual after one of her sessions with Ashaara.
The girl was getting stronger. She'd taken to Kallig's training well, better than the Jedi herself suspected. She'd remembered aspects of the story, felt the buzzing more intensely, and been harder to infiltrate. It had taken almost the entire story before she'd cut Ashaara off from her body, let alone her will. Too long.
This had gone too far. Every time, Kallig wondered if this would be the time Ashaara broke through the careful cloaking on her memories and, herself, broke. And yet, the Sith Lord couldn't think of any other way to protect the girl.
There was one way. One decision the Sith hadn't made out of sheer selfishness.
Was it so wrong to want somebody who… well, she couldn't trust Ashaara, but somebody who wouldn't stab Kallig in the back at the first opportunity? Kallig barely had a leash on Andronikos, the lech, and then there was Khem.
There wasn't anything else for it. Ashaara had to go. Somewhere, anywhere but the Siren Anathema.
Lord Kallig, Dar'vao, allowed a fleeting sadness to cross her face. She could be a little honest, in the privacy of her own room, and admit she would miss the naive young woman.
After all, on those nights when Ashaara Zavros' confidence fell and she came to Dar'vao for guidance, those nights when Dar'vao took over the girl's mind under the guise of telling a story… Well, on those nights, just for a few minutes, didn't Ashaara know Dar'vao better than anyone else in the galaxy?
