Chapter 57: Come the Gathering Rain (Part 2)

Its rare for Siri to hate on someone else's behalf if they aren't named Obi-Wan, Supernova, or Zannah. But, Kenobi's little glass Tooka managed to get the deed done. In that moment, she had a hard time distinguishing C'Baoth from Sidious, and there was no doubt in her mind that C'Baoth was already in his service, C'Baoth had managed to replicate the bastard's insidious nature. They ought to have put him down, but noooo, Jedi don't do that, they aren't pragmatic. Instead, they had taken the little glass Tooka to the Halls of Healing to be fussed over and mended.

Honestly, Siri had worse lightsaber burns and bruises from Sidious when she was thirteen.

Then again, Sidious had never offered a Master's Oath to her as C'Baoth would have to his padawan. Sidious's treatment of Siri had been the norm, what was expected. C'Baoth was treachery, deception, abuse and corruption plain and simple. Oh he was going to be a mess to deal with later, Siri could tell. The old bastard was already powerful in the Force, adding the Dark Side and a lack of restraint that the Jedi had on top of it? That's going to be an issue that was guaranteed to get people killed. Oh well, she could look forward to killing him when her parole was up.

Because whether he became a public enemy, or she had to assassinate him, she was going to give her damn best to kill him. He was a rival, and he was a threat. To her, and to the few she cared about. She killed people for less, and there would be no moral hangup over his death. She'd be happy to rip his heart and have that red comfortably on her hands. She hummed dreamily, idle fantasies of what it would be like courting her imagination as she nestled into her couch to resume Rain watching...

For the next kriffing week.

In which she learned that Obi-Wan's little glass Tooka got adopted into being his padawan. Honestly, she's not even surprised, the act is so him that its kind of adorably disgusting. That entire lineage had issues with taking in strays. In which, in said instances, strays meant completely messed up individuals. Dooku was trying to 'redeem' Vosa, and Siri would eat her foot before she'd give that a realistic chance of happening. Obi-Wan was after her for the same reason. Qui-Gon took in a hyper powered slave rat. Yoda had the entire order of indoctrinated light happy sociopaths to look after. What a happy care free group of people.

She gagged at the thought.

"My sentiments exactly."

Siri jolted upright off the couch to see Zan... to see the child form of Rain glowing translucent from the Holocron, giving her a stink eye. "You've been here how long and there's not an ounce of personality to the room? The Jedi must be rubbing off on you."

"Why Zannah, that was almost subtle of you," mocked Siri before raising an eyebrow, "Or am I supposed to call you Rain now?"

The Holocron glowered darkly at her.

Siri sits back down and crosses a leg over the other. "That name certainly never came up in our years together."

"It wasn't supposed to," snapped the girl, "Getting an acid-bath of light was... unpleasant. I was not in the right state of mind."

"Really now? I think that was the most honest I've ever seen you," said Siri pointedly, "Whose Laa?"

The snarl, clenched fist, and the tightening around her throat were only a little surprising, unfortunately for the girl, she was a fragment, and she didn't have the Dark for strength, Siri bats the attempt aside and pouts. "I thought we were friends, yet here you are trying to kill me."

"Do not EVER," raged Zannah, because it was definitely her, "Speak that name or Rain's again!"

"Why?" asked Siri.

"I'm not that little girl anymore, she's dead," said Zannah with ice, "I cast her aside a long time ago, as I thought you did Siri Tachi on Naboo, before you failed."

Siri regards Zannah for a long moment, the child that is still there regardless of her arguments; not to mention she'd avoided giving a reason for this 'Laa'. "Zannah... that's a lie and you know it. Darth Zannah, Rain, there is no difference, just like there is no difference between me and Darth Tyrosus."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," spat Zannah.

"Don't I?" stated Siri, "I think I do over most Sith. I went all the way, a true Sith Lord, ready to cast everything away for the sake of power, and I got dragged back. But you know what? I had a long time to think on it cut off from the Force in that cell, and those memories are still my memories, they're not distant or faded or like they belonged to someone else. I might not be the Siri Tachi I was before I fell, I, in a way, consider her dead, but not because she was a different person, but because she changed, she adapted, she became me. That's the way of the Sith, to change and evolve. Siri Tachi the Jedi is dead because that door is closed and I have no interest in opening it again. I'm still the same person I always was at my core."

Zannah grinds her teeth. "That's..."

"I dare you, I challenge you, oh dead Dark Lord of the Sith," mocked Siri, "Go through your memories of being Rain and actually look at them. Do they belong to someone else? Or are they yours?"

Zannah snarled at her and blinked out of existence. Siri hummed to herself, smugly satisfied, and strutted over to lean over and poke the holocron. "Do be quick about it Rain dearest, I've had little but Jedi company for four years now, I'm dreadfully bored out of my mind..."

Siri was pretty sure Zannah would only really need an hour or so.

The week long wait was just the Sith Lord being petty.

Siri walks out of her room that morning and finds Zannah trying an incantation, the solidifying one if Siri recalls right, only for it to fizzle out. "Sith Sorcery is kinda fueled by the Dark Side, Zannah, I'm honestly surprised you're even trying after getting light-acid-bathed."

Zannah scowled at her. "I'm trying to do it with whatever I can feel, surely there has to be another way."

"Poor poor Rain," mused Siri, making the gatekeeper twitch.

"I told you not to use that name," said Zannah sharply.

"Why not?" asked Siri, "Isn't it your real name?"

"Actually," said Zannah, sneering at her, "Its the other way around. Zannah is my birth name and Rain..."

She shook her head. "Stupid homeworld superstitions had our entire population live under pseudonames our entire lives that only our parents knew."

Siri blinked. "Okay... that's weird."

Zannah narrowed her eyes. "Watch yourself."

"Didn't you just call it stupid?"

"Its my homeworld, I'm allowed to! You're not!"

Siri rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Rain. So why is that the hated, rejected name?"

Zannah gritted her teeth. "It doesn't matter."

"Tell me and I'll do the incantation for you," offered Siri, "If it doesn't matter then surely its not that big of a deal."

"Piss off."

"Your choice," said Siri, deliberately walking through the incorporeal Gatekeeper.

"Kriffing hell I taught you too well."

Siri laughed and went into the fresher. She came out a few minutes later to her table flying across the room at her. Siri caught it with the Force, brushed aside Zannah's grip, and set it down. "Rude."

"Is this petty revenge for something?" snapped Zannah.

"Mmm, nope," said Siri, "This is me enjoying being on the other end this time, you stumbling about in this 'new' state and me being the experienced one. Its refreshing, really."

Zannah crossed her arms.

"Also delayed revenge for holding my 'infatuation' over my head and threatening to go to Sidious with it if I didn't go have my way with someone and slap Obi-Wan's face on them."

"I kriffing knew it."

Siri walks through Zannah a second time and sits on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and watching Zannah glare at her. Really, in the child form it was kind of adorably petulant. "Why does the name Rain matter to you if it was just a pseudoname?"

Zannah glowers at her for a long moment before scowling and looking away. "Rain... is who I was my entire childhood. What everyone knew me as. They were Rain's friends, Rain's family, Rain's people. Zannah... was a secret, and might as well have never existed until..."

She shook her head.

"Until Laa died?"

Zannah gritted her teeth. "Don't speak that name."

"Huh, whoever Laa was had to be pretty important," mused Siri, "To get that reaction."

Zannah scoffed. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"Its...," Zannah trailed off, her hostility fading into a pained look, "Its more about who I once was... than... than her..."

When she trails off again, Siri needles, "My oh my, was that almost an admission that you were and/or are Rain?"

"Kriff off."

"Ugh, I'm surrounded by Jedi, Zannah, I haven't had sex in four years, its awful," whined Siri, "And probably wont for at least another six."

"Married your hand then?"

Siri threw her head back and laughed. "Oh I've missed you."

Zannah full on twitched at the admission, and Siri, ever the opportunist, pounced, "Feels weird, doesn't it? Feeling emotions not usually encouraged by the dark. Tell me, did you like being missed? Warm and fluttery, isn't it?"

Zannah glared darkly at her.

"So, Rain," pressed Siri, feeling a storm building within the Holocron, "Why was Laa important?"

"Its not about Laa!" shouted Zannah, "It could have been anyone I loved or treasured or was friends with and it would have had the same outcome! Rain... Rain was innocence. Naive horrible innocence that was murdered by the so called defenders of peace and justice! She-she couldn't... I couldn't..."

The holocron snapped shut with a hiss, and the gatekeeper faded. The look on her face before she faded...

Siri's smug smile faded away into an unhappy frown as she regarded the Holocron. "I see. It wasn't the person who made you fall, it was the act. If you were innocent, then you didn't know suffering. Likely sheltered. The make of those clothes look like you were from some backwater world, likely low tech. You screamed at Yoda that you were stolen by lies of being a hero, a Jedi. You couldn't conceive what happened, when the heroes you looked up to murdered someone you cherished..."

That look on her face...

"It shattered you, you fell and lashed out, killing Laa's killers and destroying yourself more than you had been, and then Bane was there to pick up the pieces," said Siri softly, sighing.

She smiled a little. "Though, props for killing two Jedi as an untrained ten year old. You must have been something else..."

Thankfully, Zannah's back the next day rather than the next week.

"So out of idle curiosity, who was Laa?"

Zannah scowled at her. "I believe you owe me an incantation."

Siri rolled her eyes, tapped the dark a little, and muttered, "Fasona fashis anas dea Nu svajone."

She willed the particles that made the outer skin of Zannah's image to solidify, and Zannah gave a small sigh of relief. Now that Siri stopped to consider it...

"You rarely ever refrain from using that incantation," mused Siri, "Like... every time you ever showed up, you tried being solid."

Hmm, what did that say about Zannah then? So desperate for the physical world?

Zannah glowered at her, walked over, and kicked her shin as her as she could. Which... really wasn't hard. Siri grinned and ruffled her hair. "Has anyone ever told you you're adorable?"

"I'm going to slit your throat in your sleep."

"Mmm, that incantation will wear off before then."

"Don't need to be solid to levitate a knife."

"No, but I'll feel that coming well before it happens."

"Bitch."

"You know it," said Siri cheerfully.

"Force, I was better off stranded on the ship," said Zannah.

"Owch," said Siri, hand clapping her chest, "Right through the heart."

"What heart?"

"Takes someone heartless to know someone heartless," mocked Siri playfully.

Zannah glared at her.

Force Siri had missed this so much.

"So, who was Laa?"

Zannah sighed and moved to sit on the couch. "A bouncer."

"...there were bars on Ruusan?"

"Oh for kriff's sake," exclaimed Zannah, "Bouncer, capitalized. Its a species native to Ruusan."

"What do they look like?"

There was hesitation for a long moment before Zannah wiggled her fingers through the air, and a shaky illusion took form. It was... a green hairy blob as far as Siri was concerned, but judging by the shaken look on Zannah, it was her green hairy blob, so Siri kept her mouth shut on playful insults. She wondered when was the last time Zannah had ever remembered Laa before all of this. Despite the... weirdness of the creature, there was an air of kindness about the illusion, in its eyes. Rain is rigid on the couch, lips pursed tightly, staring at the illusion, hand twitching and making the illusion fuzzy every now and then.

"What happened?" asked Siri, "To you? To her? How'd you go from Rain to Zannah?"

Zannah banished the illusion and glared at her. "You first."

Siri blinked. "Eh?"

"I'm four years out of date with you, what the hell happened on Naboo?" asked Zannah, "How did you go from there, to here?"

"That's a long story."

"If you're staying here for the next six years, we have the time."

"Fair," agreed Siri, "But, I will have your word Zannah. If I give this story, I want yours. I want to know wh..."

She cut herself off.

Who hurt you.

Zannah twitches, evidently feeling that through the Force, looking away for a moment. "Fine."

Siri settled down next to Zannah, and began to speak...

Zannah had been unusually silent during most of the abbreviated retelling much later in the day. If Siri had to pick a point, it had been when she told her that she had been spilling Sith secrets of the Grand Plan to the Jedi. Siri had lost a sense of what the holocron felt when it had pulled up its shields high. Zannah sits, somewhat translucent, the physical incantation wearing thin, completely quiet. It doesn't sit well with Siri, the hair on the back of her neck slowly standing up in warning. Not a dangerous warning, Zannah isn't capable of killing her in this state, but of another kind of threat.

"The one thing I can't figure out," begins Zannah, her tone ice, "Is why Sidious hasn't killed you, traitor."

Oh.

She could lose Zannah. Not to death, but as someone that could be considered a dark friend.

Siri swallows thickly. "Zannah..."

"You are actively working against the Grand Plan," snarled Zannah, "And the death of the Jedi."

"I'm working against Sidious," snapped back Siri, "If that disrupts your oh so precious genocide, tough shit."

"Your hatred of him isn't worth a thousand years of effort!" shouted Zannah.

"To ME it is!" roared Siri back at her, the dark shouting with her outside the bars of her mind, pulled in by her hate.

Zannah pauses to scrutinize that. "Despite your... fluctuation in the Force, you still consider yourself Sith."

"Your point being what?"

"How can you consider yourself Sith when you are not particularly interested in dominating the galaxy and destroying the Jedi?"

Siri gives her a disappointed look. "When did being a Sith gravitate solely around the destruction of the Republic and the Jedi?"

"When they kept getting in our way," said Zannah coldly.

"And that's why the Sith have always failed," snapped Siri, "They have always floundered and fell apart when they started in on the Jedi and controlling everything. They let their obsession ruin them when they could be so much more."

Zannah's eyebrows furrowed. "More?"

"Kriff the Jedi, kriff the Republic, and honestly, kriff the entire blasted Galaxy," said Siri, "Why should we give a damn about controlling the worthless little piss ants running around it?"

Zannah gives her a blank look.

"We could live free, without restriction or restraint," whispered Siri hungrily, "But we always chain ourselves down. By our own choice we always initiate self-destruct. We always try to dominate, we always try to destroy the Jedi and the Republic, we always betray our own. Its an endless, pointless cycle. Even IF we were successful, how long would it last before we destroy ourselves again? Whose to say the Jedi wouldn't pull their own Rule of Two out of their ass and come out of our ashes when all was said and done?"

Zannah's eyebrows furrow, she speaks warily. "Siri, what is a Sith to you? What is the Dark Side to you?"

"Whats it to you?" she strikes back.

"Idiots and weaklings call it evil, but the Dark Side is about survival, unleashing your inner power. It glorifies the strength of the individual," said Zannah proudly, hungrily, before shifting back to Siri, "Answer the question."

"What it is? Or what I want them to be?" asked Siri pointedly.

Zannah takes a moment to consider the question. "What you want them to be."

"Freedom," said Siri, "I want to be free to be myself, to act and feel, good or bad, without cult-worthy restrictions and expectations placed upon me. Without others trying to bend me to their will and make me what they want me to be. Sith should be breakers of chains, instead, they lay it on themselves and others."

"When the hell did you start being philosophical?" asked Zannah.

"When I got locked into a Jedi Temple for the last four years with little else to do but think and reflect as much as I actively tried not to," said Siri dryly, "Especially since Supernova... did his thing, I've had little else to do since then. You know, he gave me a challenge to decide what I want. I want the freedom to be whoever and whatever I chose to be."

"You don't have your 'freedom' now?" posed Zannah.

"Not really," said Siri, "There is always someone, even you, who wants me to be what they wish me to be. Or wants me to not be something. Or wants to restrict me in some way or form. I think that Skywalker is honestly the only one whose close to the mindset of stepping back and letting me make that choice. Though he's made dislikes of parts of the Sith and how I've lived very clear to me."

"Why the hell should you care what he thinks?"

"He's the literal Child of the Force," said Siri dryly, "If you consider how various religions refer to such beings, he'd be considered a demigod by most of them if the Force was considered a god. He is something different, something... other. Something... more. You wouldn't understand unless you had ventured down into the core of what he is, that... that beating of the Force in the heart of him."

"I think," said Siri quietly, "I should very much care what he thinks, even if I disagree with him. His creation, and placement into slavery by the Force, I think was very, very calculated for something that is often said to work in mysterious ways."

"How so?"

"Sith Empires are often founded on slavery," said Siri grudgingly, "Being born a slave, I think was a rather cruel decision of the Force, to engineer a reason for Skywalker to always hate the Sith and be at odds with them, considering their act in challenging the Force is what led to his creation."

"I think," said Zannah slowly, "You need to go more in-depth on that then your little overview."

"The Veil of the Dark Side," said Siri, "It's been around since before I was born, but it only really became the monster it is now when Sidious and his Master directly challenged the Force for sovereignty of the Dark Side."

Zannah frowned. "The Dark Side was epicentered around the Sith by Darth Bane's design, Siri, a thousand years ago."

"Yes," agreed Siri, "But it was Sidious and Plaguies who truly made that a reality, otherwise it had just been because there weren't enough other darksiders around to really pull it away from the Sith. What they did though? They challenged the Force for absolute control of the Dark Side, pushed it to be completely dark and smother the Light, and its going to destroy them for that arrogance."

She stared hard at Zannah. "You said the Dark Side is about survival? Well then we are in agreement. I am shifting away from Sidious and the Grand Plan in order to survive. Whether I kill Sidious, or Anakin does, the Sith as we know it are not going to survive the Force's retribution. I am ensuring that some form of the Sith survive, and evolve, from what they are now. I want the Sith to become everything they should be."

"And what, exactly, is that?" demanded Zannah.

"When I become the Sith Master, that will be for me to decide, so I'll take a Rain check on that answer."

Zannah wrinkles her nose at Siri. "Did you really have to slip a pun into a serious conversation?"

"Hi pot, names kettle, have we met?"

Zannah scoffed.

"Besides, I think we're about done with that conversation," said Siri firmly, "So whats the verdict, off with my head?"

"I'll take a rain check on that answer," mocked Zannah, blinking out of existence and back into her holocron.

"Bitch," said Siri without heat.

She didn't take it too personally when Zannah tried to make good on her word with a knife across her throat that night.

Zannah doesn't make a reappearance for a few days.

Siri finds her sitting (levitating since she's not solid at the moment) on the couch, knees tucked into her chest, head resting on her knees. "Well, you don't look like you're having a good time, Rainy day Rain?"

The needling doesn't get a response, and Siri's mocking smile fades. "Zannah?"

"I hate this," muttered Zannah, voice a tad shaky, "There's no dark to smother anything I feel or push away thoughts I don't want to think. I can't... I can't bury memories I don't want to remember."

"Kriffing sucks, doesn't it?" asks Siri.

Zannah nods sullenly.

"You want a tip?"

"Am I going to like the tip?"

"Abso-kriffing-lutely not."

Zannah sighed. "Just hit me with it."

"Make them your own."

Zannah blinked at her.

"All the memories, all the feelings, all of the thoughts you don't want, that you shove away, that you think as -other-, as not you, as Rain instead of Zannah," explained Siri, "Make them your own. I've told you once Zannah. You and Rain ARE the same person."

Siri blinks at a literal wave of pain from the Holocron. "Zannah?"

"I can't accept that."

"Why?"

Zannah took a very long time to work up the strength to answer, and Siri doesn't like what she feels coming from the pyramid. "Because it means Zannah didn't make me to be a continuation, a legacy. She made me to be a garbage bin."

That... baffles Siri, especially the dissociation of Zannah and Zannah. "The hell are you talking about?"

"Siri... you're not stupid," said Zannah softly, "I know what you studied in our time together, and even a lot of what you dipped into on your own. You have to know that a soul in a Holocron isn't that common."

"Your point being...?"

"If I'm Rain... then Zannah made me for a specific purpose."

"Which is...?"

Zannah looks down at the floor, tired and... sad. "To get rid of me."

"I don't follow."

"She ripped me out of her own soul, Siri."

It takes Siri a long moment to finally get it. "Oh."

Zannah, the REAL Darth Zannah, not the fragment, had ripped a part of her own soul out and put it into the Holocron. A Sith Lord, a true Dark Lord of the Sith, would rather die than admit something like Rain still existed, that anything of that innocent little girl she had once been remained. Rather than just keep that small part of herself buried, smothered, crushed, choking on the dark, Zannah ripped her out.

"Shit," said Siri, "Darth Zannah had to be something else after she took you out."

She had still been smothered in the Dark Side before, still Zannah, but now... there's something... brittle... about Zannah, about Rain, without the Dark there to give her strength and power. Something shattered and small made bare by Yoda's purge of the Dark. Its... sad, to see how little remains, how much pain that little girl is in.

"She was," said Rain softly, "She was..."

The more Siri thinks on it as the days pass, the more she thinks Zannah... that Rain, was right.

In a twisted way, it makes sense for a Dark Lord to do it. Especially if it still plagued them. She watches Rain throughout the day, though most the fragment does is sit on the couch, eyes flickering without seeing. Despite being owed a story, Siri doesn't press, not yet anyway. If the Holocron is finally parsing through memories, its better to not interrupt her. She merely sits on the couch next to her reading her datapad, and really wishing she had killed C'Baoth in that brief struggle over Obi-Wan's glass tooka.

The bastard has been quick. Speeches across multiple worlds calling for succession, going on and on about the corruption of the Republic, of the Senate, of the Jedi. The best deceptions are those with truth laced in, and C'Baoth had apparently mastered this. Because he cites incidents of very clear, and very damning mistakes, blunders, and mishandled situations. The Yinchorri Uprising, Galidraan, The Stark Hyperspace Wars. His words are passionate, full of furor, and, include information that Siri wasn't fully informed off, like the speech he was giving now.

"This," introduces C'Baoth to a tall humanoid next to him, bearing a white mask with red lines, covered head to toe in brown and white clothes, almost like bandages, with a cape, four fingered hands clenched tightly, an rifle on his back with a bayonet, "Is a man who had suffered greatly from the Republic's sins, whose people have greatly suffered. He was one known as Qymaen Jai Sheelal, and has since taken the name Grevious out of grief for the suffering of his people. Tell them, my friend, of the Republics travesty!"

Grevious snarled before grabbing the camdroid and bringing it up to his face, yellow eyes burning with fury. "Years ago, the Huk," he spits out, "What you call the Yam'rii, invaded our world, subjugated our people, enslaved us by the millions, ate our eggs, our young! The Kaleesh fought a war to free ourselves, to take the fight to the Huk, but then the Republic and the Jedi came! They believed the Huk over us! Over all the Huk had crushed under foot! They fought us, pushed us to our homeworld, and left us to starve!"

He glances to the side when C'Baoth puts a hand on his shoulder, gently prying the camdroid from his grip and letting it float back a bit. "It was a travesty, corruption, blindness of an unforgivable degree. The Jedi and the Republic failed in everything they were supposed to do, supposed to be, and the Kaleesh suffered unjustly for it."

"And there will be a reckoning for it," snarled Grevious, "For every Kaleesh soul that perished by Republic or Jedi hand, for every filthy Huk they protected when they should have been put down like the beasts they are!"

"There will be," agrees C'Baoth, "But to those who doubt this account? Don't take our word, we have proof, here."

Siri's lips purse as the screen switches; recordings, video, investigations, all made available on the holonet, filter through. One video shows a Huk literally eating a large egg, an almost fully developed fetus struggling and wailing as its torn open, its screams horrific. The worst part of it? The date on that video was three months ago. Its still happening. "Shit."

The Jedi and the Republic really kriffed themselves this time.

"The Kalee join the Confederacy of Independent Systems," said Grevious, chin tilted up, "And beckon all that will buck the filth of the Republic. All worlds, all species..."

His lips peel back in distaste. "Even Jedi who would make amends by leaving their corrupt order and joining us against the Huk this time."

"For we will not allow this to go on any longer," said C'Baoth, voice rising to a fevered pitch, "Already, the ranks of the Confederacy swell, in less than a week of our initial Articles of Confederacy being signed, dozens of star systems have joined us, and many more have submitted petitions, crying out to be heard over the corruption smothering them in the Republic. They join us knowing our uttermost directive, that all that is Good need do to allow Evil to win is to stand aside and do nothing. As such, all are welcome to prove themselves in our first true act outside of our foundation in declaring a Just War upon the Huk, retribution and punishment for their continued crime against sentient life! To stop them once and for all!"

"Sidious is moving fast," mused Rain, glancing over at the datapad.

"No shit," muttered Siri, "But this is really aggressive and overt, almost reckless, there are ways it could really backfire."

"Its an incredibly powerful opening statement that sets the stage for the coming conflict," said Rain, "That paints the Confederacy in a positive light while damning the Republic. If the Republic steps in and sides with these 'Huk' after what was revealed, they'll drive hundreds, if not thousands, more Star Systems into C'Baoth's hands. Though, I doubt Sidious will allow the Republic to, not yet, not if he wants an actual war and not a curb stomp against the Republic."

"Not to mention he has to rush and make up time after you likely botched a few things," said Rain, eying her. "The Sith are in the last phases of the Grand Plan, Siri, I really don't think you can stop it anymore."

Siri shrugged. "You make the mistake of assuming I care about it."

Rain's eyes furrowed. "You said..."

"I said I'm opposed to Sidious, and if the Grand Plan gets nixed in the process, tough shit," said Siri, "But personally, I don't much care if the Jedi Order lives or dies so long as those I favor in it survive."

Rain regarded her for a long moment, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Why Siri, that's so selfish of you."

"Is that praise or condemnation?" asked Siri dryly, eyebrow raised.

Rain merely laughed in response.

"So Rain..."

"Zannah," grumbled Rain.

"So Rain," Siri needles again, enjoying the frustrated look show her way, "I believe you owe me a story. About your fall."

Rain goes silent.

"You promised me."

Rain doesn't answer.

Siri doesn't ask again, merely waiting.

"I... was ten years old at the time," said Rain, voice harsh, "A foolish, naive little girl. A Jedi Scout for the Army of Light arrived at our planet to search for Force Sensitives to join the war against the Sith on Ruusan, the most brutal campaign of that war with the Brotherhood of Darkness."

"My...," she began, her voice shaking, "M-my cousins... Tomcat a-and Bug..."

She snarled. "Kriffing shit, why c-can't I...?"

"You buried it Rain," said Siri softly, "You buried and smothered it for a thousand years. Its not going to be easy to face it, but a Sith cares not for easy."

That settled Rain for a moment. "Sith... Sith, right, Sith."

She licked her holographic lips. "I lived on my homeworld, Somov Rit, alongside my two cousins and our elder cousin... Root."

The vehemence with that last name. "You hate him."

"He was supposed to protect us," said Rain harshly, "Instead he allowed ten year olds to be recruited as child soldiers into a war. I went back and killed him a few decades later, trying to bury old feelings. Even now with what I feel without the Dark, I hardly feel a shred of regret for that."

Siri nods, waiting.

"The Scout tested us, and, funny enough, he thought I didn't show any sign of Force potential."

Siri slow blinked. "What? Was he daft?!"

Rain shrugged. "When I was young, the Force only truly came out when I needed it."

She grew quiet for a long moment. "I was stupid, so foolish, I could have stayed home and lived happy, but I saw it as a game, an adventure. My cousins were going to become Jedi, I was going to be left behind. I was so... so happy when I managed to do something with the Force in his final test, that I could go too. I... I felt that I had to go, that I was being called. I'd been having... dreams before then..."

"Dreams?"

"Of the Bald Man as I called him."

"...who was it?"

"Bane," said Rain, "The dreams didn't really make sense at the time, I brushed them off as fanciful, didn't think back on them for years. I was a silly little girl, I didn't understand what they meant, what the Force was trying to show me."

"What did it show you?"

"It showed me three paths," said Zannah softly, "In the first, the most likely considering Laa's predictions, I knelt before him as I eventually did. In one, I was older, in Jedi garbs, my blue lightsaber clashed against his red. In the last, I was walking Ruusan's surface alongside Tomcat, both of us smiling, hurt but healing, surrounded by playful young bouncers, Bane watching and judging us from a distance before shaking his head and walking away, not interested."

Siri closes her eyes for a long moment. "Do you think you would have killed Bane? Had you been a Jedi?"

"I was always destined to kill Darth Bane," said Rain mirthlessly, "One way or another."

Rain could have been the end of the Sith, the end of the Rule of Two. Instead, she had been pushed right into Bane's waiting arms by the Jedi. The irony is not lost on Siri.

"The ship took us to Ruusan, and I...," she paused before laughing, "I was excited by trees."

"...really?"

"We were seafaring people," murmured Rain, "Dwelled on bogs and whatever little flat land we could find. I'd never seen a tree before."

Siri opens and closes her mouth, not sure what to say to that. It just... really sinks in how young Rain had been...

"The ship we were on taking us to the Jedi base camp was attacked," said Rain, "Two of the other potential kids were blown away in a blast that hit us and tore through the hull, just... just after they cheered about it being an adventure. I felt them die and I was... I was horrified, it was my first real exposure to death like that. I panicked, got loose, and... and I fell through the hole."

She scoffed. "The Jedi never cared enough to come look for me."

"How'd you live?"

"I landed on Laa."

Siri snorted. "And thus was a beautiful friendship born."

Rain didn't laugh.

Siri shut her mouth.

"Laa... Laa took care of me, took me across the countryside on her back, all the while, the darkening of Ruusan continued," said Rain, "Other bouncers were dying, they were sensitive to the Force, Laa said... Laa said 'bad dreams kill weak ones' as she grieved, and I grieved too. It... it started killing Rain, slowly but surely. I clung to Laa, desperately anchored myself on her. I... I saved us when the... the storm came, made a Force bubble around us."

"The storm?"

Rain shook her head. "After... after Laa spoke of her dreams... of me being a strong dark Jedi."

Siri frowned. "That seemed... unwise to tell a conflicted child."

Rain shrugged. "She cared for me, she was trying to warn me, and I..."

She laughed bitterly. "I jumped off a cliff."

Siri's heart stopped. "WHAT?!"

"I didn't want to become a Sith," admitted Rain, "Decided to off myself, but then backed down. Decided I was stronger than a dream and floated myself back up."

"The death... the death of all her friends, the darkness all over Ruusan, started getting to Laa," said Rain her voice cracking, "She was hurting so much, I tried to comfort her, told her she still had me, despite it hurting me too. I think... I think she knew what was coming, knew what was to happen, that the moment had arrived."

"The moment?"

"I told her she still had me as we flew towards the Jedi, she... she said 'yes Rain' in... in a soft... soft sad voice," said Rain, shaking, "And they shot an arrow right through her head and murdered her seconds later."

Siri... has nothing she can say. Any comfort is a thousand years far too late.

"I clung to Laa and screamed for her as I shattered."

"I clung to her as the Jedi came."

"I clung to her as I turned on them in anger and hate."

"I clung to her as I fell."

"I let go when Rain died."

"I let go when I became Zannah."

"I let go when I snapped the Jedi's neck with the Force.

"I let go when Bane came for me."

"I... I sat there sobbing on the ground when he came out of the mist," said Rain, her voice ash, "He told me who he was, and asked who I was. My response was... was that I was a killer too."

Siri licked her lips. There was nothing glorious about this turn, this fall, just pain and sorrow. "What happened next?"

"He... asked me why I killed the Jedi," said Rain softly, her voice ash, her gatekeeper not able to actual cry to give form to her grief, "That moment is still so crystal clear, sharp and cutting and full of suffering. I told him... I told him it seemed right, not that it felt good, but that it was to restore balance, make life bearable."

The raw pain was still there...

Still there a thousand years later...

It had been smothered and pushed down, never dealt with, just used as fuel for the Dark Side.

Siri slowly chants under her breath and preforms the incantation to make Rain's gatekeeper solid, before she moves and pulls Rain to her. "I'm so sorry Rain..."

For the moment, there is no Darth Zannah.

No Sith.

Just a little girl cut away from the whole.

Left with nothing but ash and sorrow.

"I'm so sorry..."

Author's Note:

The dreams about Bane/Root's death aren't cannon, but I feel they add to the story.