Last time: Cien gave her speech and made a hell of an impression.

Now: The presence is getting worse.

Chapter 34- It's Getting Worse

Cien rubbed her face as the elevator door opened, glad that the second day of the conference was over. The most interesting presentation she had attended was of an archaeological site from only twenty five hundred or so years ago from the failed colony of a sleeper ship that had, somehow, made it to the outer rim from the core worlds. They had apparently traveled about ten thousand years only to find themselves 'stranded' on a world very, very far off course from their original destination on the outer core, and they had made the best of it on the nearest planet they could find, but they hadn't been able to make it. The galaxy had advanced with hyperspace technology around them, and they had no idea that they were only a few hours away from a major hyperspace route. A few hours by hyperspace. And some irony had not been lost on her that the site, only twenty-five hundred years old, was younger than she was.

"How's your wrist?" Kyr asked as they stepped into the suite.

"Hmm?" She looked up at him.

"All those people that wanted to come up and talk to you and shake your hand," he said with a smirk.

"It was only like five or so." Cien said dismissively.

"I was kind of shocked you were willing to shake so many hands." He prodded, "are you in danger of becoming… extroverted?" He said the word as if it was a disgusting, offensive slur as he shuddered.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm very extroverted when I need to be."

"Only when you get to kill people." Kyr teased her.

"I…" She paused, "just because I only feel comfortable around new people on a battlefield where I can immediately kill them does not mean I'm not extroverted." She argued.

"Oh, well when you put it that way." Kyr said with a shrug. "How do you feel about being extroverted and going out for dinner again tonight?"

She shrank a little bit from having to leave the hotel suite and be around other people again, then narrowed her eyes, squared her shoulders and looked at her husband defiantly. "That sounds wonderful." She stated.

He looked at her for a moment and she could tell he was suppressing a smirk. "Okay, I'm going to go back to the room and freshen up a bit." He said, "archeological conferences are exhausting." He said over his shoulder.

"Tell me about it." She groused under her breath as she turned to enter the kitchen to get a drink.

Sasha was standing at the counter pouring herself a glass of juice when she entered. Cien came to an abrupt stop seeing her. "Hi Sasha." She said after a moment.

Sasha looked up at her, a little startled. She had heard Cien and Kyr in the main area and she sensed her approach, but she wasn't expecting Cien to talk to her after what happened on the balcony. "Uh… hi," she said as her gaze slowly looked down at what Cien was wearing. She tightened her grip on the glass and the juice container.

Cien swallowed, realizing she was still wearing the costume robes. This was the first time she had seen Sasha since their argument, they had been skillfully avoiding each other, or their husbands had done that for them. "I.. uh…" she swallowed again. "Did you have a good day today?" She asked.

"Uh… ye… yes," Sasha stammered as she looked back to the juice. "How has the conference been?"

"It's been uh... Fine." Cien answered. She glanced away and around the room and wasn't sure what else to say.

Sasha cleared her throat. "Look Cien, I'm so-" she started to say as she looked back towards Cien. She wanted to apologize to her about everything that had happened on the balcony a couple days ago as it still bothered her, and the fact they were avoiding each other was bothering her even more. But when she looked at her sister, she suddenly cut off as a strange vision overtook her.

The scene almost appeared to change around Cien as it didn't look like the kitchen entrance in the suite anymore. It was the forest clearing on Vestora where they used to park the Forerunner again. Just like on the balcony. Cien stood there with her gaze away from Sasha as if she wasn't noticing the sudden environmental change. And a shadow seemed to loom around her, almost masking her in darkness. The same shadow that had been nagging at the back of Sasha's mind. As Cien lifted her gaze, her face flashed from a confused expression as to why Sasha cut off her sentence to a malicious one as if Sasha was an enemy. It looked almost like the Sith acolyte who confronted them years ago, not her sister. An icy chill shot down Sasha's spine as she looked on in horror, her face blanched. Before it felt like nothing more than a daydream or a vision, now it was like she was hallucinating what was going on before her. Sasha immediately looked away, slamming her eyes closed, hoping it would get rid of the hallucination.

"What's wrong?" Cien asked, alarmed.

"I… I don't know," Sasha said, rubbing her eyes with her forefinger and thumb. Her voice was trembling as if she saw a ghost. Or was still seeing one.

Cien swallowed and turned away. "I'm sorry," She said, taking a step back, "I didn't mean to… to…" She said as she took another step back and turned away from the kitchen to walk away.

"No, it's not you. It's…" Sasha tried to explain as she looked back at her. The hallucination was still there. Vestora's forest still surrounded Cien and this time her red lightsaber blade was active before her, under lighting her as she glared back at Sasha, looking ready to charge in for the killing blow. But the image of Cien she was seeing was fuzzy and seemed to blink between reality and the vision. She almost couldn't tell what was real anymore. She swallowed. "It's… that…" She shook her head as she clutched it, keeping her gaze to the floor. "I'm sorry." She said as she turned her back to Cien. "It won't leave me alone." She mumbled as she tried to calm down.

"What won't?" Cien asked as she put an arm across her stomach.

Sasha tensed. "I don't know," she said, keeping her back to her. "I still can't figure it out." She shuddered. "Leave me alone," she mumbled but it wasn't directed at Cien, it was at the hallucination and the shadow.

Cien faltered back, her face falling as she turned and left the kitchen without saying anything more.

Sasha heard her go and looked towards the entrance to the kitchen… or Vestora. Tears fell as she realized what she had done and that Cien had heard her utter that. She turned and rested her head against one of the upper cabinets before her and tried to not break into sobs again.

"Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me?" She whispered repeatedly to herself.

Kyr heard the door to their room close as he was toweling off his face, debating if he should change into something more formal than his armor for wherever he and Cien might go for dinner tonight. He stepped towards the door, "I heard from a friend there's a really good Rod-" He came to a halt, seeing Cien standing at the door, her hands covering her face as she was trying to unsuccessfully hold back sobs. "Cyar'ika what happened?" He asked, tossing the towel back on the bathroom counter and rushing over to her. She didn't respond as she stood there, and he embraced her, pulling her close and she all but collapsed against him.

"I ran into Sasha in the kitchen." Cien said in between deep but quiet sobs. "We started to talk but she..." Cien paused as she hiccuped, "she said something wouldn't leave her alone, and then she told me to leave her alone." She said as she started crying anew.

Kyr's visage hardened and his eyes narrowed as he held her close, he didn't say anything for a moment. "It's okay Ci'ika." He said softly. "It's okay. I'm here." He didn't know what else to say as he held his crying wife close and rocked her gently back and forth.

Oppie limped slightly, coming out of the lift, Kait was at his side with a light jacket folded over her arm. "Do you need to ice your, uh," she paused, "backside?" She asked.

"Nah." Oppie said sheepishly as he tried to hide the limp in his gait.

"Well, I guess we're lucky only one of us got badly injured, careening around on an ice rink with razors on our feet." She said, teasing him with a grin. "That was a lot of fun, thank you for suggesting that."

"Yeah, I remember every 'winter,'" Coruscant didn't really have winter per se, the planet was too heavily populated to have those kinds of weather patterns still, and didn't have much of an axial tilt eccentric enough for more than a few degrees difference between summer and winter, "they would set up that rink down there in the square below the Senate building and I could see people skating down there. I'm glad they brought that tradition back." He finished.

"Me too," Kait said with a smile, "I won't tell anyone you fell." She said as she gave him a little kiss, partly because she felt bad for laughing at him so much.

"Thanks." He said with slightly narrowed eyes, knowing she would probably tell everyone.

She just returned a sparkling smile. "I think I'm going to go get ready for bed." She said covering a yawn. "Though I'm not too tired if you wanted to stay up and do… stuff."

He looked at her slightly confused. "Well we could stay up if you had an idea for something else fun to do." He said.

"Oh, I have some ideas." She said quickly, even though the perplexed way he responded showed he was as clueless as ever.

"Does it involve whip cream?" Oppie asked, thinking for a moment.

Kait blinked and thought for a split second. "It could, yes."

He looked at her in a somewhat puzzled fashion. "There is an ice cream parlor down in the shopping district." He suggested, speaking of the district that the hotel was adjacent to.

She looked at him for a moment. "Nah, that's okay. I think maybe just relaxing in the room for a while."

"Okay," Oppie replied nodding, "I'm going to go get some water, I'll be there in a bit."

"Sure." She said heading for their room. She glanced over her shoulder at him as he went off towards the kitchen and shook her head bemusedly.

Oppie stepped into the kitchen and slowed to a stop as he saw Sasha. She was on her knees, leaning against the lower cabinets with her hand clapped to her mouth as if to silence the sobs that wracked her body. And on the counter above her was the juice container and a glass that appeared to be knocked over onto its side, its contents spilled along the counter.

"Sasha, what happened?" He asked, shocked by walking in on this.

She sniffed. "It's all my fault. I made it worse…" She said, her voice barely above a whisper as she rambled those two sentences off.

"Made what worse? What happened?" He asked softly and very, very worriedly, coming over and kneeling on the floor with her. "What's going on?"

Sasha opened her eyes and dropped her hand as if to explain, but when she looked at him, her face went white as a sheet. As if she was looking at a ghost and not the face of her concerned brother. She closed her eyes and covered her face. "It won't go away and leave me alone. I'm still seeing it and she's not here," she said to herself as if Oppie wasn't even in the room. "Why is this happening to me?"

"Sasha, talk to me." Oppie asked, "what are you seeing? What's going on?"

She was silent for a moment as she tried to calm down. "Vestora," she whispered out. "I'm seeing Vestora. The day we ran. Cien…" She trailed off with a shudder.

"You're seeing this now?" Oppie asked, very concerned. "What are you seeing Sasha? describe it to me."

"I… I see." She swallowed. "I see Cien. Acolyte Cien, not… not our Cien. And she looks… evil," she said for a lack of a better term. "And there's this presence. It won't leave me alone. It hasn't. And now I'm seeing things that aren't even there. And Cien…" she hiccuped. "Cien probably hates me now." She rambled as her emotions swirled and her voice broke a few times.

"I'm sure she doesn't. Is it a vision, Sasha?" He asked, "did this start after what we encountered at the temple?"

"Yes... and no," Sasha answered, her voice shaking. "The presence has been there. For weeks. The vision? It started when Cien came in here before you did."

"What?" Oppie asked, suddenly feeling like something terrible had happened in his absence while he had been on assignments with Kait. "What presence?"

"A nagging shadow," Sasha explained as she moved her hands from her face to her hair and gripped it tightly. "A dark presence. It won't go away. It won't leave me alone. It's only gotten worse. I don't know what it is. I can't figure it out." She said as she rocked back and forth on her knees.

Oppie reached forward and gently put a hand on her arm. "It's okay Sasha, we'll figure this out. I'm here, your family is here."

"What should I do?" She asked after a moment, the trembling not ceasing. "It… it gets worse around Cien too. But it's not her fault. And I tried to tell her about it, but… but I've just made things worse." Her voice cracked.

"I can talk with her and explain. Don't worry about Cien, she'll understand. Probably better than any of us." Oppie said. "Did this get worse once you got to Coruscant? Would getting off world help while we try to figure it out?"

"I don't know if leaving would help or make things worse," she said after a moment. "But… it has been getting steadily worse since we left the Jedi Temple." She then added, brokenly.

"Just breathe Sasha." He said quietly, falling into the same cadence as he had when she'd had nightmares as a child. "Close your eyes and find your center, let this flow around you."

Sasha nodded and dropped her hands from her head. Her eyes were still closed and her face was puffy from the crying. But she took a couple of deep breaths to try and re-center herself. After a few moments, she visibly relaxed and her eyes fluttered open. She looked around, making sure the vision was gone. Then she sighed in relief as she rested against the cabinet.

"Thanks," she said, quietly.

"You're welcome." Oppie said. "I'm glad that still works." He said, only half joking.

"Hm, yeah," Sasha agreed as she reached up and wiped her face.

"How long has this been going on?" He asked, now that she was calmer. "How much have I missed being away the last few months?"

"I can't remember when it started," Sasha said, quietly. "One day everything was fine. The next there was this strange feeling in the back of my mind that was so faint I just ignored it. Then the closer we got to the conference the feeling became more of a nagging presence. Then it felt like a shadow was being cast around the back of my mind then around Cien. When we got here, it steadily grew more and more prominent. Then after the temple is when it practically took form." She cleared her throat. "But because it was always there, it made me more distant and irritable. And I started having weird, visceral reactions to things like when Cien first put on her new robes. Or whenever she was doing something that had to do with preparing for the twins that I was unable to experience because of… what happened." She hesitated at that before continuing.

"And then when I got here, I became paranoid and anxious around Cien. I even tried to explain what was going on to her before the conference, but it all came out wrong. I'm pretty sure I made her cry, Op," Sasha said, sniffling as tears started to come back. "So I've been avoiding her to try and see if I could figure this out, but I made a rift between us. And now Kyr is most likely mad at me for making Cien feel this way. And I've told Viran about this, but nothing has worked to fix it. And when I go into the Force to try and pinpoint it, it disappears on me. And now seeing these visions was new and terrifying. And I'm scared, Op." She tried to not break down again.

It was times like this that Oppie desperately wished that there were other Jedi who knew about such things instead of just him, he felt like he was a padawan trying to pretend to be a master. The thought struck him that Master Yoda would have perhaps had great insight into this matter, maybe because they had just visited the temple and that part of his life was suddenly brought back from the depths of his memories. "I'll talk with Cien and tell her what you've told me. If you've been experiencing that around her, I can understand why trying to communicate with her got a little strained and made her misunderstand. I'm more concerned about what you're experiencing at the moment, though." He stated, "along with the vision we shared at the temple it… it sounds like there might be something bigger going on."

"Bigger? Like what?" Sasha asked, looking up at him. It was the first time she actually looked at him since he entered the room. Her eyes were red from crying and there was a scared look in her eyes. "Like someone is forcing me to see these things? To feel these things? But that would mean a powerful Force user is doing this and we don't know many of those that are even still around." She said incredulously. "Or that have a connection to me?"

"I don't know." He replied, "I don't think that's what caused the temple to react the way it did to us, but maybe it's related to that?" He suggested, admittedly grasping at straws.

"Maybe," Sasha said, looking down. "What should I do, Op?" She asked after a moment.

"Has anything seemed to alleviate this… vision? Or made it worse?" He asked.

"Umm.. just being around Cien," Sasha said after a moment. "That's it."

"Has," Oppie thought, trying to figure out how to phrase this, "has anything happened with you and Cien over the last couple of months?" He asked.

"We… I… it's been complicated and tense," Sasha admitted. "I've been distant around her and nervous because of this."

"Has Cien done anything though?" He asked, presuming no.

"No, no she hasn't," Sasha shook her head.

"She doesn't know about this?" Oppie asked, "this was what you were trying to explain?"

"Yes, she has no idea. I've tried twice now and things have just gotten worse," Sasha said, looking down.

"I can explain to her tomorrow." Oppie suggested. "She will understand, I'm sure. I'm sorry I haven't been home the last couple of months to help out with this." He said, feeling like he had abandoned them and had no idea this was going on.

"Okay. And please don't apologize. I should have been able to handle this. I'm sorry for dragging you into it," she apologized, solemnly.

"It's fine Sasha." He responded, "we're all here to help each other with things like this. I'm just sorry you've been having to deal with this. Are you still seeing that vision now?" He asked.

"No, the vision is gone," she said, shaking her head.

"Okay, I think you need to get some rest, if you can." Oppie suggested, "I can walk you back to your room. Is Viran still up? And he knows about all of this?"

"He knows and I think he is asleep already, but I'm not sure," Sasha said with a half hearted shrug.

Oppie nodded. "I'll stay with you as long as you need me to." He finished quietly.

"What about Kait? Shouldn't you get back to her?" Sasha asked.

"She was just going to get ready for bed, so she'll be fine. She'll understand." Oppie replied.

Sasha nodded. "Okay, thank you." She said quietly as she wiped her face again. She then wrapped her arms around him, in desperate need of a hug and comfort from her brother.

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