Open Space and Hyperspace

"Sadly no. I did not raise my kids. To them, I'm not an idiot. To one, I'm that bloodthirsty bitch who blackmailed her into serving me until she defied me and I stripped her of the force and set her out on her own knowing that if I hear a peep out of her, I'll kill everyone she ever loved. To the others, well. I don't know what I was. Their father divorced me then raised them until their deaths. So you'll have to forgive me when it comes to the intricacies of parenting."

Sinistra turned her back to Eralam, finding a sudden interest in the shelf that held a damaged holocron in pieces in a display case. It's crystalline structure still looked beautiful in the accent lighting, the shine of the sides flawless. It belonged to some nameless Sith from the days before Bane. It had been destroyed by the Jedi but the bits of it still marked it as being a darkside artifact. It would be forever tainted with its presence and it comforted Sin when she thought of the sacrifices of her station.

She sipped the whiskey, her brooding demeanor back in place. She didn't like talking about her kids. She missed them. She remembered their departure on Honoghr. She remembered the look in their eyes when she left them. It haunted her but it was for their own good. She turned back to her desk, looking over at him as she ashed her cigarette.

"Gorja will push you. He's been my personal priest for a very long time. He considers it his personal prelature to keep me dedicated and focused to my true self. He doesn't like anyone who he thinks will usurp his place at my ear. Demarus has been with me since I was Queen of the IF. He guards me with his life. Don't kill them, I can't afford to find their replacements."

The afternoon had pushed her buttons and there wasn't a trace of the relaxed drinking buddy he had come to know. If he was going to be put off by her, now would be the time to know it.

The touch of his hands on her shoulders caused her to inhale deeply, the stress of the moment forgotten as he manipulated her muscles. She could not keep the groans and murmurs quiet, the tide of negativity ebbing from her. She melted under his touch and she forgot about the things that caused her to get worked up in the first place. She let him continue a couple minutes before she reached up and stopped his left hand on her shoulder. She let it rest there, her deep breathing calming her down. Her eyes had been closed but as she stood up, the mahogany irises were looking up at him. The cigarette sat in the ashtray, a trail of smoke rising up in seductive curls as it burned away, her glass forgotten on the desk. There was a sly twist to her lips as she poked him gently in the chest.

"Are you trying to make me soft?"

"I'm a Sith Lord, remember? Cuddly isn't something I would strive for. And if I wasn't grumpy, I'd be the Chancellor of the Republic or the Grandmaster of the Jedi? Who wants that?"

She grabbed the glass off her desk, walking over to her bookcase, looking for a copy of a old book. Something about the philosophy of the darkside, something she referred once a while ago when they were sitting on Tython playing cards and talking about the things that make the Sith, Sith.

"This reminds me of the second time we ever met. Do you remember?"

"That's the one..." She chuckled, setting the glass on the shelf, as her other hand pulled a book free from the tight clutches of the other books wedged into the case.

"We sat, drank whiskey and talked as men do. Which is only slightly awkward now considering what we did last night. But we talked about the fire that drives the Sith, why we do the things we do and how our warped sense of justice and coping mechanisms lead us down this path of ruination."

She carried the book over to him, offering it out as the glass joined him on the desk.

"We always discussed this in the abstract, but I'm not an academic who just thought this way would be an interesting way to live. I'm my own brand of crazy but it's made me Emperor. I have dedicated my adult life to this path. I'm a mass murderer who doesn't see a problem with using genocide as a motivating factor in quelling a rebellion. The only reason my daughter still lives is I know she would suffer more alive than if I ended her life. I enjoy pain because I suffer, emotionally and mentally. I like being angry, I like being sad and I laugh devilishly when bad things happen to other people. The Sith isn't just something I can always switch off. I know you know that, I just need to know you understand that."

"Maybe then in my company, you will understand our ways a little better."

Her thumbs passed gently across the backs of his hands in hers, the whisper of her past awakening the glimmer of her former self. He was being tender to her, and before she could let that moderating influence get louder in her head, she reminded herself of the undeniable truth. Soon she would be alone. Again. She had a friend for a brief moment in time. She would enjoy it while it lasted. As an old song lyric said, "The sweet things don't stick around but the bullshit lasts forever." There would be time to be miserable after his death. Until then, she would give him the best time of his life, no matter how much she had to mask the simmering Sith under the skin.

"I have an idea. When we get to Kuat, we should have a nice dinner. I'll wear a dress, even. Apparently, I clean up well."

"Well the last time I saw you on Kuat, you zapped into my private office wearing suit pants and a button down. I'm guessing that it wasn't so long ago for you. Me, well it's been a couple years."

That was putting it mildly. The last time she had worn a dress and dined with a man was to seduce Hevn into pledging alliance to Dark Tide. He was fascinated with her, considered her an idol, a legend to be worshiped. She had been vulnerable to him, charming and once the deed was done, he had joined the ranks, given her the information she needed and the faded into obscurity. She didn't particularly like using sex as a tool, it made her disgusted but in Hevn's case, his attraction to her was based around the power and prestige she had attained. He wanted to touch the darkness within her.

Eralam seemed to want to touch the person behind it. She stood with his hands in hers, thinking about how this was just a sex thing. A careless lay, an itch she needed to have scratched and her drunken mind had latched onto him since he was standing right there. She knew she was full of it, but rationalizing it to herself was her way of trying to talk herself out of something that was unexpected and far more complicated than she had any right getting herself into in the middle of finally attaining the thing she had been working towards for years. The voices in her head started talking again as she pulled gently away from him, facing the window.

"Think Sin. Come on, you dark, twisted bitch. He's got a cute smile, a tight ass, a massive spy network, the powers of a god and short timeline. He's a gold mine of intell to help with the Empire, that's true. You can try to use him but chances are, he'd figure you out and you'd meet with a messy end. The only thing he can't get to is this happy, little cave in your head. Lock it down, Emperor. Play the game you need to play, say what you need to say. Have some fun, have some mischief but Bogan's beard, don't let him in your head."

"Oh shut up. You're the absolute worst person in the universe to give relationship advice. "

"If we listened to you, we'd be married to some jerk; fat, complacent and pumping out brats."

"Oh hey, we did that already. Sod off, cupcake."

"If I could find a way to kill you..."

"Suicide, sweet cheeks. Do us all a favor."

"Oblivion is starting to sound better and better."

Needless to say, the internal war for control of her sanity had gotten strange since the attempt on her life by Jago. The effects Force Light had on her dissociative identity disorder combined with the alchemical poison leeching into her system from a wound that wouldn't heal had permanently broken down the barriers in her mind between the dominant and calculated Sin and the pragmatic and moderate Gaysa. Now the pair just bickered in her mind, a pair of amoral viziers with questionable goals for the direction of the life they now shared. Reconciliation of the two had been rough but now that she had the skill sets of both, she found dealing with certain situations easier. Some were much worse.

Sin didn't mind having a friend in Eralam, Gaysa was thrilled. Gaysa liked Eralam, Sin was thoroughly disgusted by the idea of being intimate with anyone who didn't use a swordfight as foreplay. Then there was the question of should Eralam know how deep the crazy goes in her mind? The general consensus on both sides was a resounding no. Somethings just didn't need to be discussed.

She wondered how long she had been silently looking out the window while these snippets of conversation came to the forefront of her mind and retreated again, but it had only been a few seconds.

"Well, probably. You haven't run screaming yet so I'll take that as a plus. I need to work this funk off." She heads back over to the desk, hitting a couple buttons to summon Demarus on the bridge. "Capt. Demarus, clear cargo bay 2."

She looks up at him, finishing off the glass of water sitting at her terminal. "You're welcome to come if you want. I need some exercise to clear my head and I prefer a larger venue than a cramped sparring ring."

She crossed back into her quarters and disappeared into a small head to change into something more suited to the task at hand. When she merged, she was wearing a tight, black bodysuit, her boots and her weapon belt on her hips. A silver hilt on the right side, a black hilt on the left; she was armed and ready to go. Her hair was bound up in a high pony tail, the ink and scars hidden under cloth, her hands and wrists protected by gloves and bracers.

She caught his eyes and headed for the door. He would follow. The cargo bay was down several decks and they caught a lift, which dumped them at the close end of the massive room. It was stocked with crates of consumables, and in the back, crates of other miscellaneous nonessential items that are needed on starships. Sin killed the lights in the room, emergency lighting kicked on, providing a dim distant light from the ceiling. She hit another couple buttons and she took off through the door, running full out until she came to the end of a row, sliding around the corner on the metallic floor. She ran full on at the wall, launching herself at the last minute to bounce off it, and beginning a set of acrobatic flips and somersaults that took her ever higher, until her sabers ignited in the darkness, silver and red.

In the darkness, blaster fire erupted from the training droids she had activated, following the signal from her coms to target her as she did her best to find and destroy the devious droids. They would not go after Eralam, just her and she wondered as she catapulted over a stack of crates if she should have warned him that her workouts tended to mimic some combat scenarios.

His workouts completed, hers continued further away from the sound of blaster bolts echoing off the hard crates. About 20 minutes after he finished, the thrum of a lightsaber bisected the last droid, the dead hunk of metal pounding to the cargo floor. She was drenched, red faced with a scorch mark on her left bicep. The taste of lactic acid filled her mouth, her saber hilts still in her hands as she wiped her brow on her sleeve. There was a pounding in her head, dehydration making her system work a little harder than it should. She strolled up to him, chest heaving from exertion.

"Oh yeah, this feels much better. I probably should have sobered up first."