Post by Darth Kairos on Feb 20, 2016 8:14:36 GMT
This story is a re-imagining of the finale of the Med Bay event on the archive site, co-written by Darth Amorata and myself. Enjoy.
Light washed over her, burning light that temporarily obscured her vision, accompanied by a deep, momentary drone, as if a giant bee had been rung like a bell.
When her vision cleared, she sucked in a sharp breath, as she discovered where she had been deposited. She had returned to the city she had just so recently escaped -- yet, with her new awareness, she was able to see just how utterly wrong it was. The people, blank expressions or strained smiles pasted on their faces, moved with a bizarre, mechanical gait, and the structures all twisted at odd angles that were decidedly architecturally unsound.
The back of her neck prickled. A chill washed down her spine as she became aware of another presence: a presence that made her deeply uncomfortable, a presence she had failed to notice because its awfulness was so deeply entwined with the churning wrongness of the place around her, a wrongness that even the layer of thought which did not bother with words was unable to classify.
Slowly, she expanded her vision.
Behind her stood her erstwhile “mother”, at once too close and too far away, distorted limbs spread in mockery of a welcoming embrace, facial features stretched and compressed in impossible exaggeration, a chaotic riot of contradiction perfectly matching and clashing against the background.
“Well, look who came running home,” the woman-thing cooed with a voice like a syrupy belt-sander as Amorata spun to face her. “What a naughty girl, to worry her mother so.” She -- it -- she moved a hand to her forehead, as though about to faint, bones and flesh appearing to disconnect and move through each other before rejoining. “Ungrateful children are such a burden.”
"Maybe they wouldn't be such burdens if mothers let them do things for themselves," Amorata shot back, her tone of anger an attempt to cover the nausea and fear that washed over her. Letting her inner adolescent argue with the superpowerful being focused on destruction was, perhaps, not the smartest idea, but she could not bring herself to agree even by omission with the entity that had trapped her in this nightmare.
Desperately, she looked for something, anything to focus on that wasn’t the abomination in front of her. Her fleeing gaze was caught by a storefront across the street that looked sickeningly familiar. The toy shop was still painted the bright colors she remembered, but now there were other colors shimmering at the edges of her normal vision, colors she could almost see instead of "smelling" synesthetically, colors that left a noxious taste in her mouth when she tried to focus on them, as though the Force-medium through which she normally saw had somehow been twisted. Through the window, she could see the plush toys. Their sweet smiles had become ragged gashes, poorly repaired with black thread in a manner that suggested teeth, making their expressions morbid grimaces that she recognized. She had seen them, the last time she had been here. She could now remember catching them in the corners of her view, only to see nothing but more adorable faces when she focused on them.
Amorata held back a shudder. Her heart pounding, she looked down at the lizard she still held, afraid of what she might see.
But Mr. Grumpypants, it seemed, was the only thing that had not been twisted into a perverse parody of itself. His one-eyed gaze met Amorata's eyeless stare; it was the sympathetic gaze of a trusted companion with whom one had undergone many travails.
“Tsk, tsk.” Her not-mother shook her head sadly, the corners of her mouth turning down impossibly far. “How many times have I told you, darling, children should be seen and not heard?”
“I’m not a child,” Amorata spat, suppressed terror turning her words acidic. “And this is a farce. You have no right to even pretend to motherhood. You stole me from a reality where I was perfectly happy -- planning to use me as a bridge to wreak havoc on that same reality, I might add -- locked away my memories, and forced me into a sickeningly sweet version of my childhood that is in fact just as twisted and wrong as you. That's not parenting. That's its antithesis."
The woman’s face darkened, subtle lines deepening into endless chasms. “Oh, but darling. You are a child. A willful, ungrateful child who doesn’t realize all I’ve done for her. I created this world for you. I took you out of your cruel reality and made you a paradise, and in return you ran away, like a bad girl. And bad girls need… Discipline.”
Amorata opened her mouth to respond but froze as an unfamiliar sensation wrapped itself around her ankles and caught her wrists, curling upwards along her skin -- a sensation of smooth, animate ropes, as though snakes were binding themselves around her uninhibited by suddenly insubstantial clothing. Unexpectedly, without her direction, her field of vision snapped back to its usual extent, and the resulting sensory backlash made her head spin. She dry-heaved, the taste of bile filling the back of her throat. The mother-thing smiled, a gash in reality at once sad and gleeful.
Then the world changed.
With all the abruptness of a jump cut, another presence manifested mere meters away. The woman whirled, snarling, preparing to deal with the unwanted incursion; Amorata stiffened as the invisible snakes suddenly tightened around her, holding her immobile; and the woman paused, clearly surprised -- whatever she had expected from the intrusion, the reality hadn’t fallen in line.
“Ares,” Amorata breathed.
---
It was like a curtain had fallen across his waking mind.
One moment, an inexorable weight was dragging his consciousness down, pulling him through the starfighter cockpit and into a blackness that eclipsed the stars themselves. The next moment, he was there. There was no feeling of movement, no prismatic vortex or whirling portal; he was simply there--
Blackness washed over him again and was replaced by burning light.
---
It’s a commonly held piece of wisdom in the galaxy that the best way to judge a person’s character is to throw them into an unfamiliar, uncomfortable situation.
The Miralukan man felt the press of cool stone against his cheek first, and slowly became aware of the rest of his body. Rousing himself, he placed a gloved hand on the cobbled paving and pushed himself to his knees, looking around. Taking in his surroundings, he automatically ran through a basic method drilled into him by his master: observe, analyse, conclude.
Instead of sitting in the cockpit of his starfighter, fighting exhaustion during a momentary armistice in the middle of a pitched space battle, he was kneeling on a lovingly cobbled street, surrounded by well-crafted houses and shops past which people -- Miraluka, he thought -- walked, chattering happily. A light breeze ruffled his sweaty hair, while, looking up, he saw a red star -- he was on Alpheridies, recognising it from description rather than memory.
He concluded he had absolutely no idea how he’d wound up here. Still in his flightsuit, lightsabers at his belt -- a quick glance at his chrono told him the time was the same. His muscles were relaxed, limber, as he stood -- he hadn’t been lying there long.
“So how did I get here?” Darth Ares wondered quietly. Teleportation was impossible -- he’d have felt it if it had happened. He checked his chrono again -- the time was the same. Walking to the side of the street, he called out to the other Miraluka, asking where he was, and they ignored him, chattering happily. As he drew closer, he finally noticed something: they weren’t saying a word. They were gesturing, articulating, but no sound was coming out.
At that point, he realised they had no mouths, and his hand dropped to his lightsaber. Cautiously, glancing between the translucent beings in front of him, he checked his chrono again, watching it for a long five seconds -- watching nothing. Even the second hand was frozen in place -- but when he held it to his ear, he could hear gears spinning at a frantic pace.
“A dream, then?” he asked himself, glancing back at the floating spectres. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a long time -- and the middle of a battle was a bad time to break that habit. Something ate at him, set him on edge, kept him watching the world around him, made him see the emptiness inside the houses’ windows, the bare stalls and shelves inside the stores, the dead spots of the stars.
Unclipping his lightsaber, unsettled and uncertain, he began to walk.
---
“Let him go.” The words were barely a hollow whisper.
“I’m not keeping him here,” came the cool, faintly triumphant reply.
Amorata’s head snapped up; suddenly-burning hope collided with cold, shivering caution. Her gaze probed the twisted face in front of her for any trace of explanation -- if the “mother” had not brought him, was not keeping him, if in fact he was entirely out of her control, why did she think she had won?
“Oh, dearest.” A soft tsk-tsk, like the rasp of bone against steel. “This is my domain. A world just for us two. Do you truly think there could be a single move I couldn’t counter?”
The Miraluka stared uncomprehendingly, expectantly, as the other entity moved closer, as her Master approached.
“Darling, darling, darling. He isn’t coming to take you away.” The whispered breath was blood-hot and sticky against Amorata’s ear. “Let me tell you a secret.”
Her gaze met Ares’.
He looked through her -- was shoulder to shoulder with her -- was behind her -- was gone.
“He can’t see us.”
Lips formed a silent question.
“Because, dearest, he can’t remember you. He never will. I took those memories the moment he set foot in this place.”
Someone screamed, a wordless howl of rage and sorrow and pain.
It wasn’t until the shadow-ropes plunged into her open mouth, and the sound cut off abruptly while she choked, that Amorata realized the scream had been hers.
“Hush, child.” A hand stroked her hair, surprisingly gentle, leaving behind burning pinpricks.
---
He almost didn’t realise that he’d left the town behind. Beyond the buildings were rolling fields - past the fields, a warm forest dappled with red sunlight. He crossed the fields when he looked back at the town, and was deep in the trees when he looked back at the path ahead. They were close around him now, the canopy blotting out the sun and shading the forest a deep crimson.
The crimson darkened to grey, and was black. At last the Sith Lord realised that the forest was growing too dark for him to see in, and ignited his lightsaber to light the way, oblivious to the dangers such a darkness concealed. But even the blue light of the blade was pallid, and as he forged ahead, he finally found himself questioning where he was going, why, and began to slow.
---
Her “Mother” led her by the hand through the forest behind him, tantalizingly close. Where he struggled against the branches, his clothes ripping and tearing, his lightsaber shearing through branches to clear the way, they slid through them as easily as ghosts. Surpassing him, they stopped and watched as he finally halted, looking lost and more than a little hopeless as he looked everywhere except his destination.
“A shame,” her Mother commented, her iron grip on Amorata’s hand tightening every time she moved. “I was hoping he’d find the Pool at least. No matter - it’s time we dealt with our unwanted intruder.”
She gave a long, low whistle, and turned Amorata to face the way they’d come. The darkness seemed to lighten where she looked - enough for her to make out two huge shapes bounding silently through the trees. Her throat closed, and she looked at Ares, terrified for what was coming for him - then she looked past him. The Mother was still looking at her hounds, at her - so she didn’t seen the faint lantern dancing through the trees, grabbing her Master’s attention. By the time her Mother looked back, it was gone, Ares was moving again - and Amorata was fighting a smile.
---
The sense of dread sped him as much as the lantern had. He broke into a run, hacking through the trees, making for where the lantern had vanished - and burst through the trees into a sunny meadow. Skidding to a stop, he took deep breaths that he didn’t actually need, and turned back to face the trees, so far away-
His breath caught in his throat as he saw two shapes emerge.
They crossed the meadow and were on him in moments.
---
Her Mother held her by the shoulder, forcing her to watch as the hounds closed in. With every struggle Amorata made, the burning vice of her Mother’s grip tightened. She could only watch, her shouts never escaping her throat, as the first hound reached her Master and pounced on him.
And then the Sith Lord rolled to the side and cut the beast in half with a single swing of his lightsaber.
There was a heavy pause, the entire world seeming to freeze motionless for half a second.
“That doesn’t normally happen,” her Mother said, puzzled.
---
The second one came at him more warily, bounding to either side before it finally leaped forward, low to the ground to crush his side with its paw. The Miraluka waited it out, hopped backwards out of its reach at the last instant, and took its arm off. The creature should have howled, but instead it just reared up on its hind legs to try and crush him - not that Ares let it get that far, since he immediately redoubled and cut its head down the middle.
The creature collapsed to the ground, joining its brother as dust scattered by a wind he couldn’t feel. With them gone, Ares should have relaxed, felt the danger pass - but his instincts were better than that, and he kept his lightsaber raised, scanning the area for more. The stench of ozone burned his nose, the air felt humid and heavy - but the meadow remained sunny, peaceful, calm. His hairs stood on edge, and his nerves began to uncoil like string.
“How did you come here?”
A woman’s voice spun him around. She was tall, dressed in a matronly red dress and light grey jacket, with short golden hair and a smile that froze his words in his throat. Ares felt his lightsaber lower as she stopped and cocked her head.
“I asked how you came to be here,” she repeated, a razor’s edge in her tone. The words “I was in-” came out of Ares’ mouth before he knew he was talking, and he clamped his mouth shut with his free hand.
Observe, analyse, conclude.
Nothing made sense, and trying to make sense of it only made it all worse. But when he scanned the area, he saw her without looking at her - and what he saw made him raise his lightsaber again, instincts overriding fear and horror.
She waved her hand, and his lightsaber hissed at him. He hadn’t even processed what was happening before the serpent uncoiled and sank its teeth deep into his neck. Howling in pain, Ares seized the serpent, tore it away from his neck in a spray of blood, flung it into the forest - then grabbed the snake that had been his other lightsaber as it slithered down his leg, threw it to the ground, stamped on its head.
Retching and coughing, he sank to his knees, blood flowing into his collar and dripping down his flightsuit. Placing a hand to his neck, he tried to staunch the bloodflow, felt the holes the snake had left where it bit him, large, too large.
Staunch the bleeding, detoxify the venom, he ordered himself. Ignoring his other questions, he tapped into the Force - and like that, it was already done. He didn’t even question how, but the pain was gone, and when he felt his neck again the wound had healed closed. Blood still stained his fingers - but it had a curious, bile-coloured glow to it, sickly. Wiping his hands on the grass, Ares stood up again, shaky at first.
“A parlour trick for a parlour trick,” the woman said dismissively. Her arm dropped to her side, and snakes fell from it, slithering around her before burrowing into the ground like worms and vanishing. “Do I have your attention?”
“I’m listening,” Ares ground out. “Though I’d love to know why you brought me here.”
“Useless,” she replied, shaking her head. “If you have to ask that question, you can’t answer it for me. But maybe there’s something buried in your head that tell me.”
The Miralukan was only half-listening. He’d caught sight of something lying in the grass, soft-looking, fabric. It looked like a child’s plush toy -- it was, he was sure of it. Curious, he took a step towards it--
A snake burst from the ground, wrapping around the toy like a belt and dragging it below the ground.
“Tch tch, you should pay attention when your mother speaks to you.”
Something slimy wrapped around Ares’ arm, yanking him towards the woman. Ares stumbled, then caught himself, planting his feet on the ground and resisting.
“What do you want?” he growled, glancing back at where the toy had been. “What happened to that child? What did you do to them?”
“She is being disciplined. Unruly child -- her mother bought her that, and to thank her she runs away. She needs to learn to be thankful for the gifts she receives, otherwise they are taken away.”
“What do you want?” Ares repeated. The arm -- tentacle -- was strong, inhumanly so. It kept him in place easily, and every so often it tugged, just a little, sending him stumbling just that little bit closer to the woman. She seemed to contemplate that answer, rolling the answer around on her tongue. Then she smiled, wider, wider, until her mouth was a grinning maw, filled with needle-like teeth and slashing from ear to ear.
“Misery breeds company,” she said lightly, and another tentacle fell from her arm - was her arm. Ares watched, stared in horror as her eyes seemed to sink into her skull, until they were merely tiny white pinpricks of light, drowning at the bottom of a deep well. The second tentacle slithered along the grass towards him -- he didn’t move, couldn’t. He couldn’t look away, and now it was wrapping around his legs, the other was drawing him inexorably forward--
“I’ve seen you,” he realised softly.
The Boganite, Phatalis -- he’d shown him those eyes, a black hole that had consumed the Boganite. A dark, coiling tendril of want, twisting inside of his apprentice as she lay unconscious, laughing at his attempts to find her, rouse her--
Everything fell into place, and anger sealed it all together. He reached for a weapon, and drew a black sword from his hip. With a single slash of the blade, he cut the tentacles in half, throwing them off and flipping back away from the creature -- Phatalis’ so-called ‘Dark Mother’.
“My apprentice…”
It came back, the flame burning in his chest scorching away the black fog trying to conceal his memories.
“Amorata. What have you done with her?”
The Mother glared at him, those black pits seeming to radiate fury. With a slick, wet sound, her tentacles regrew, trailing along the ground behind her.
“She is being disciplined,” the Mother repeated coolly. Her empty eyes shifted between his face and the longsword in his hands, her tentacles writhing and curling in on themselves. Ares heard a hissing from below him -- and he was ready this time. Dropping its point, he thrust the sword into the ground and impaled the snake as it emerged -- then loosed a rippling red shockwave into the ground. The crackling red spread out around him, and he felt the rest of the serpents die below his feet.
“Perhaps not so useless after all,” the Mother commented. “I might even dare to call you interesting. What is your name?”
“My name is T-”
His tongue was heavy, his mouth full of cotton, and Ares choked on his words. Dread filled him, a sense that if he told her, she would snatch his name away from him, take something he could never recover.
“Darth Ares. Sith Lord of the New Sith Brotherhood.”
“A title, not a name,” the Mother chided. “No matter -- I won’t need to ask a third time. I’m sure a ‘Sith Lord’ is clever enough to realise what happens to naughty children.”
Ares settled his weapon into a high ward, and everything grew very still. In that long moment, he realised just how much he wanted to smash every one of those grinning teeth.
The Sith Lord moved first, and the tentacles came at him like a whip.
---
Amorata watched him draw a sword, knowing that more shouts would only fall on deaf ears. He could see Mother - but not her. And now he was going to fight her, and there was nothing she could do to help him.
She tried, taking a step forward - but even as she stared at Ares, her Mother’s head turned to her, and Amorata froze in place.
Her Master came at the Mother with weapon raised, and the Mother retaliated.
By the time the Sith Lord had hacked off the fifth tentacle, Amorata began to think that maybe he wouldn’t need help afterall.
---
His sword whirled around him like a dark hurricane.
His mind had ceased to be a part of the fight - his body, his weapon were moving too fast for it to follow, leaving reflexes and instincts to guide his attacks.
And yet, he soon realised, he still couldn’t get close to the damn Mother.
An arm thrust towards him like a great spear; Ares sidestepped it and sliced through it like it was made of water, then leaped back as the stump sprouted two more tentacles and furrowed through the dirt where he’d been standing. He took those off with one slash and left them to slump, quivering in the ground, as he came forward, stabbed into the main arm, and ripped a cut along it, a razor-line in the Force carrying up her arm to burst her elbow in a shower of blood - but his chance to follow died as three came at him from behind, forcing a Force Leap to carry him clear. They followed him up, and he broke them with a strike that swung a hammerblow Force Push that smacked them back down.
He landed heavily and managed to transition into a roll, cartwheeling his sword around to cleave down on the arm that came for his throat. Kicking off to the side, another roll took him clear of the tentacle that came down to crush him, rose, met a whip-crack with his sword and felt the blood spatter across his cheeks - then dropped and flattened himself to save his ribs from a tree-trunk impact.
The Sith Lord came back to his feet, and went back on the offensive. Cutting an arm off at the stem, he seized the entire branch and sliced it free to get at the arm behind it. Grabbing the bloody appendage, he yanked it with his free hand and cut a section off, then pirouetted to slice through two arms that came for his spine and impale the third. The tentacle slid wetly off of his blade, and Ares was finally able to risk a glance at the Mother.
Even as her arms writhed and twisted in on themselves, bending impossible angles in the air to seek after him, she stood perfectly still, watching with those empty black eyes. But, Ares was pleased to see, that toothy smile had been wiped off of her bloody face.
His momentary distraction cost him, and Ares flipped sideways out of the way of a renewed wall of attacks. Dodging and ducking, he found himself beaten back, chased at each turn as he hacked away those too close and dodged those he could. A whisper of warning told him the other arm had grown back and, cleaving through two to clear an opening, he leaped out from within a tightening cage and stumbled to a landing on the slick grass.
When he turned, a near-literal wall was coming for him, spreading out to encircle him. Ares spat out blood that wasn’t his, took a tight grip on his sword, and slashed a long, straight line through the ground in front of him.
The walls of scorching red light raced in from either end of the meadow and met in the middle, splitting the tentacles in half as they crossed them. The others retreated, pressing in again as the momentary light began to fade - and Ares, bathed in blood and sweat, came forward with a battle cry, pouring every inch of his spirit into the sword as he swung it again. Flecks of red light gathered to it, igniting scorching red lightning that twisted along the blade like a sheathe, and when it met the ground a long line of red light carved forward and tore through the arms like a prow cutting water.
Slowly, the battle began to tip in his favour.
---
All she could see were red flashes and spurts of blood. Even when the Mother’s disgusting appendages weren’t blocking the battle from her sight, they were moving too fast for her to follow - he was moving too fast to follow. But she knew her Master, and in her mind’s eye she saw him spinning, slashing, dancing away from attacks. She could sense his anger, the raw focus that twisted that anger into a weapon-
Wait.
She could sense him. She couldn’t sense him before. And maybe that meant…
She’d been so focused on what was in front of her that she’d ignored what was around her - and ‘what was around her’ was quickly becoming ‘nothing’. Grey fog was rolling through the meadow, engulfing the trees, wafting up through the ground, swallowing it.
She looked back at the Mother, and she understood: her focus was on the man painting the town red, and this little world of hers was collapsing without it.
---
Tentacles fell like reeds around him, split by red light. They spat at him now, streams of black lightning that burned his skin with each near miss. But the Sith Lord pressed forward. In the center of it all, he couldn’t avoid everything - his torso was missing parts, one of his legs had a gap in it, he could barely breathe through a throat that had nearly been crushed, and his own blood had joined the Mother’s on his person, her arms, the grass.
But he was so damn close. With every slice, the image of Amorata twisting in a cage of tentacles grew more vivid in his mind, and the lightning on his blade grew hotter. A red line of razor-wind split through a rising thicket, and Ares leaped through the opening to come up in a roll and bring his sword up through one of her main arms, dozens of orphaned appendages falling to the ground behind him. His momentum lead him into a pirouette - and this time he thrust, burying the sword up to the hilt in the Mother’s arm and releasing an explosion of rage that turned everything below her shoulder into a fountain of blood.
Finally, he saw pain in her face. Vaulting a counter-swipe, Ares landed beside her other arm and wrapped his free arm around it. Snarling, he yanked at her, rage fueling strength fueling a telekinetic trebuchet that he used to launch her towards him.
She didn’t budge.
---
He was so close - but he’d overextended himself at the last moment. She could feel his strength pulling at the Mother - and could feel her amusement as she easily ignored it.
No - the grey fog moistening her ankles told her that it wasn’t easy at all. Her focus was fully on Ares, on rooting him in place as she swept her arms out to break him, and Amorata realised this was her chance. She had a second, maybe two - but she needed a weapon, something to distract her, anything-
The coolness of her crystal led her hand to her lightsaber, and Amorata speared the weapon through the Mother’s body.
---
At last the Mother came flying towards him, her face wearing shock and betrayal. Releasing her arm, Ares gripped his sword with both hands, and with both hands rammed the weapon through her torso.
The moment seemed to stretch for an eternity as Ares found himself staring into those empty eyes. The white pinprick grew larger, larger - no, closer, until Ares finally dragged himself out of the bottomless black pits and looked away.
The next moment came, Ares tightened his grip, and red coalesced within the Mother’s body. The last reserves of his strength - his rage, his desperation, and, strongest and subtlest of all, his love - came out at once, ripping the Mother’s torso and head apart in a violent explosion of red energy and red blood.
Panting, Ares let her lower half collapse to the ground. Exhausted, he had no strength to lift his weapon, sagging. The sword, still in his hands, dropped, to rest on the grass, and the bloody meadow was finally still again.
Still, empty, and grey. No Amorata - no meadow either, just grey fog, cold and clammy.
“Where are you?” he whispered softly.
---
I’m right here, Amorata wanted to shout, but her mouth remained closed. A warm had laid itself on her shoulder, and she heard her Mother’s voice.
“It’s not polite for children to shout,” she cooed. “Now be a good girl, and do what I say. Walk away.”
Her mind screamed at the command as her body obeyed.
---
The sound of clapping carried clearly through the fog.
“Valiant, truly! A splendid show.”
The voice came from behind him - Ares found enough strength to stand and turn, confronting the wraith hovering in the fading fog.
“Ah, but poor boy - there are many things in this galaxy you’ll never understand.”
Ares’ blood froze - this voice came from behind him again. He looked over his shoulder - another wraith. Both emerged from the fog, their bodies the same as the woman he’d just killed. And then another emerged - another, another.
“And unfortunately for you-” “I happen to be one of them.” “So why don’t you put that down-” “Before you hurt yourself any further.”
They spoke seamlessly, one mouth closing as another mouth opened. They were trying to intimidate him - and they were succeeding.
“How many bodies do you have?” Ares groaned, eliciting a smile from each of the Mothers.
“More than you can kill, Sith Lord. Or perhaps I only need one.”
Amorata walked out of the fog, and his sword finally fell from his hands. She looked just like he remembered - still draped in blankets and a hospital gown.
“What do you want?” Ares bit out.
“Ah, finally! You ask a worthwhile question,” Amorata replied, her voice mocking. “Well, I think I’m going to keep this girl with me. Maybe if you ask nicely, you can be her playmate.” Ares’ hand curled into a fist, and he went to grab his sword again. “Or...”
“Or?”
“Something brought you here,” one of the Mothers behind him said. Another continued, “I don’t accept visitors - but you’re a trespasser. I want to know how you got here. No, don’t make that face - I can tell you don’t know. And since you’re not from here, I wouldn’t get to keep you if you resisted, you’d just be troublesome and die. So it seems you can’t offer me anything after a-ohhh. Ohhh, I’m speaking too soon.”
Amorata raised her hand to her head, tapping it.
“My, you’ve made quite a name for yourself out there, haven’t you? Leader of armies, commander of men, advisor, counselor. A man in your position could cause quite a bit of pandemonium if he tried.”
Amorata smiled, and Ares shivered.
“Make me a deal, Sith Lord Venaris.” His name froze the blood in his veins, and Ares realised whose memories her information was coming from. “We make a deal, a binding one of course. I give you back the one you love - when I call for a favour, you do it. No disagreement, no questions - I say, you do. And you both get to leave. What do you say?”
“Deal.”
He agreed without hesitation, before he’d even really heard what she’d said - but no regret followed. He couldn’t leave her here. He just...couldn’t.
“Hold out your hand.”
Ares did so. Amorata’s arm reached out - and out, elongating into a tentacle that slapped into his palm with a sickening wet thud. The tip of it traced along his wrist - then ripped into the skin and burrowed its way up of his arm. Ares screamed until it finally withdrew.
“This contract is sealed,” the Mothers intoned - and all smiled, needle-toothed and wide. Amorata’s body tumbled forward, and Ares caught her before she hit the ground. “Time you were on your way.”
Wrapping his arms protectively around the too-small girl in his arms, Ares glared at each of the Mothers in turn.
“This isn’t over,” he swore. “I’ll be ready. So will the rest of us. The minute you say a word to me the rest of us will lock me up and hunt you down.”
“Oh? Then answer me this.” The Mother’s smile grew wide again. “How often do you remember your dreams after you wake?”
He awoke in a starfighter - and she awoke in a hospital bed, the only sound the gentle beeping of a heart monitor.
Light washed over her, burning light that temporarily obscured her vision, accompanied by a deep, momentary drone, as if a giant bee had been rung like a bell.
When her vision cleared, she sucked in a sharp breath, as she discovered where she had been deposited. She had returned to the city she had just so recently escaped -- yet, with her new awareness, she was able to see just how utterly wrong it was. The people, blank expressions or strained smiles pasted on their faces, moved with a bizarre, mechanical gait, and the structures all twisted at odd angles that were decidedly architecturally unsound.
The back of her neck prickled. A chill washed down her spine as she became aware of another presence: a presence that made her deeply uncomfortable, a presence she had failed to notice because its awfulness was so deeply entwined with the churning wrongness of the place around her, a wrongness that even the layer of thought which did not bother with words was unable to classify.
Slowly, she expanded her vision.
Behind her stood her erstwhile “mother”, at once too close and too far away, distorted limbs spread in mockery of a welcoming embrace, facial features stretched and compressed in impossible exaggeration, a chaotic riot of contradiction perfectly matching and clashing against the background.
“Well, look who came running home,” the woman-thing cooed with a voice like a syrupy belt-sander as Amorata spun to face her. “What a naughty girl, to worry her mother so.” She -- it -- she moved a hand to her forehead, as though about to faint, bones and flesh appearing to disconnect and move through each other before rejoining. “Ungrateful children are such a burden.”
"Maybe they wouldn't be such burdens if mothers let them do things for themselves," Amorata shot back, her tone of anger an attempt to cover the nausea and fear that washed over her. Letting her inner adolescent argue with the superpowerful being focused on destruction was, perhaps, not the smartest idea, but she could not bring herself to agree even by omission with the entity that had trapped her in this nightmare.
Desperately, she looked for something, anything to focus on that wasn’t the abomination in front of her. Her fleeing gaze was caught by a storefront across the street that looked sickeningly familiar. The toy shop was still painted the bright colors she remembered, but now there were other colors shimmering at the edges of her normal vision, colors she could almost see instead of "smelling" synesthetically, colors that left a noxious taste in her mouth when she tried to focus on them, as though the Force-medium through which she normally saw had somehow been twisted. Through the window, she could see the plush toys. Their sweet smiles had become ragged gashes, poorly repaired with black thread in a manner that suggested teeth, making their expressions morbid grimaces that she recognized. She had seen them, the last time she had been here. She could now remember catching them in the corners of her view, only to see nothing but more adorable faces when she focused on them.
Amorata held back a shudder. Her heart pounding, she looked down at the lizard she still held, afraid of what she might see.
But Mr. Grumpypants, it seemed, was the only thing that had not been twisted into a perverse parody of itself. His one-eyed gaze met Amorata's eyeless stare; it was the sympathetic gaze of a trusted companion with whom one had undergone many travails.
“Tsk, tsk.” Her not-mother shook her head sadly, the corners of her mouth turning down impossibly far. “How many times have I told you, darling, children should be seen and not heard?”
“I’m not a child,” Amorata spat, suppressed terror turning her words acidic. “And this is a farce. You have no right to even pretend to motherhood. You stole me from a reality where I was perfectly happy -- planning to use me as a bridge to wreak havoc on that same reality, I might add -- locked away my memories, and forced me into a sickeningly sweet version of my childhood that is in fact just as twisted and wrong as you. That's not parenting. That's its antithesis."
The woman’s face darkened, subtle lines deepening into endless chasms. “Oh, but darling. You are a child. A willful, ungrateful child who doesn’t realize all I’ve done for her. I created this world for you. I took you out of your cruel reality and made you a paradise, and in return you ran away, like a bad girl. And bad girls need… Discipline.”
Amorata opened her mouth to respond but froze as an unfamiliar sensation wrapped itself around her ankles and caught her wrists, curling upwards along her skin -- a sensation of smooth, animate ropes, as though snakes were binding themselves around her uninhibited by suddenly insubstantial clothing. Unexpectedly, without her direction, her field of vision snapped back to its usual extent, and the resulting sensory backlash made her head spin. She dry-heaved, the taste of bile filling the back of her throat. The mother-thing smiled, a gash in reality at once sad and gleeful.
Then the world changed.
With all the abruptness of a jump cut, another presence manifested mere meters away. The woman whirled, snarling, preparing to deal with the unwanted incursion; Amorata stiffened as the invisible snakes suddenly tightened around her, holding her immobile; and the woman paused, clearly surprised -- whatever she had expected from the intrusion, the reality hadn’t fallen in line.
“Ares,” Amorata breathed.
---
It was like a curtain had fallen across his waking mind.
One moment, an inexorable weight was dragging his consciousness down, pulling him through the starfighter cockpit and into a blackness that eclipsed the stars themselves. The next moment, he was there. There was no feeling of movement, no prismatic vortex or whirling portal; he was simply there--
Blackness washed over him again and was replaced by burning light.
---
It’s a commonly held piece of wisdom in the galaxy that the best way to judge a person’s character is to throw them into an unfamiliar, uncomfortable situation.
The Miralukan man felt the press of cool stone against his cheek first, and slowly became aware of the rest of his body. Rousing himself, he placed a gloved hand on the cobbled paving and pushed himself to his knees, looking around. Taking in his surroundings, he automatically ran through a basic method drilled into him by his master: observe, analyse, conclude.
Instead of sitting in the cockpit of his starfighter, fighting exhaustion during a momentary armistice in the middle of a pitched space battle, he was kneeling on a lovingly cobbled street, surrounded by well-crafted houses and shops past which people -- Miraluka, he thought -- walked, chattering happily. A light breeze ruffled his sweaty hair, while, looking up, he saw a red star -- he was on Alpheridies, recognising it from description rather than memory.
He concluded he had absolutely no idea how he’d wound up here. Still in his flightsuit, lightsabers at his belt -- a quick glance at his chrono told him the time was the same. His muscles were relaxed, limber, as he stood -- he hadn’t been lying there long.
“So how did I get here?” Darth Ares wondered quietly. Teleportation was impossible -- he’d have felt it if it had happened. He checked his chrono again -- the time was the same. Walking to the side of the street, he called out to the other Miraluka, asking where he was, and they ignored him, chattering happily. As he drew closer, he finally noticed something: they weren’t saying a word. They were gesturing, articulating, but no sound was coming out.
At that point, he realised they had no mouths, and his hand dropped to his lightsaber. Cautiously, glancing between the translucent beings in front of him, he checked his chrono again, watching it for a long five seconds -- watching nothing. Even the second hand was frozen in place -- but when he held it to his ear, he could hear gears spinning at a frantic pace.
“A dream, then?” he asked himself, glancing back at the floating spectres. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a long time -- and the middle of a battle was a bad time to break that habit. Something ate at him, set him on edge, kept him watching the world around him, made him see the emptiness inside the houses’ windows, the bare stalls and shelves inside the stores, the dead spots of the stars.
Unclipping his lightsaber, unsettled and uncertain, he began to walk.
---
“Let him go.” The words were barely a hollow whisper.
“I’m not keeping him here,” came the cool, faintly triumphant reply.
Amorata’s head snapped up; suddenly-burning hope collided with cold, shivering caution. Her gaze probed the twisted face in front of her for any trace of explanation -- if the “mother” had not brought him, was not keeping him, if in fact he was entirely out of her control, why did she think she had won?
“Oh, dearest.” A soft tsk-tsk, like the rasp of bone against steel. “This is my domain. A world just for us two. Do you truly think there could be a single move I couldn’t counter?”
The Miraluka stared uncomprehendingly, expectantly, as the other entity moved closer, as her Master approached.
“Darling, darling, darling. He isn’t coming to take you away.” The whispered breath was blood-hot and sticky against Amorata’s ear. “Let me tell you a secret.”
Her gaze met Ares’.
He looked through her -- was shoulder to shoulder with her -- was behind her -- was gone.
“He can’t see us.”
Lips formed a silent question.
“Because, dearest, he can’t remember you. He never will. I took those memories the moment he set foot in this place.”
Someone screamed, a wordless howl of rage and sorrow and pain.
It wasn’t until the shadow-ropes plunged into her open mouth, and the sound cut off abruptly while she choked, that Amorata realized the scream had been hers.
“Hush, child.” A hand stroked her hair, surprisingly gentle, leaving behind burning pinpricks.
---
He almost didn’t realise that he’d left the town behind. Beyond the buildings were rolling fields - past the fields, a warm forest dappled with red sunlight. He crossed the fields when he looked back at the town, and was deep in the trees when he looked back at the path ahead. They were close around him now, the canopy blotting out the sun and shading the forest a deep crimson.
The crimson darkened to grey, and was black. At last the Sith Lord realised that the forest was growing too dark for him to see in, and ignited his lightsaber to light the way, oblivious to the dangers such a darkness concealed. But even the blue light of the blade was pallid, and as he forged ahead, he finally found himself questioning where he was going, why, and began to slow.
---
Her “Mother” led her by the hand through the forest behind him, tantalizingly close. Where he struggled against the branches, his clothes ripping and tearing, his lightsaber shearing through branches to clear the way, they slid through them as easily as ghosts. Surpassing him, they stopped and watched as he finally halted, looking lost and more than a little hopeless as he looked everywhere except his destination.
“A shame,” her Mother commented, her iron grip on Amorata’s hand tightening every time she moved. “I was hoping he’d find the Pool at least. No matter - it’s time we dealt with our unwanted intruder.”
She gave a long, low whistle, and turned Amorata to face the way they’d come. The darkness seemed to lighten where she looked - enough for her to make out two huge shapes bounding silently through the trees. Her throat closed, and she looked at Ares, terrified for what was coming for him - then she looked past him. The Mother was still looking at her hounds, at her - so she didn’t seen the faint lantern dancing through the trees, grabbing her Master’s attention. By the time her Mother looked back, it was gone, Ares was moving again - and Amorata was fighting a smile.
---
The sense of dread sped him as much as the lantern had. He broke into a run, hacking through the trees, making for where the lantern had vanished - and burst through the trees into a sunny meadow. Skidding to a stop, he took deep breaths that he didn’t actually need, and turned back to face the trees, so far away-
His breath caught in his throat as he saw two shapes emerge.
They crossed the meadow and were on him in moments.
---
Her Mother held her by the shoulder, forcing her to watch as the hounds closed in. With every struggle Amorata made, the burning vice of her Mother’s grip tightened. She could only watch, her shouts never escaping her throat, as the first hound reached her Master and pounced on him.
And then the Sith Lord rolled to the side and cut the beast in half with a single swing of his lightsaber.
There was a heavy pause, the entire world seeming to freeze motionless for half a second.
“That doesn’t normally happen,” her Mother said, puzzled.
---
The second one came at him more warily, bounding to either side before it finally leaped forward, low to the ground to crush his side with its paw. The Miraluka waited it out, hopped backwards out of its reach at the last instant, and took its arm off. The creature should have howled, but instead it just reared up on its hind legs to try and crush him - not that Ares let it get that far, since he immediately redoubled and cut its head down the middle.
The creature collapsed to the ground, joining its brother as dust scattered by a wind he couldn’t feel. With them gone, Ares should have relaxed, felt the danger pass - but his instincts were better than that, and he kept his lightsaber raised, scanning the area for more. The stench of ozone burned his nose, the air felt humid and heavy - but the meadow remained sunny, peaceful, calm. His hairs stood on edge, and his nerves began to uncoil like string.
“How did you come here?”
A woman’s voice spun him around. She was tall, dressed in a matronly red dress and light grey jacket, with short golden hair and a smile that froze his words in his throat. Ares felt his lightsaber lower as she stopped and cocked her head.
“I asked how you came to be here,” she repeated, a razor’s edge in her tone. The words “I was in-” came out of Ares’ mouth before he knew he was talking, and he clamped his mouth shut with his free hand.
Observe, analyse, conclude.
Nothing made sense, and trying to make sense of it only made it all worse. But when he scanned the area, he saw her without looking at her - and what he saw made him raise his lightsaber again, instincts overriding fear and horror.
She waved her hand, and his lightsaber hissed at him. He hadn’t even processed what was happening before the serpent uncoiled and sank its teeth deep into his neck. Howling in pain, Ares seized the serpent, tore it away from his neck in a spray of blood, flung it into the forest - then grabbed the snake that had been his other lightsaber as it slithered down his leg, threw it to the ground, stamped on its head.
Retching and coughing, he sank to his knees, blood flowing into his collar and dripping down his flightsuit. Placing a hand to his neck, he tried to staunch the bloodflow, felt the holes the snake had left where it bit him, large, too large.
Staunch the bleeding, detoxify the venom, he ordered himself. Ignoring his other questions, he tapped into the Force - and like that, it was already done. He didn’t even question how, but the pain was gone, and when he felt his neck again the wound had healed closed. Blood still stained his fingers - but it had a curious, bile-coloured glow to it, sickly. Wiping his hands on the grass, Ares stood up again, shaky at first.
“A parlour trick for a parlour trick,” the woman said dismissively. Her arm dropped to her side, and snakes fell from it, slithering around her before burrowing into the ground like worms and vanishing. “Do I have your attention?”
“I’m listening,” Ares ground out. “Though I’d love to know why you brought me here.”
“Useless,” she replied, shaking her head. “If you have to ask that question, you can’t answer it for me. But maybe there’s something buried in your head that tell me.”
The Miralukan was only half-listening. He’d caught sight of something lying in the grass, soft-looking, fabric. It looked like a child’s plush toy -- it was, he was sure of it. Curious, he took a step towards it--
A snake burst from the ground, wrapping around the toy like a belt and dragging it below the ground.
“Tch tch, you should pay attention when your mother speaks to you.”
Something slimy wrapped around Ares’ arm, yanking him towards the woman. Ares stumbled, then caught himself, planting his feet on the ground and resisting.
“What do you want?” he growled, glancing back at where the toy had been. “What happened to that child? What did you do to them?”
“She is being disciplined. Unruly child -- her mother bought her that, and to thank her she runs away. She needs to learn to be thankful for the gifts she receives, otherwise they are taken away.”
“What do you want?” Ares repeated. The arm -- tentacle -- was strong, inhumanly so. It kept him in place easily, and every so often it tugged, just a little, sending him stumbling just that little bit closer to the woman. She seemed to contemplate that answer, rolling the answer around on her tongue. Then she smiled, wider, wider, until her mouth was a grinning maw, filled with needle-like teeth and slashing from ear to ear.
“Misery breeds company,” she said lightly, and another tentacle fell from her arm - was her arm. Ares watched, stared in horror as her eyes seemed to sink into her skull, until they were merely tiny white pinpricks of light, drowning at the bottom of a deep well. The second tentacle slithered along the grass towards him -- he didn’t move, couldn’t. He couldn’t look away, and now it was wrapping around his legs, the other was drawing him inexorably forward--
“I’ve seen you,” he realised softly.
The Boganite, Phatalis -- he’d shown him those eyes, a black hole that had consumed the Boganite. A dark, coiling tendril of want, twisting inside of his apprentice as she lay unconscious, laughing at his attempts to find her, rouse her--
Everything fell into place, and anger sealed it all together. He reached for a weapon, and drew a black sword from his hip. With a single slash of the blade, he cut the tentacles in half, throwing them off and flipping back away from the creature -- Phatalis’ so-called ‘Dark Mother’.
“My apprentice…”
It came back, the flame burning in his chest scorching away the black fog trying to conceal his memories.
“Amorata. What have you done with her?”
The Mother glared at him, those black pits seeming to radiate fury. With a slick, wet sound, her tentacles regrew, trailing along the ground behind her.
“She is being disciplined,” the Mother repeated coolly. Her empty eyes shifted between his face and the longsword in his hands, her tentacles writhing and curling in on themselves. Ares heard a hissing from below him -- and he was ready this time. Dropping its point, he thrust the sword into the ground and impaled the snake as it emerged -- then loosed a rippling red shockwave into the ground. The crackling red spread out around him, and he felt the rest of the serpents die below his feet.
“Perhaps not so useless after all,” the Mother commented. “I might even dare to call you interesting. What is your name?”
“My name is T-”
His tongue was heavy, his mouth full of cotton, and Ares choked on his words. Dread filled him, a sense that if he told her, she would snatch his name away from him, take something he could never recover.
“Darth Ares. Sith Lord of the New Sith Brotherhood.”
“A title, not a name,” the Mother chided. “No matter -- I won’t need to ask a third time. I’m sure a ‘Sith Lord’ is clever enough to realise what happens to naughty children.”
Ares settled his weapon into a high ward, and everything grew very still. In that long moment, he realised just how much he wanted to smash every one of those grinning teeth.
The Sith Lord moved first, and the tentacles came at him like a whip.
---
Amorata watched him draw a sword, knowing that more shouts would only fall on deaf ears. He could see Mother - but not her. And now he was going to fight her, and there was nothing she could do to help him.
She tried, taking a step forward - but even as she stared at Ares, her Mother’s head turned to her, and Amorata froze in place.
Her Master came at the Mother with weapon raised, and the Mother retaliated.
By the time the Sith Lord had hacked off the fifth tentacle, Amorata began to think that maybe he wouldn’t need help afterall.
---
His sword whirled around him like a dark hurricane.
His mind had ceased to be a part of the fight - his body, his weapon were moving too fast for it to follow, leaving reflexes and instincts to guide his attacks.
And yet, he soon realised, he still couldn’t get close to the damn Mother.
An arm thrust towards him like a great spear; Ares sidestepped it and sliced through it like it was made of water, then leaped back as the stump sprouted two more tentacles and furrowed through the dirt where he’d been standing. He took those off with one slash and left them to slump, quivering in the ground, as he came forward, stabbed into the main arm, and ripped a cut along it, a razor-line in the Force carrying up her arm to burst her elbow in a shower of blood - but his chance to follow died as three came at him from behind, forcing a Force Leap to carry him clear. They followed him up, and he broke them with a strike that swung a hammerblow Force Push that smacked them back down.
He landed heavily and managed to transition into a roll, cartwheeling his sword around to cleave down on the arm that came for his throat. Kicking off to the side, another roll took him clear of the tentacle that came down to crush him, rose, met a whip-crack with his sword and felt the blood spatter across his cheeks - then dropped and flattened himself to save his ribs from a tree-trunk impact.
The Sith Lord came back to his feet, and went back on the offensive. Cutting an arm off at the stem, he seized the entire branch and sliced it free to get at the arm behind it. Grabbing the bloody appendage, he yanked it with his free hand and cut a section off, then pirouetted to slice through two arms that came for his spine and impale the third. The tentacle slid wetly off of his blade, and Ares was finally able to risk a glance at the Mother.
Even as her arms writhed and twisted in on themselves, bending impossible angles in the air to seek after him, she stood perfectly still, watching with those empty black eyes. But, Ares was pleased to see, that toothy smile had been wiped off of her bloody face.
His momentary distraction cost him, and Ares flipped sideways out of the way of a renewed wall of attacks. Dodging and ducking, he found himself beaten back, chased at each turn as he hacked away those too close and dodged those he could. A whisper of warning told him the other arm had grown back and, cleaving through two to clear an opening, he leaped out from within a tightening cage and stumbled to a landing on the slick grass.
When he turned, a near-literal wall was coming for him, spreading out to encircle him. Ares spat out blood that wasn’t his, took a tight grip on his sword, and slashed a long, straight line through the ground in front of him.
The walls of scorching red light raced in from either end of the meadow and met in the middle, splitting the tentacles in half as they crossed them. The others retreated, pressing in again as the momentary light began to fade - and Ares, bathed in blood and sweat, came forward with a battle cry, pouring every inch of his spirit into the sword as he swung it again. Flecks of red light gathered to it, igniting scorching red lightning that twisted along the blade like a sheathe, and when it met the ground a long line of red light carved forward and tore through the arms like a prow cutting water.
Slowly, the battle began to tip in his favour.
---
All she could see were red flashes and spurts of blood. Even when the Mother’s disgusting appendages weren’t blocking the battle from her sight, they were moving too fast for her to follow - he was moving too fast to follow. But she knew her Master, and in her mind’s eye she saw him spinning, slashing, dancing away from attacks. She could sense his anger, the raw focus that twisted that anger into a weapon-
Wait.
She could sense him. She couldn’t sense him before. And maybe that meant…
She’d been so focused on what was in front of her that she’d ignored what was around her - and ‘what was around her’ was quickly becoming ‘nothing’. Grey fog was rolling through the meadow, engulfing the trees, wafting up through the ground, swallowing it.
She looked back at the Mother, and she understood: her focus was on the man painting the town red, and this little world of hers was collapsing without it.
---
Tentacles fell like reeds around him, split by red light. They spat at him now, streams of black lightning that burned his skin with each near miss. But the Sith Lord pressed forward. In the center of it all, he couldn’t avoid everything - his torso was missing parts, one of his legs had a gap in it, he could barely breathe through a throat that had nearly been crushed, and his own blood had joined the Mother’s on his person, her arms, the grass.
But he was so damn close. With every slice, the image of Amorata twisting in a cage of tentacles grew more vivid in his mind, and the lightning on his blade grew hotter. A red line of razor-wind split through a rising thicket, and Ares leaped through the opening to come up in a roll and bring his sword up through one of her main arms, dozens of orphaned appendages falling to the ground behind him. His momentum lead him into a pirouette - and this time he thrust, burying the sword up to the hilt in the Mother’s arm and releasing an explosion of rage that turned everything below her shoulder into a fountain of blood.
Finally, he saw pain in her face. Vaulting a counter-swipe, Ares landed beside her other arm and wrapped his free arm around it. Snarling, he yanked at her, rage fueling strength fueling a telekinetic trebuchet that he used to launch her towards him.
She didn’t budge.
---
He was so close - but he’d overextended himself at the last moment. She could feel his strength pulling at the Mother - and could feel her amusement as she easily ignored it.
No - the grey fog moistening her ankles told her that it wasn’t easy at all. Her focus was fully on Ares, on rooting him in place as she swept her arms out to break him, and Amorata realised this was her chance. She had a second, maybe two - but she needed a weapon, something to distract her, anything-
The coolness of her crystal led her hand to her lightsaber, and Amorata speared the weapon through the Mother’s body.
---
At last the Mother came flying towards him, her face wearing shock and betrayal. Releasing her arm, Ares gripped his sword with both hands, and with both hands rammed the weapon through her torso.
The moment seemed to stretch for an eternity as Ares found himself staring into those empty eyes. The white pinprick grew larger, larger - no, closer, until Ares finally dragged himself out of the bottomless black pits and looked away.
The next moment came, Ares tightened his grip, and red coalesced within the Mother’s body. The last reserves of his strength - his rage, his desperation, and, strongest and subtlest of all, his love - came out at once, ripping the Mother’s torso and head apart in a violent explosion of red energy and red blood.
Panting, Ares let her lower half collapse to the ground. Exhausted, he had no strength to lift his weapon, sagging. The sword, still in his hands, dropped, to rest on the grass, and the bloody meadow was finally still again.
Still, empty, and grey. No Amorata - no meadow either, just grey fog, cold and clammy.
“Where are you?” he whispered softly.
---
I’m right here, Amorata wanted to shout, but her mouth remained closed. A warm had laid itself on her shoulder, and she heard her Mother’s voice.
“It’s not polite for children to shout,” she cooed. “Now be a good girl, and do what I say. Walk away.”
Her mind screamed at the command as her body obeyed.
---
The sound of clapping carried clearly through the fog.
“Valiant, truly! A splendid show.”
The voice came from behind him - Ares found enough strength to stand and turn, confronting the wraith hovering in the fading fog.
“Ah, but poor boy - there are many things in this galaxy you’ll never understand.”
Ares’ blood froze - this voice came from behind him again. He looked over his shoulder - another wraith. Both emerged from the fog, their bodies the same as the woman he’d just killed. And then another emerged - another, another.
“And unfortunately for you-” “I happen to be one of them.” “So why don’t you put that down-” “Before you hurt yourself any further.”
They spoke seamlessly, one mouth closing as another mouth opened. They were trying to intimidate him - and they were succeeding.
“How many bodies do you have?” Ares groaned, eliciting a smile from each of the Mothers.
“More than you can kill, Sith Lord. Or perhaps I only need one.”
Amorata walked out of the fog, and his sword finally fell from his hands. She looked just like he remembered - still draped in blankets and a hospital gown.
“What do you want?” Ares bit out.
“Ah, finally! You ask a worthwhile question,” Amorata replied, her voice mocking. “Well, I think I’m going to keep this girl with me. Maybe if you ask nicely, you can be her playmate.” Ares’ hand curled into a fist, and he went to grab his sword again. “Or...”
“Or?”
“Something brought you here,” one of the Mothers behind him said. Another continued, “I don’t accept visitors - but you’re a trespasser. I want to know how you got here. No, don’t make that face - I can tell you don’t know. And since you’re not from here, I wouldn’t get to keep you if you resisted, you’d just be troublesome and die. So it seems you can’t offer me anything after a-ohhh. Ohhh, I’m speaking too soon.”
Amorata raised her hand to her head, tapping it.
“My, you’ve made quite a name for yourself out there, haven’t you? Leader of armies, commander of men, advisor, counselor. A man in your position could cause quite a bit of pandemonium if he tried.”
Amorata smiled, and Ares shivered.
“Make me a deal, Sith Lord Venaris.” His name froze the blood in his veins, and Ares realised whose memories her information was coming from. “We make a deal, a binding one of course. I give you back the one you love - when I call for a favour, you do it. No disagreement, no questions - I say, you do. And you both get to leave. What do you say?”
“Deal.”
He agreed without hesitation, before he’d even really heard what she’d said - but no regret followed. He couldn’t leave her here. He just...couldn’t.
“Hold out your hand.”
Ares did so. Amorata’s arm reached out - and out, elongating into a tentacle that slapped into his palm with a sickening wet thud. The tip of it traced along his wrist - then ripped into the skin and burrowed its way up of his arm. Ares screamed until it finally withdrew.
“This contract is sealed,” the Mothers intoned - and all smiled, needle-toothed and wide. Amorata’s body tumbled forward, and Ares caught her before she hit the ground. “Time you were on your way.”
Wrapping his arms protectively around the too-small girl in his arms, Ares glared at each of the Mothers in turn.
“This isn’t over,” he swore. “I’ll be ready. So will the rest of us. The minute you say a word to me the rest of us will lock me up and hunt you down.”
“Oh? Then answer me this.” The Mother’s smile grew wide again. “How often do you remember your dreams after you wake?”
He awoke in a starfighter - and she awoke in a hospital bed, the only sound the gentle beeping of a heart monitor.