Spread Your Wings (Kressara)

[Jacobi Wylcott]

---MORABAND
---MOUNTAINS

How does one correct the mind?

How does one get over catastrophic loss?

It was not to be.

Darth Tormentous had accepted Kressara, the raving wretch - after she had lost her child and Slade had delivered his beloved to the Dark One - Tormentous now had unchecked access to the insane mess that was. His first notion had been to just kill her and toss her to Kraujas Ntima, better to be cast to the hydra than to be wasted completely. Though as he went to toss this pathetic being to a hungry animal he had stopped and instead he sent Slade away. Together with this broken - thing - he picked her up in his arms and took her into the mountains of Moraband. Her wild cries and uncontrolled rantings were his only company for the next days.

He stayed there in the arid deserts with her, every moment as she wretched and groaned all the ‘woe is me’ moments. For all this time he endured a crazy lady until she cried out her cries and shed her lamentations. When she ran low on her sorrow - this was a moment that she could finally display coherent thought. He was thankful, he was not sure how much longer he could put up with having a mewling wretch leaning on his shoulder and drenching his cape with tears and snot.

Losing track of the days that had gone by, he tried to wake her up with a kick to the leg. He grumbled and cursed when she just rolled over. Kneeling down his giant hand carefully brushed her nasty uncleaned platinum blonde hair from her face and he tried hard not to snap at her - instead he delivered a stifled snarl. “Sun is up. So should you be.”

[Kressara Thryn]

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It isn't fair…

The stone that upheld them in a lofty cradle above the sandy seas knew nothing of the injustice that watered it's soils for nigh four days. Neither did the skies know, or the birds who's shadows sailed up and down the dunes. No darkness, no light, and no force of nature in Kressara's fracturing world was guilty of transgressions against her. It was rather, the choices of other sentient beings who caused the aching in her heart, including her own misguided, wrong decisions. WRONG.

Four times the sun rose over her concert of grief, beaming against her glitterstim tainted flesh. Diamond tears stained her cheeks in glimmering streaks and uncleaned, the oils in her hair were thick with a dazzling sheen. As if it were the cure to worldly needs, the broken woman's grief staved away hunger, thirst, and sleep like some ungodly painful key to immortality, but by the morning of the fifth day even she ran out of steam. A boot jabbed her just beneath the armpit and Kressara turned on her side to avoid a second impact in the same place if her patient tormentor was so inclined. Yes, a tormentor. He allowed her to live, brought her into the mountains, and intended on bringing her back from the madness she thrust herself into for the sake of outrunning him. Outrunning everyone really. The moment she knew Blood was no longer Blood, that Tormentous had beaten her master back into whatever man he was before the dragon lord stole her off that shuttle in the outer rim, things began to change for Kressara. Her allies were no longer reliable. Her master was no longer her master. Good and evil peeled away from her reality and underneath a grey existence swallowed her.

The sun is up… he noted, and that washed up songbird answered.

"The sun will rise here. A sun will rise on Arkania...on Kamino...every hour a sun will rise somewhere...and not a single one of them will command me." A shadow of something like herself, perhaps? A lick of sass? She used to be a funny woman, if Tormentous could dredge up the memory of her when Jacobi was in control.

Regardless of the bite in her words, the glittering husk of a once noble creature stared blankly when a significantly sized hand brushed the near iridescent, tangled tufts from her eyes. They were dead, and she was alive. Yet something beneath their glitterstim glassed surface lingered in ghost like fashion. The spark of life was not yet lost. So yes, in spite of her words Kressara's arms and spine creaked and popped with the effort she made to obey. She lifted herself up onto her hands, then sat herself upright. After a few long moments of silence, she spoke.

"You don't know it, but you will...maybe." Still raving, but not quite so madly. "I didn't deserve to die. I wanted to...it would have been kinder to the world...I would not have wanted to live in the world I'll make, if given a chance…I promised him something terrible whether you caught me or not. Something dreadful...he deserved a better world, you know. So I swore to make one...and to build an ivory tower from the bones of those who don't belong in it…" She blinked away the last of her tears, mostly glitter by now which burned her tear ducts and coated the world in a shining brightness for her eyes only. "...it would be an apology a thousand miles high...you might know a few skeletons in that obelisk…"

She couldn't help the rambling. It was a miracle that she could even speak fluently at all. Kressara turned to look at him, the dark lord who eventually captured her in the end. Well, not that anything ever ended.

"But enough about me...when did you get here?"

Could she really not have noticed until now that Tormentous was even there?

"I've read this story before. You'll ask me for my life in return for letting me keep it, which is really just a clever scheme isn't it? My life in return for my life. Obedience in place of freedom, and I'm going to grovel for it as if I've been struck the deal of a century? That's how it usually goes, anyways. I'm not a fan of stories like these, but I haven't read anything else...so have it then. Write me into whatever chapters you fancy…carve my name into your tale if you like...or erase it. I'd thank you for it, either way."

[Jacobi Wylcott]

The Crow stirred and Tormentous leant back to set his knee into the dirt. His ire spiked when she rebuffed the command yet he did not flip out and smite her for this sharpened tongue. He could see her worth even if she did not - and it was weighted with those very stars she spoke of. But who could see the worth of someone so broken and pathetic. He could. For the first time in five rotations of the sun could he sense the breach of actual coherent thought. It was a breath of fresh air in a gloomy enough scenario. But for her jumbled words he did not see the reflection of Kressara as she once was. She was not and likely would never be again.

That mattered little in the grand scheme. Tormentous could manipulate and contort and spin a narrative to benefit him in any situation. But as he looked at her something deep inside frowned and perhaps even shed a tear for his friend, one of the precious few he had that weren’t already dead. Just as soon as this sorrow for the lady crow was derived - the Dark Lord of the Sith stomped down on it and crushed it to no more than the dust beneath him.

“Well all deserve to die.” He corrected. “Our sins will catch up to us all. And I can promise you that the day is coming in which oblivion will call your name. Until then - you belong to me.” But her rants moved onwards to encompassed her great loss and he let her vent her words unto the air and for his witness. He listened. He did not ignore or shunt away. There was no need. Her ravings were of a woman long gone and to hear these echoes of her mind’s passage was a rarity of which precious few would ever hear. His senses were given insight to her very soul in these moments and he did not wish to turn her voice aside. He let her speak her mind - it could be the very last time she ever did.

“But enough about me…when did you get here?”

What a fitting question this was. One filled with any number of answers and all of them filled with so many lies and twisted stories. But in as much as Tormentous did not deign to answer to a lesser - his words broke the silence and lies did not suffer Kressara’s ears. “I have always been here. And I will always be here. When that sun sets, there will always ever be one truth. I am inevitable.”

Standing up he offered his hand to her that she may finally climb up onto her feet. From there he moved to his Sith Speeder Bike - the craft he had brought her here on - and he retrieved a large canteen and some dried meat. He tossed the meat to her. It was salty but not tasteless, designed to last in such an exposed environment. It was also not meant to fill you up - just sate the hunger pains. The canteen he opened and brought to Kressara, offering it freely. Once she was finished supposing what he wanted from her he leaned against his bike and eyed her carefully.

Finally he responded. “No.” His flat words shot out. “Your life as it stands is worth nothing to me. You would be a waste of resources and time. I do not require your life. It is already mine and not yours to give.” He pointed directly at her, “But I can see it in you that you are not done. You still have the ability and the canny to accomplish things. You need only the drive. I can give you the drive - if only you will reach out and take it. I cannot force you to live, soon as I turn my back you could leap from this cliff and end your miserable existence. You must find that reason for yourself.”

“No.” He reiterated. “I will not have you grovel nor to be a slave. What I offer you now is your freedom. I do not need your obedience either. You will follow me willingly in the throes of your freedom. For I now offer you something that Blood never did - power.”

“With power you could have overcome your vices and not have despoiled your own child to his fate. With power you could have kept him from death. With power you could have made those dreams become reality.” He clenched his fist and brought it up for emphasis, “With power you could have made Blood pay for allowing your beloved to die. He held the power to prevent that occurred and he sat there and let it happen - and even then he did not share his knowledge of power with you. Selfish! Just to keep you under his boot heel he kept these secrets for himself. Coveting them just so he could maintain your obedience with some layered notion of his loving devotion to you - make no mistake, Crow, if he loved you or your child he would have gone the distance to save you both. But he never lifted a finger and now where is he? Banished to some menial task because my word is what he craves,” he shook his head to her, “not you and not that damned child either.”

He let the silence brew between them as she processed his words. No doubt she was trying to weed out what could have been lies or to what was true. But in the end - all lies had truth woven within them. “I will give you your freedom. Here and now.” Stepping away from his speeder bike he offered it, “Take it. Go to the Landing Pad at my Citadel. No one will stop you. Take my own ship. Leave.”

Offering freedom was not to be taken lightly for no one ever received the offer. “Or stay. I offer you the same freedom. And in return for remaining here I will teach you my ways. I will teach you what true power is and in time you shall outpace everything Blood had ever been ,” He eyed her with an intensity in him that was worn on his sleeve, “and you may take your vengeance. A mother denied her love, torn from her arms, let her take revenge on behalf of the little one that cannot.”

He waved an arm to encompass everything else, “Take my offer and,” he smiled beneath his mask at her but his eyes could not stifle the framed expression, “when my time comes - and it shall - you will have the power to burn all of this down and render to cinders in his name. Do not take my offer,” he shrugged animatedly, “and you may live your life, start anew, carry on. But you will never have the power to prevent the fate you have experienced nor will you have the power to stamp out the bastards who did this to you - myself included.”

[Kressara Thryn]

...You belong to me.

With this, quartzed hazels brightened like a pile of embers stoked by the iron. It was a fleeting response, a challenging gleam. The very same something that drew him to her in the first place. Like all fires do, however, it reduced to a mild glow beneath her smoldering ashes. Kressara's trembling voice steadied and her cracked lips stung with the smile she couldn't help but to flash at the dark lord.

"I'll belong to you...like time belongs to the living."

Like time, Tormentous could seize her. He could use her to his advantage or waste her away, but regardless of his choice she may go on to serve another, or to abandon everyone entirely. Time was a fickle thing and dangerously unbothered by everyone who meddled in it. Kressara thought to herself, it would be rather lovely to be feared and needed as much as time.

Her smile was a momentary light, merely candle flame. It vanished like a sharp breath and a puff of smoke. His hand lowered to her level and the once wiley crow took it without a fuss. Her new master's strength hefted her to the flats of her tattered boots which did about as much to steady her as stilts during an earthquake. She faltered and dropped again with her hand still in his, then dragged herself up again with an indignant scowl. Finally, up for the count. Rations and a canteen was tossed to her, which she nearly dropped. Given her state of being, having any hand eye coordination at all was impressive. Kressara drank first. The grit in her throat washed down and her body ached for more water. It would take days to rehydrate the wretchedly bushed woman. A bite of the salted meat resulted in a strongly revolting urge to vomit, but she forced it down with a sour expression before muttering a choked, "...Thank you."

Stronger yet was the resonance of Tormentous's words. He offered her freedom which Kressara was entirely unsure what to do with. Never once had she any true freedom. Sure, Blood kept her in a gilded cage which she obviously relished and even now missed, but he never actually set her free. He possessed her, and before him her parents controlled her fate. In all of her young and adult life, no one had ever offered her freedom without the consequence of desolation or death to sway her choice.

His words should have struck anger within her, but there was none. In anger's place there was a strange, winding tension. Each word cranked the spindle another rotation, tightening the emotional wire that held two halves of the same person in check.

Mirth and Cruelty.

By the end of his promises for revenge, the tale he spun about her former master, and his offer to lift the disheveled apprentice to greatness, Kressara was smiling again. It wasn't like before when her grinning was drawn out of a more pleasant place inside of her well guarded remains, but this one manifested out of the chaos that enraptured the very rest of her. Her aura, the signature in the force which encompassed her that was likely visible to masters of his degree, crackled with explosive promise. She was powerless in her current state and even trained up, would be no match for Tormentous in the slightest...but that energy. It would send shivers even down the spines of the Jedi. Kressara maintained that near breaking point intensity with a painted on grin and slowly stepped one dainty foot fall after the other until she was standing just within inches of the dark lord. Her forehead only reached the bottom of his chest, but the way she carried herself just then was so staggeringly tall. In a sticky sweet, caramel and candy voice, Kressara purred with a clueless shake of her head.

"...Why, I hope none of you think I'm angry?"

Heavens. Oh gods. Any higher power real or fictional had little to do with the tone in her voice just then. It was the sort of voice you heard in sleep paralysis and forgot when the sun rose.

She laughed a little too perfectly. "I would be glum if I thought any of you were cross with me! I would never just leave, my lord!...I'll never leave."

What in the name of the force was wrong with her?? That promise of loyalty doubled as a threat.

Serpentine, her filthy hand snaked into his with all the regallity she might have learned from Blood and her connection to the force beckoned to tip over the edge into the depths of what darkness had to offer her. Kressara, despite all of her tribulations, had not yet fallen fully to the darkness. She waited by it's gates like a visitor at the door and knocked, waiting for someone to open it to her, because falling into darkness was never a possibility. Only when Kressara wanted to face the darkside would she gracefully step into the void. There was a pleading in her words that she masked with a casual request.

"I wasn't ready to travel the darkside before...I am now. I would like to experience the very worst of it, if you don't mind. I've been everywhere, but there." She was asking to be given to the darkside like someone asks to borrow a cup of sugar from their neighbor! Her eyelashes fluttered with a wave of dizziness brought on by the heat and her weakened state, causing her to sway before she chirped, "I expect my ascent to sanity will be a great deal more interesting that way! I accept your offer and pledge my meaningless fealty to your service! Teach me to shatter worlds, or use me to bring your morning slippers. I care little so long as you teach me…"

Teach me…

The words had a beguiling voraciousness to them.

[Jacobi Wylcott]

Her vibrancy amid the smoldering ruin of her heart was all he needed to confirm he was making the right decision here. Feeling it in his heart that she had as much hatred for the Sith in general as she had for her own circumstance did not derail his efforts to see her lifted up from the rotten pile of nothing where Blood had left her and make her to be what she truly deserved to be. A goddess among simple peasantry. Of course she would naturally choose her own path - but he would give her the tools she needed to carve that very path from the hearts of the Sith’s enemies - no - to whomever she so deemed to hold the moniker of enemy.

With a smile of poison she offered him a minute of her elegant nature and perhaps she could have melted his heart of iron had Tormentous not been so focused on recovering her from her heap of sorrow and shattered spirit. He was invested in her well being and he would not have her cast aside as refuse - as Blood had done. Just a toy to come home to and arm candy he never even appreciated. Tormentous wanted for her so much more - but in these things only she could decide.

Their time together, however brief it would be, it would be glorious.

With a smile fading like smoke on the wind he saw her inner sadness (Feed on Dark Side) and it tasted to him as a delicacy very much near the feelings of a dying man who fought to stand and live when he could not. An inner defiance to a fate so absolute. Her essence gave to Tormentous a feast he could hardly endure through keeping his goals clear. He looked at her as a predator to prey and his mouth watered at her sight.

It was at the moment when perhaps he would have attacked and ripped her apart to dive into her soul and seek out these inner demons that he could ill-resist - that his ground was stood upon with grit teeth and resolve. Banished by her beautiful smile like an oil slick being broken apart by a cleansing agent. She was so unbelievably strong that it nearly unnerved him in that moment and infuriated him equally that Blood would have obtained this avian princess and he had done nothing but squander her gifts. A Force Sensitive in these days was a precious commodity - but one such as Kressara - Darth Tormentous would sacrifice entire worlds just to have her. A hundred billion lives extinguished in the blink of an eye in exchange for the very tender smile she delivered for free. Why then had Blood spat in her face as he had?

The sins of the son - the woe of a nation to have been so deprived of her glory that was never truly realized. They all should have worshiped her name and sacrificed to honor her presence on the same world as they - but instead they had given unto Blood. It left a bitter taste in Tormentous’ mouth.

Yes - non-biologically Slade was his son and had been heir to everything. But Kressara was something special who had been tucked away like a jealous child’s plaything.

Now, just having the knowledge that she would survive and even more so she would train in the ways of the Sith to become the deity he knew she could be - it brought a fire stirring within him and he returned the smile to the Crow. How twisted a thing. The devil smiling to a demonic crow. Her sweet vocals graced the air and her tone of word was coy, yet could threaten the heavens itself. Then her vow to never step away - it was as if the seeded cancer of the Dark Side already dwelt in her heart and with this revelation he realized he needn’t even force her down the Dark path. She was already on it. He only needed to take her hand.

No - not even that. For she took his. What a twisted turn. She knew exactly what she was getting into. And she wanted it all. His eye narrowed at her and he knew without a doubt that Kressara one day would be more terrifying then all the rest - maybe even him. He nodded and took her hand in turn, running his thumb over the dirt and grime mixed with tears and sweat. It smeared on the back of her gentle hand and in that he saw her life, smeared by a little grime but as bright as a star beneath the surface of the mire.

Linking his fingers with hers he eyed her carefully as if he was afraid she’d shatter. Her dizzy spell was arrested with his arm snaking low and supporting her waist. “You will retrieve no slippers, ever again and from here on, you will never refer to yourself as meaningless. Welcome, dearest Crow, to my world.”

He released her hand as he supported her upright and with that free hand he sent a dramatic backhanded swipe through the air. Darkness befell the cliff side and an unnatural chill cascaded over the immediacy. Hoarfrost soon formed on his boots and spread to the arid surface of the earth, his gauntlets equally touched and the hand he waved delivered a wave of cold mist while he hand resting on the small of her back chilled her as well. So was bidden by the Dark One the gate of the void itself.

In a circle imbued by black smoke rising form the earth, the sands seemed to boil where the smoke lifted and together they stood within its depths. He had summoned an infectious wave of Sorcery - the most sinister and vile of the Sith’s connection to the Dark Side of the Force. It was the stuff that twisted and blurred the lines of reality. It was the stuff that brought unnatural things into the realm of living. The Crow wished to feed from the depths of that which was not capable of natural manifestation without outside influence - he would deliver this desire and help her solidify her Darkness within.

Taking her hand back he looked into her eyes and spoke with absolute finality. “So be it.”

[Kressara Thryn]

((Force Level 4 App: 544/400))

Malefic smoke encompassed the mismatched pair like a ritual circle and from it an unforgiving cold swept the otherwise dry, hot desert air. The change in atmosphere caused a rise in wind, picking up sand in small cyclones that twirled about like dancers hailing the coming of the void. Tormentous held her steady at its center and within that chilling dark circle, the frail creature in his grasp stood unmoved in spirit as well. No fear clouded her aura. No loathing. Nightshade blanketed the world and she looked out upon it as one might admire the first snow flurries of winter, open to the experience without horror which usually drove unturned apprentices to madness. In fact, her eyelids drooped. Breathing slowed and Kressara felt the overwhelming desire to drop, to sprawl within the circle and slip into a deep, unwaking slumber.

All her life, Kressara lived against the grain. Even as a child she never fit the spaces that those in control assumed for her. It was a constant struggle. A daily game of choices, consequences, and reward that pushed her endlessly onward until every bone in her body cried for that relentless rest. Now, as a kind of darkness that only existed between dreams touched reality, the draw to surrender nearly stole the life right out of her lungs. She released Tormentous's cold hand and lowered herself, resisting that unnatural allure while reaching out with her hand to the phantasmagoric smoke. Fingertips dipped into the bleak clouds and captured some with a feather soft touch before cupping the fastly dispersing smoke with both hands and bringing it to her lips. By now her head ached for oxygen. The mesmerism of an eternity without air held her lungs suspended as the darkness beckoned her…Sleep.

"Not yet…" Her consciousness swooned under the oppression of the unfathomable shade, yet it did not steal what it was not offered. Kressara willed her chest to rise, breathing deeply the orphic smoke in her palms like incense.

Snaps of color blinded her and voices speaking inaudibly roared through her mind like whitenoise as all feeling vanished, replaced by an uncomfortable static. Reality was shorting out through her perception under the most unique "high" she'd ever experienced. Kressara couldn't see beyond the flickering, hear above the chatter, or feel a single nerve within her fleshy prison. However, she'd been close to this kind of messed up once or twice already. While Glitterstim didn't compare to inhaling the actual fog of darkness, she did know how to push her body to move beyond the convoluted circuitry of her brain. Eyes flashing like moonlight on mirrors, Kressara straightened her legs and leaned against the dark lord. With her shoulders dropped and head tilted back, she pushed the now shimmering cloud from her lungs and blew a smoke ring into the atmosphere, coughing out the rest. As the oblivion left her lungs and breathable air took its place, the vision of Tormentous at her side came into focus. The maddeningly loud banter of many thousands died out and her nerves sent scrambled signals of pain and cold like pin pricks all throughout her body.

"I couldn't help myself…" Her lips pulled into a teeth chattering smile.

((Force Level 4 App, End.))

[Jacobi Wylcott]

Her brilliance was unmistakable and she was a radiant star through the Force. Not in the same sense that she was a bright and shining beacon of light. But that her potential shone like a star. In truth her star was a the essence of a fire. She devoured the Darkness around her and consumed the elements that kept reality at bay. Kressara was volatile - belying her calm and even cool outlook. She was chaos. And he could not have enjoyed it more. The Crow leaned back on him and he draped his arms over her shoulders - pleased very much with her sudden and very vivid display of acceptance of the Dark Side. She had drawn in the lines of Darkness that made men quiver and melt by its mere presence. She was such an awful presence behind the facade of a beautiful smile and long seductive eyelashes - even despite being a filthy mess.

Standing above her due to his height her clouded exhale wafted towards him and not being one to imbibe the influence of drugs he thought to rebuff the gaseous menace. But what the hell. Drifting to his mask the filters took in the stuff and grated a portion but they were not designed to filter out the stuff of the Dark Side and much slipped through.

Burning filled his wind pipe and lungs as the glitter took hold. The feeling would not be so sudden. But it would give him a good trip later on.

Though for now he curled one arm to cross over her chest and grip her shoulder, holding her tight to him. “Now, my little Crow. You have shown to me that you can touch the Force well enough. Now it is time for a crash course in its use.” He leaned in and whispered. “I hope you’re a fast learner.” His other hand moved up to encompass the side of her face.

“Basically. I’m going to steal your most precious memories and there is nothing you can do physically to stop me. The Dark Side of the Force allows me to pry into the folds of your mind and dredge out memories and secrets that you have even forgotten during your life and they shall be ripped out, regardless of the efforts you present against me.” He let out a half chuckle. “Though there is one way to secure your mind from this invasion. The Dark Side is potent in this place and should be a simple thing for you to tap into. Draw it to you, gird your energy field with its embrace and form barriers in your mind to oppose my advances. Erecting barriers is simple enough. Visualize your energy field - often it is easier to use your hand to position better with your concentration - wherever I move with my attack, there should you concentrate on positioning the flow of the Force into a dense field of opposition - or a barrier. In time you will find this comes as second nature.”

“This technique is called Force Shield. It can protect you from mental assault such as this one, Jedi mind tricks and even prevent direct telekinetic attacks on you. Of course things being thrown, Force Push attacks and the like are a different category of attacks. But I leave that for you to learn in time.”

He took a breath and set his cheek on the top of her head. “Let’s see what kind of mess is in here.”

The Dark Side of the Force welled up in the surrounding area and its chill dropped the temperature to a soothing cool which defied Moraband itself. Tormentous, through his fingertips, sought to violently penetrate the mind of Kressara and rip out her most precious memories. The feeling would be absolutely painful as if spikes were being driven into her skull through his fingers. If unguarded the mental assault could even cause permanent mental trauma - something she definitely did not need to contend with. Also if he pressed his attacks hard enough and if she was unable to defend - this ‘lesson’ could be her last as the Drain Knowledge technique could break her mind and leave her a whimpering and broken puddle on the floor, rendering her into a vegetative state - or more it could kill her outright.

It was up to Kressara now. She embraced the Dark Side a moment ago. Now she needed to truly dig deep and understand the elements she was diving headlong into.

---BEGIN FORCE SHIELD - 300 WORDS

[Kressara Thryn]

Fumes of cold licked off of their skin like dry ice fog and Kressara's lithe frame shuddered for warmth, yet found none from the conduit of darkness who upheld her. The closer he pulled her, the colder, but the addeled apprentice made no effort to steal herself from the frost. It reminded her of the planet where it all fell apart, and it hurt. Tormentous was eager to begin her training, going so far as to start lessons even as she hardly held her own weight. That lack of wellness didn't deter either of them, one out of ambition to instill his teachings and the other out of resignation to suffer their effects. So the words crept into her ears and made their home in the foreground of her thoughts somewhere between her wildest dreams and a worrying desire. What if she failed on purpose? What if Tormentous stole away every memory that made her ache? What if she goaded the dark lord into taking too much? Yet again, another temptation to resist. Forgetting her past would not rectify it. She knew that.

Cradled by a chilly hand against her cheek, Kressara leaned into his palm and let her glassy eyes meet his gaze with a conflicted sadness before staring blankly through him. The stardust in her irises caught what little light remained and her scarred hand landed on his arm for support as she steeled herself for mental warfare.

"If I fail...don't feel guilty. I wouldn't mind failing this one…"


[Force Shield App: 590/300]


Kressara couldn't have predicted the physical pain that came with an invasion of the mind and as Tormentous bombarded her consciousness icy sharp staves drove into her skull. Ringing in her ears rattled her brain and burned the delicate nerve structure of her sinuses, ripping a gasp from the girl's glitter caked lungs that sounded something like a shriek for help. Desperate, she clamboured to erect a shield between her precious psychosis and the serrated fingers of darkness reaching into her vulnerable grey matter. The force was so alive around them both that it materialized in clouds of nighted mist, in gusts of wind, and yet when Kressara reached out to seize that energy for her own protection, she couldn't hold it in her mental grasp long enough to matter. Tormentous assaulted her mind with allagrugous precision, digging into her deepest memories. The darkside tore open the depths of her subconscious and revealed flashes of her youth, golden haired and running through a crop field from something frightening to recall.

She couldn't let him in. She needed to succeed! Kressara squinted hard and grit her teeth as every brain cell struggled to command the rushes of energy that could save her from him. Her scrambling mind envisioned the force as a wall between her memories and her attacker. For a moment it worked and the agony lifted, but holes in that weak wall quickly toppled it. In surged the pain and Tormentous dug his wickedly painful tendrils into another vision of her past.

"I love you…" Her voice played like a recording as through her eyes, he saw Blood bathed in the starlight of Sojourn. They were dancing in a courtyard and Kressara's heart was fluttering in a way that old sick organ would likely never beat again.

"Stop! Stop! No more!" Kressara was giving up, refractory tears rolling down her ice hot skin. She couldn't learn this, not right now. She wasn't strong enough to fight this, but Tormentous didn't listen. Excruciating spikes hammered into her brain and another memory was being dredged up. She was hunched over a toilet in a grungy looking bathroom, trying not to lose her dinner and crying that she "Wished she could just go home. when a stranger sauntered in and asked if this was her first time on glitterstim...

"STOP!" Anger swelled within her and her instincts took over. Eyelids that had been glued shut shot open and an electric charge from the inky circle crawled from her legs, up her spine, and into her cranial cavity where her tormentor was playing. She didn't try to make a wall, but this time she let the force choose its own form within her. It moved like a static charge between her thoughts and his invasion, and for every penetrating reach the force lashed itself at his touch instead of allowing him to peel back each recollection he found. Tormentous's view into her memories would go fuzzy with interference and soon cut out entirely as a dangerous hum from her mind warned him to heed her request. Stop.

Her pain subsided and her control on the barrier of white noise force energy strengthened. Kressara imagined cranking up the signal like she was turning a dial, and when that dial reached its maximum output Tormentous lost his foothold into her psyche. Kressara leered up at him and with a quivering, malicious growl she grinned the words, "No more..."

Not even if he tried.

[---End Force Shield App---]



Tears had frozen onto her cheeks and with his face pressed against that matted platinum, Tormentous could feel the violent trembling which shook Kressara down to the marrow of her bones. She was rattling like an engine with no oil and sand in every valve, teeth chattering, stomach lurching, and chest aching, but she held that damnable smile like most warriors clung to their weapons. The girl was spent, but somewhere in there a bubble of defiant laughter clawed its way out of her chest and broke free. Her otherwise effeminate features sharpened into a prideful sneer, but after the laugh came a hardly contained sob. He may have taken it too far, but was this dangerously exhausted breaking state the cause of her quick learning? Was that pressure and desperation responsible for her refusal to fail?

Another confliction between her vicious grinning mask and overexerted whimpers popped off with misplaced comedy from her shivering lips.

"If you want the rest of that memory...you'll have to buy me a few shots first…"