Room 529, Thursday Midday

[weetuskenraider]

As decidedly less than thrilled Tahiri had been about the fact that someone had been able to pick up on her little mental friend so easily, Karla had offered her help. Riina had been pretty quiet lately -- but Tahiri didn't feel like counting on that to last. Although she wasn't holding out too much hope yet that there was actually a chance the girl she'd only just met a few days ago could do something about this problem, it definitely couldn't hurt to find out.

So with Hurley out for a few hours she'd handwavily given Karla a call, then took a seat on her bed to try and meditate for a little while. Talking about that particular experience was always unnerving, and just thinking about it now already had her on edge. Ergo, meditating. Or trying, anyway.

[OOC: Post is for peoples what know who they are, up whoa early for great SP justice and roomie modded with permission. Note to self, in case you forget because you are a flake, details of convo with Karla NFB like whoa, please. Notice for triggeriness: the thread with Karla will concern not-exactly-vague memories of torture, so consider that a heads-up.]

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[glacial_queen]

"Nonononononono!" Karla cried out, flinging herself at Tahiri. "Don't listen, don't give up! They've done something, that's not you, it isn't."

Karla was starting to get an idea of what that second psychic scent was. It was a horrifying, sickening idea, but an idea. And, if she was right, it probably could be fixed. But it would be a long, slow process. These creatures had broken Tahiri and begun to remake part of her, like potters with clay.

*I know you now* she sent on a psychic thread aimed directly at that second thread, at Riina. She bypassed Tahiri entirely. *Your days are numbered, bitch.*

Of course, there was only one problem. There was no way in Hell she could destroy Riina. Doing so would probably kill Tahiri.

[weetuskenraider]

The only response from Riina, after a moment of surprise that she'd been addressed directly, was a snarl of defiance: Krel os'a hmi va ta!

"I couldn't stop them," Tahiri half mumbled, looking up at Karla miserably. "I tried, but I couldn't . . ."

She couldn't tell how much more time had passed, but the pain got more sporadic and yet more systematic. If she thought about her life at the academy or on Tatooine before that, if she called herself Tahiri, if she spoke to them in Basic, the provoker spineray dropped her to the ground in agony. If she remembered a childhood spent on a worldship with her crèchemates, answered their questions in their language -- the pain didn't come. And even when it did she learned to welcome it.

"What is your name?" asked Nen Yim, crouching nearby on the other side of the membrane.

"It is --" A fresh wave of pain cut off the answer she'd been about to give, and only subsided when she told herself that answer was wrong. "My name is Riina Kwaad."

That answer seemed to please the shapers, and the conditioning continued. The same questions were asked day after day, and the answers came with less hesitation. They told her she had been born with certain powers that might have been crippled when the infidels native to this galaxy captured her and tried to make her one of them; they wanted to test that power.

"It didn't hurt," she said in surprise after the first time Mezhan Kwaad asked her to use her powers to lift a stone. "I thought it would hurt."

"You see? Your cure is progressing well. Soon you will remember everything about your life as a Yuuzhan Vong," Mezhan Kwaad promised her.

"I wish," she began, and trailed off wistfully.

"What?"

"I feel like I'm two halves of two different people, glued together," she said. "I wish I were whole again."

"You will be," Mezhan Kwaad answered. "Before you know it, you will be. Now, if you could lift the stone again, please . . ."

[glacial_queen]

Karla had no idea what was said, but she didn't much care, either. *I'm a Sapphire-Jeweled Black Widow Healer Queen. Your better, bitch! If it wouldn't hurt Tahiri as well, I would make you pay for every moment of pain they forced her to endure for your sake.* She knew, technically, Riina wasn't at fault, either. She, like Tahiri, had been shaped by the brutality of the creatures. But she was the reason they had hurt Tahiri so, and it was hard not to strike out for that reason.

It was an impulse Karla would learn to overcome, control, and eventually vanquish. Not today, however, with the torture that was Riina's birthright still occuring in front of her.

"It's okay," Karla soothed Tahiri out loud. "It isn't your fault. No one blames you for not being able to hold them off. The only people here who should feel guilt are these creatures. You are blameless, Tahiri, and innocent. Don't grieve for this. Be glad that your strength was enough to survive. That is all that matters."

[weetuskenraider]

"Innocent? Am I?" Tahiri asked, curled up in as tight a ball as she could manage. The scene shifted again, from the vivarium in the shaper damutek to the ramp of a living Yuuzhan Vong ship.

Mezhan Kwaad held up a nut-shaped vial in one hand, threatening the crowd of warriors with the potent toxin inside; at her feet, Anakin and his Shamed One companion writhed in pain from the wounds she'd inflicted on them with her eight-fingered shaper's hand . . . and was still inflicting, elongated fingers wrapped around Anakin's bleeding forearm and Vua Rapuung's leg. "Nen Yim. Drag those two on board," she commanded, indicating them.

Nen Yim started to follow the order, but when she and Mezhan Kwaad saw Anakin's lightsaber floating up into the air, they hesitated -- at which point Mezhan Kwaad sent more shocks of pain through him.

The lightsaber, undeterred, continued its trajectory . . . right into Tahiri's outstretched hand, where she thumbed it to life and decapitated Mezhan Kwaad.

And looked down, and smiled, and laughed.

[glacial_queen]

Mentally, Karla cheered as Mezhan Kwaad's body collapsed to the ground. Though she felt that the death had been quicker and cleaner than the one that she'd actually deserved, she knew that lingering messy deaths often haunted the killer, even if such things were perfectly justified.

And Tahiri had enough things haunting her already.

Which is why, rather than congratulating Tahiri, she crossed to where she was standing and went to lay a gentle hand on her arm. "Are you okay?" she asked, ignoring the laughter. "Does this act bring you guilt? Joy? Relief? Pain? You can tell me."

[weetuskenraider]

"You saw what she did to me," Tahiri answered, her voice still low and taut. "I wanted to do this. I'm glad I did," she added fiercely, though there was an uncertain undertone to the words.

"Tahiri!" Anakin's voice cut into the conversation; he still sounded choked but at least he could speak now that pain wasn't scrambling his thoughts.

"My friend. My best friend." She stepped away from Karla, moved toward him with his lightsaber still ignited, and lowered the tip of its violet blade hovering barely away from his face. "You left me."

"I've been trying to find you this whole time."

"You aren't real." Her voice still sounded different, and her eyes were cold. "This is a lie."

"It's not a lie, Tahiri." Anakin's blue eyes locked on her own. "You're my best friend. I love you." He didn't flinch when she twitched the blade and sheared off a lock of his hair, but she did. "I love you," he repeated.

She shut her eyes and when she opened them again, the warmth, or a semblance of it at least, had returned.

Tahiri turned to Karla again. "She hurt me. She hurt Anakin. I cut her head off, and I feel like I'm the one who died."

[glacial_queen]

"In my world, there is no law against murder," Karla told Tahiri, her voice both hard and defiant. "We believe everything has a price, and what these things did you you racked up a debt they could never repay. And I'm glad you killed her, too. That wasn't murder, it was justice. That bitch was a mad dog. You don't try to reason with that, you can't force it to see the error of its ways. All you can do is put it down before it hurts someone you love."

Her voice softened. "Killing should never be easy, Tahiri. I think that when it is, you've lost something and regaining that part of you comes with a heavy price. I've killed. He was trying to...hurt me. Badly. He and his friends were trying to break me, and I killed him to protect myself. And even now, I stay up at night and question. Was I right to have done so? Was there another, better way? Am I a bad person for the part of me that was pleased by his death? Neither your joy nor your concern make you a bad person in this. It only proves your essential humanity."

"Fear, loss, rage, agony, confusion over your very self...She forced to to experience all of these. And yet, when it counted, you got control over yourself and you didn't harm the man who loved you. You kept your honor and your integrity, and even your empathy. For everything you lost, think of how much you kept."

[weetuskenraider]

This was the end of the relevant portion of Tahiri's memory. "Revenge isn't the Jedi way," she answered shakily, her voice back to normal. "It's not what we do."

She put extra emphasis on the 'we,' as if it was a pointed statement aimed at Riina, at the dark version of her from Anakin's vision, at what she suspected about the version of her in Ben's time.

"Besides," she added very quietly, glancing back at the now frozen image of Anakin, "I lost him too." That pain wasn't as raw any more, but it was persistent.

[glacial_queen]

Karla didn't have a helpful response to that. The Blood saw things in terms of prices and debts, and trying to explain to Tahiri that her actions were perfectly justified in terms of her moral compass wasn't going to be particularly helpful.

"How did you lose him?" Karla asked gently. "In the aftermath of all this?" Darkness help her, but if this male turned on her after everything that had happened...

[weetuskenraider]

It was a good thing that thought was unvoiced; Tahiri wouldn't have taken the question well at all.

"He died in the war, the year after this," she answered haltingly, eyes still fixed on his memory-image. "We were on a mission . . . he was hurt too badly . . . there wasn't time for a healing trance. Anakin bought us the time we needed, but . . ."

[glacial_queen]

Which was why Karla stayed quiet about things she was unsure of. In cases like this, she had to be trusted and seen as an ally. Not resented for a stupid, off-hand comment.

Funny how much the coven had harped on her about keeping her mouth shut when she was learning about this. It was like they hadn't trusted her to do so or something.

"I am so sorry about your loss," Karla whispered. "He seems like a good male and a better friend. You...cared for him? As more than a friend?"

That explained the start when she'd so carelessly mentioned Professor Skywalker earlier.

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri nodded vehemently. "Sometimes, when they were hurting me, he felt it. We grew up together, did everything together. We never did get around to making any plans, but . . ." Guilt seeped into her expression, and to anyone inclined to notice such things Riina's presence got more assertive. "I never told him, before he died. How much I loved him."

[glacial_queen]

Karla felt Riina move, and sent a wordless snarl down the link. "If he could feel your pain, do you think it's possible he felt your love too? I know it doesn't make up for not getting a chance to say the words, but is it possible he knew anyway?"

[weetuskenraider]

Riina snarled in response, like an animal gone to ground, but withdrew for the time being. Not gone, just biding her time.

"I'd like to think he did." Tahiri laughed softly. "But he could be amazingly dumb sometimes."

[glacial_queen]

Karla wrinkled her nose. "Well, of course he was. He was male. Shocking blindspots seem to be as much a part of their gender as balls are," she said, laughing.

After her laughter faded, she turned to Tahiri with serious eye. "I understand more, now. About Riina's creation and exactly what she is. I have some ideas about her and how to deal with her, but they're going to take some time. I don't want to rush anything. But before I start with anything, I need to know. Tahiri, what exactly do you want me to do, here? What are your hopes, your expectations?"

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri turned bright red and ducked her head for a moment or two; she might be blunt, but in some ways she was still incredibly easily embarrassed.

"I --" She started to speak, and suddenly realized that I want her gone wasn't what she wanted to say. "What I said back then, in the shaper's compound, about wanting to feel whole again . . . that's what I want. I'm tired of being half of one thing and half of another. I don't want to be pulled in two directions at once."

She took a deep breath and continued more slowly. "Anakin had a vision of me, grown up, Yuuzhan Vong, and a dark-side Force user. He came after me by himself to keep that from happening."

In my world, half of that never comes true, Ben had said.

"I won't let it happen either."

[glacial_queen]

Karla breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, good. I thought you were going to ask me to get rid of her. Because I can't. She is a part of you that they created. At first, I assumed that she was some kind of implant, a parasite or something. But she isn't. She's you."

"But I can help merge her into Tahiri-proper. I can help make you whole again."

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri's shoulders slumped; part of her had still wanted to just be rid of Riina, although she'd known -- but hadn't quite wanted to admit -- the prospect had been dwindling. She wasn't the only one who'd grown and learned over the past two years.

"I need some time to think about this," she said quietly.

[glacial_queen]

"I understand," Karla said gently. "It's a lot to take in, and you've been through a lot today. I'm so sorry you had to relive that. Mother Night, I'm so sorry. But we'll work through it, I promise."

[weetuskenraider]

"I'm sorry you had to go through that with me," Tahiri murmured, staring at her hands. "I should have warned you how bad it was going to be."

[glacial_queen]

"It's fine," Karla lied. "I'll be okay. I've seen a...lot of dark things. At home."

That part was true. As a matter of fact, those memories were kind of pressing the surface of her mind. But Karla did her best to keep her expression unruffled and her emotions placid.

[weetuskenraider]

Now that they were out of her memories, Tahiri projected calm toward Karla in the Force. "Well," she said haltingly, "that's . . . now you know."

[glacial_queen]

"Now I know," Karla agreed. "And, as senior Black Widow here, I prescribe a healthy dose of chocolate. For both of us. Possibly some wine, too."

She was fairly proud of her ability to keep it together. But, right now, Tahiri and her emotional well-being were the main targets of her attention. She could fall apart later, but, for now, until she knew Tahiri was okay, Karla was going to continue to be All Right. She owed Tahiri her strength.

"Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?" Karla asked. Bedtime was hours away, but it was always best to be prepared.

[weetuskenraider]

"Eventually, yeah," Tahiri assured her. "Ben's supposed to come by later."

She fiddled with a frayed thread on her trouser cuff and smiled shakily at Karla. "But for now, chocolate sounds good."

[glacial_queen]

"I'm glad that you'll have someone here," Karla said. "After something like that, it's good to have a trustworthy friend drop by." She called in a small vial anyway, and placed it on Tahiri's desk. "It's a sleeping brew," Karla explained. "I made it myself. It's the kind of brew that helps you fall asleep, but doesn't keep you asleep, so you don't have to worry about sleeping through--fire drills or anything." Karla had nearly said 'attacks,' but just because that was what she was concerned about didn't mean that she had to make it a concern of Tahiri's, too. "Though it does make it harder to recall your dreams upon waking." Which would probably be a blessing.

"As for chocolate," she said, snagging the forgotten bag of goodies from J,GOB, "you get first pick."