Merengue B, The Middle of Thursday Night
Oct. 15th, 2009 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weetuskenraiderTahiri was sound asleep, a slight frown on her face, and despite having kicked the covers off hours ago she was sweating.
The situation was far more familiar than she would've liked. Every muscle in her body ached, and it felt like she'd been running forever. Maybe she had; she couldn't shake the feeling of being followed. It was dark, but there weren't any stars up there, not that she could tell with the canyon walls reaching up so high around her. She was exhausted, but she had to keep moving. Had to try and shake her pursuit somehow -- the tingle of danger sense down the back of her neck hadn't let up in a long time.
Tahiri kept going, concentrating so fiercely on just taking one more step that the passage of time only continued to blur. She wasn't in a canyon now -- this was an empty plain, nowhere to hide -- so she kept going. It could have been seconds, it could have been years, she didn't know and she was too tired to care. She wasn't losing any ground on the thing following her, but she wasn't gaining any, either.
And then the plain wasn't so empty any more -- it was covered in senalak stalks, knee-high rigid spikes that looked like ice but would lash out with thorned cords to strangle anything that disturbed them. A Yuuzhan Vong security measure -- one of the things they'd had to face on the Myrkr mission. She froze in place, cursing profusely in her head; the Force wave that Jovan had used to deal with the senalak on Myrkr wasn't one of her strengths and the longer she stood still, the greater her chances of being caught.
Like the Force wave that flattened a path through the field in front of her now. Tahiri didn't stop to question it; just like the last time, she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl along the path as barbed strands whipped over her head.
This was new. This hadn't happened in the dream before.
"This has to be done," she heard a voice saying from behind her. "And you're not making it any easier with that big negatude."
Her own voice, but lower and more guttural, the way Anakin said she'd sounded those times she'd gone weird on him. Her own words -- exactly what she'd said to Anakin when they'd done this at Myrkr.
"I thought I had that stuff closed off," she muttered just like he had when she'd said it the first time.
"You did," replied the shadow-Tahiri at her heels. "This is me. This is us, Tahiri."
Don't. Don't you screw up this memory for me too. She pushed down a surge of fury and despite the burn of exhaustion in her arms and legs picked up the pace, making her way to the clear edge of the patch through sheer force of will . . . and found herself in a chamber in the nautilus-shell swirl of a grashal. Like the place she'd last seen Anakin. Like the shaper's compound where she'd been tortured.
Something was watching her from across the room.
Tahiri took a deep breath and moved toward it with one hand outstretched until it came up against an opaque membrane. She stroked her fingers across the membrane's surface with an instinctive knowledge that made her shudder, and suddenly the membrane was transparent.
She looked up to see her own eyes looking back at her -- out of a mutilated, tattooed, and bloodied Yuuzhan Vong face.
"Tahiri," rasped the low, strange echo of her voice.
"Riina," she answered quietly, and that, when the shock of her danger sense shot down her spine like lightning, was when she realized there was more than one presence watching her.
Riina wasn't looking at her any more, but past her, at some point in the blackness of the chamber; her expression wasn't hostile or angry, but wistful.
"I wish," she began.
"What?" Tahiri asked, and again there was the shock of memory, knowing she'd heard these words before.
Riina turned back to her, green eyes locking on identical green eyes. "I feel like I'm two halves of two different people, glued together. I wish I were whole again."
Tahiri wished those words didn't resonate so much with her. She wished she hadn't been the one who'd said them first. She opened her mouth and drew a breath to respond, and felt the unseen presence in the shadows tense like a predator about to spring.
Instead of answering, she rose abruptly to her feet and turned to go, but Riina's desperate, pleading shriek echoed off the walls and Tahiri cringed as the other girl threw herself against the membrane, clawing at it. She took one step back, watching. The membrane would hold. It had to -- it had held her.
Except . . . the membrane was gone all of a sudden, and Riina was lurching toward her. With a cry of her own, Tahiri turned and started running for the doorway; down the corridor she thought she could make out a familiar figure, just for a moment, but it was gone before she could make out exactly who it was.
"Tahiri!" Riina's fingers closed over her arm, but she wrenched out of the blood-soaked grip and kept running. "You can't just leave me here!"
Couldn't she? She spun to face Riina, both of them frozen in identical poses, and knew in that second that the desperation on Riina's face was a mirror of her own. Riina raised a hand, reaching out to her, and Tahiri's own hand came out to reach back.
The shadowy presence moved closer to both of them, one step, then another. Tahiri's fingertips were a hair's breadth away from brushing against Riina's --
She awoke and blinked sweat out of her eyes as she sat up, breath coming in ragged gasps. Stumbling to the bathroom, she splashed water on her face and hurried out of the cottage to a spot by the lake. She wasn't going to move from there until after the sun came up.
[OOC: Establishy, OOC okay. Oh so very loosely adapted from Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, whose prose I would not inflict upon you in its original form, with bits and pieces adapted from Star by Star by Troy Denning and Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes. I've been meaning to do this for days but writer's block kept foiling me.]
The situation was far more familiar than she would've liked. Every muscle in her body ached, and it felt like she'd been running forever. Maybe she had; she couldn't shake the feeling of being followed. It was dark, but there weren't any stars up there, not that she could tell with the canyon walls reaching up so high around her. She was exhausted, but she had to keep moving. Had to try and shake her pursuit somehow -- the tingle of danger sense down the back of her neck hadn't let up in a long time.
Tahiri kept going, concentrating so fiercely on just taking one more step that the passage of time only continued to blur. She wasn't in a canyon now -- this was an empty plain, nowhere to hide -- so she kept going. It could have been seconds, it could have been years, she didn't know and she was too tired to care. She wasn't losing any ground on the thing following her, but she wasn't gaining any, either.
And then the plain wasn't so empty any more -- it was covered in senalak stalks, knee-high rigid spikes that looked like ice but would lash out with thorned cords to strangle anything that disturbed them. A Yuuzhan Vong security measure -- one of the things they'd had to face on the Myrkr mission. She froze in place, cursing profusely in her head; the Force wave that Jovan had used to deal with the senalak on Myrkr wasn't one of her strengths and the longer she stood still, the greater her chances of being caught.
Like the Force wave that flattened a path through the field in front of her now. Tahiri didn't stop to question it; just like the last time, she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl along the path as barbed strands whipped over her head.
This was new. This hadn't happened in the dream before.
"This has to be done," she heard a voice saying from behind her. "And you're not making it any easier with that big negatude."
Her own voice, but lower and more guttural, the way Anakin said she'd sounded those times she'd gone weird on him. Her own words -- exactly what she'd said to Anakin when they'd done this at Myrkr.
"I thought I had that stuff closed off," she muttered just like he had when she'd said it the first time.
"You did," replied the shadow-Tahiri at her heels. "This is me. This is us, Tahiri."
Don't. Don't you screw up this memory for me too. She pushed down a surge of fury and despite the burn of exhaustion in her arms and legs picked up the pace, making her way to the clear edge of the patch through sheer force of will . . . and found herself in a chamber in the nautilus-shell swirl of a grashal. Like the place she'd last seen Anakin. Like the shaper's compound where she'd been tortured.
Something was watching her from across the room.
Tahiri took a deep breath and moved toward it with one hand outstretched until it came up against an opaque membrane. She stroked her fingers across the membrane's surface with an instinctive knowledge that made her shudder, and suddenly the membrane was transparent.
She looked up to see her own eyes looking back at her -- out of a mutilated, tattooed, and bloodied Yuuzhan Vong face.
"Tahiri," rasped the low, strange echo of her voice.
"Riina," she answered quietly, and that, when the shock of her danger sense shot down her spine like lightning, was when she realized there was more than one presence watching her.
Riina wasn't looking at her any more, but past her, at some point in the blackness of the chamber; her expression wasn't hostile or angry, but wistful.
"I wish," she began.
"What?" Tahiri asked, and again there was the shock of memory, knowing she'd heard these words before.
Riina turned back to her, green eyes locking on identical green eyes. "I feel like I'm two halves of two different people, glued together. I wish I were whole again."
Tahiri wished those words didn't resonate so much with her. She wished she hadn't been the one who'd said them first. She opened her mouth and drew a breath to respond, and felt the unseen presence in the shadows tense like a predator about to spring.
Instead of answering, she rose abruptly to her feet and turned to go, but Riina's desperate, pleading shriek echoed off the walls and Tahiri cringed as the other girl threw herself against the membrane, clawing at it. She took one step back, watching. The membrane would hold. It had to -- it had held her.
Except . . . the membrane was gone all of a sudden, and Riina was lurching toward her. With a cry of her own, Tahiri turned and started running for the doorway; down the corridor she thought she could make out a familiar figure, just for a moment, but it was gone before she could make out exactly who it was.
"Tahiri!" Riina's fingers closed over her arm, but she wrenched out of the blood-soaked grip and kept running. "You can't just leave me here!"
Couldn't she? She spun to face Riina, both of them frozen in identical poses, and knew in that second that the desperation on Riina's face was a mirror of her own. Riina raised a hand, reaching out to her, and Tahiri's own hand came out to reach back.
The shadowy presence moved closer to both of them, one step, then another. Tahiri's fingertips were a hair's breadth away from brushing against Riina's --
She awoke and blinked sweat out of her eyes as she sat up, breath coming in ragged gasps. Stumbling to the bathroom, she splashed water on her face and hurried out of the cottage to a spot by the lake. She wasn't going to move from there until after the sun came up.
[OOC: Establishy, OOC okay. Oh so very loosely adapted from Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, whose prose I would not inflict upon you in its original form, with bits and pieces adapted from Star by Star by Troy Denning and Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes. I've been meaning to do this for days but writer's block kept foiling me.]
