Tahiri Veila (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
weetuskenraider) wrote2009-07-05 02:13 pm
weetuskenraider) wrote2009-07-05 02:13 pm
Wendy the Werewolf Stalker Alcove B1, Sunday Late Afternoon
Tahiri took her sleep when and where she could get it lately, which wasn't nearly as regularly as she'd like. And yes, part of that was her trying to avoid the dreams. They'd been a problem for two years now, ever since the fall of Yavin 4 and her time in the Yuuzhan Vong shaper compound, but they'd been more frequent since her last trip to Coruscant, more vivid since she'd taken Karla into her memories and relived her torture, more complicated since she'd learned certain things from Ben. And worse by far, of course, since Myrkr. In combination, it really wasn't conducive at all to sleep.
There was only so long she could go, though, before the healing trances she wasn't very good at yet didn't do the trick any more, and by the time she was done getting settled into her cabin the exhaustion had pretty much won out, so Tahiri gave in, stretched out on the bed in her alcove, and closed her eyes.
She remembered this place very well. Not an asteroid in the Yag'Dhul system, like they'd thought, but the yorik coral hull of a Yuuzhan Vong scout ship. "Switch off your comm and touch your helmet to mine." It was Anakin's voice, tinny and distorted through both the comlink and the helmets of the vac suits they wore.
Tahiri, as always, did as he asked; it was only in the dreams, though, that she strained this hard to see his features through two sets of reflective-alloy faceplate. Anakin didn't get right to the point -- he stalled for a while, so unlike him except for when it had something to do with her, but finally he called her on the Yuuzhan Vong battle cry she'd yelled when she came to rescue him on Eriadu. And that, as it turned out, led into even more awkward conversation.
"I had a vision about you. At least I think it was a vision," he said.
Tahiri knew by now what the vision was, but that didn't stop her dream self from saying, "Go on."
"You were grown up. You were, umm, scarred up and tattooed like Tsavong Lah. You were Jedi, but dark. I could feel the darkness radiating from you."
"Oh." She denied it, of course. She always did, telling him it wasn't going to happen like that, that he'd come to get her before they could finish shaping her, that she'd never end up like the version of her Anakin had seen in that vision. But in the dreams she heard herself saying it in Yuuzhan Vong, and Anakin called her on that too; she objected to that as well. "It's just words," she said vehemently, "and I would never hurt you."
There was a pause before the reply. "Who said anything about you hurting me?" Anakin asked -- or was it Ben? Tahiri couldn't see through their helmets, and the sound was distorted; suddenly she wasn't sure.
"I just assumed, in your vision, I was --" Tahiri stopped there. Threatening you, she'd said at the time, but had it been worse than that? She could have threatened Anakin; some version of her had done worse to Ben.
"No," replied the voice, and now she was sure again that it was Anakin. "No, it was like I was looking through someone else's eyes, not my own. I don't think I was there. But whoever it was -- you said something about them being the last. Just before you killed them."
She told him, as sure about it now as she had been then, that she'd never join the Yuuzhan Vong. It was, a more conscious part of her mind realized, a very specific statement. And then there wasn't anything more to be said, and they stood silent in their vac suits until, wanting desperately to hold on to a time when things had been simpler, she reached a hand toward him, and he began to reach back. Her gloved fingers curled around his hand, and the ground beneath them started to vibrate --
-- shockwaves from explosions rocked the floor of the grashal all around them, and Tahiri was aware of Tekli trying to revive Tesar somewhere nearby, of Anakin ordering her to help her, to go with them, but she couldn't stop looking at the blood on Anakin's suit. She didn't need the battle meld to know what it meant; her Force bond with Anakin was powerful and intimate enough that she could feel him fading.
"I'll be along," he told her, and she knew, she'd always known, that it wasn't going to be true.
Even in the dreams, she couldn't make herself give him that last kiss she'd held back, and she still heard herself say, "No, for that you have to come back." Still heard herself barely whisper "May the Force be with you" as she turned away, no matter how much she tried to make herself go back, kiss him that last time, tell him in no uncertain terms that she loved him.
As she levitated the unconscious Tesar, Tahiri glanced toward the doorway they'd come in and didn't see the access tunnel, but a glimpse of Fandom on a sunny summer day, and she wanted to run toward it. Wanted to, and started to, but --
She paused and turned back to where Anakin had been, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, something, anything to tell her it was okay, but by the time Tahiri had retraced her steps she felt the familiar gaping hole in the Force where Anakin had always been, and she knew -- again-- that he was gone.
That was when she woke, as she always did. Tahiri immediately made her way to the bathroom to splash water on her face -- that was a little trickier in the cabin, especially when she was disoriented -- then headed back to her alcove.
Not that she'd be sleeping this time.
[OOC: Just establishy, NFI, and for serious, I was planning on this before I knew![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trickster_twin was doing something really similar, but it's kind of an awesome coincidence. Bits and pieces of this have been borrowed and tweaked from Edge of Victory 2: Rebirth by Greg Keyes and the evil, evil, evil Star by Star by Troy Denning. OOC's okay though.]
There was only so long she could go, though, before the healing trances she wasn't very good at yet didn't do the trick any more, and by the time she was done getting settled into her cabin the exhaustion had pretty much won out, so Tahiri gave in, stretched out on the bed in her alcove, and closed her eyes.
She remembered this place very well. Not an asteroid in the Yag'Dhul system, like they'd thought, but the yorik coral hull of a Yuuzhan Vong scout ship. "Switch off your comm and touch your helmet to mine." It was Anakin's voice, tinny and distorted through both the comlink and the helmets of the vac suits they wore.
Tahiri, as always, did as he asked; it was only in the dreams, though, that she strained this hard to see his features through two sets of reflective-alloy faceplate. Anakin didn't get right to the point -- he stalled for a while, so unlike him except for when it had something to do with her, but finally he called her on the Yuuzhan Vong battle cry she'd yelled when she came to rescue him on Eriadu. And that, as it turned out, led into even more awkward conversation.
"I had a vision about you. At least I think it was a vision," he said.
Tahiri knew by now what the vision was, but that didn't stop her dream self from saying, "Go on."
"You were grown up. You were, umm, scarred up and tattooed like Tsavong Lah. You were Jedi, but dark. I could feel the darkness radiating from you."
"Oh." She denied it, of course. She always did, telling him it wasn't going to happen like that, that he'd come to get her before they could finish shaping her, that she'd never end up like the version of her Anakin had seen in that vision. But in the dreams she heard herself saying it in Yuuzhan Vong, and Anakin called her on that too; she objected to that as well. "It's just words," she said vehemently, "and I would never hurt you."
There was a pause before the reply. "Who said anything about you hurting me?" Anakin asked -- or was it Ben? Tahiri couldn't see through their helmets, and the sound was distorted; suddenly she wasn't sure.
"I just assumed, in your vision, I was --" Tahiri stopped there. Threatening you, she'd said at the time, but had it been worse than that? She could have threatened Anakin; some version of her had done worse to Ben.
"No," replied the voice, and now she was sure again that it was Anakin. "No, it was like I was looking through someone else's eyes, not my own. I don't think I was there. But whoever it was -- you said something about them being the last. Just before you killed them."
She told him, as sure about it now as she had been then, that she'd never join the Yuuzhan Vong. It was, a more conscious part of her mind realized, a very specific statement. And then there wasn't anything more to be said, and they stood silent in their vac suits until, wanting desperately to hold on to a time when things had been simpler, she reached a hand toward him, and he began to reach back. Her gloved fingers curled around his hand, and the ground beneath them started to vibrate --
-- shockwaves from explosions rocked the floor of the grashal all around them, and Tahiri was aware of Tekli trying to revive Tesar somewhere nearby, of Anakin ordering her to help her, to go with them, but she couldn't stop looking at the blood on Anakin's suit. She didn't need the battle meld to know what it meant; her Force bond with Anakin was powerful and intimate enough that she could feel him fading.
"I'll be along," he told her, and she knew, she'd always known, that it wasn't going to be true.
Even in the dreams, she couldn't make herself give him that last kiss she'd held back, and she still heard herself say, "No, for that you have to come back." Still heard herself barely whisper "May the Force be with you" as she turned away, no matter how much she tried to make herself go back, kiss him that last time, tell him in no uncertain terms that she loved him.
As she levitated the unconscious Tesar, Tahiri glanced toward the doorway they'd come in and didn't see the access tunnel, but a glimpse of Fandom on a sunny summer day, and she wanted to run toward it. Wanted to, and started to, but --
She paused and turned back to where Anakin had been, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, something, anything to tell her it was okay, but by the time Tahiri had retraced her steps she felt the familiar gaping hole in the Force where Anakin had always been, and she knew -- again-- that he was gone.
That was when she woke, as she always did. Tahiri immediately made her way to the bathroom to splash water on her face -- that was a little trickier in the cabin, especially when she was disoriented -- then headed back to her alcove.
Not that she'd be sleeping this time.
[OOC: Just establishy, NFI, and for serious, I was planning on this before I knew
trickster_twin was doing something really similar, but it's kind of an awesome coincidence. Bits and pieces of this have been borrowed and tweaked from Edge of Victory 2: Rebirth by Greg Keyes and the evil, evil, evil Star by Star by Troy Denning. OOC's okay though.]