Self Centered

[Hera]

It was all about her.

It had always been about her.

Hera had always -and ever - been loyal and whole-heartedly dedicated to her own well being and self-advancement. It was who she was. Is.

It would always be about her.

She did not apologize for this. Why should she? The most predatory of creatures were instinctively, and naturally, given to their own preservation. From the great wild cats of the Endorian Forrests, to the hairy Wampa's of the Hoth icefields - normal behaviour was to survive and thrive in their surrounding environment.

As a Sith, this disposition had served only to enhance her focus - and her understanding of the dark side. In the beginning, it had come easily for her to explore and embrace the negative aspects of her humanity and expand them - feeding and strengthening them in the force. She had learned quickly to starve the more tender aspects of the nurturing femininty that was often such a hinderence in many female adepts, giving her a detatched and stunted emotional scope. It left Hera little room for the care of others and her life reflected such an atrophy. She had no husband, no children. Few, if any, real friends. Even less lovers, whom she took and discarded with as little care as deciding what to eat for breakfast. And it had been many years since she'd had that meal. She was estranged from her real family and had no contact with them in decades.

Hera's life consisted of her, and her alone.

Some might call this a lonely and miserable existence. But that is because they don't know the power of the darkside. It consumes all. It satisfies all - at least, all that matters.

And so, given her present circumstances - the complete bereftness of the darkside force from her access - Hera was, of all people, the most miserable.

She had nothing.

No one.

Even her student in the darkside laws, the Admiral Tear, was still vanished.

She was alone. Completely, on her own.

Standing in the luxuriant surroundings of her day room she stared out at the constellations beyond. Brilliant pins of light in a sea of velvet ebony.

Her bitterness salivated in her mouth.

In the pit of her stomach, her insides clenched.

She must change her circumstances.

She. No one else would do it for her.

Not Valten. Nor Helghast. Certainly, not Tear.

She was all she had.

Herself.

Hera.

And it was time to re-find the Darkness.

[Hera]

She depressed a switch on the wall with her index finger and the blinds in silent obedience closed over the outside view, casting the room into darkness.

The Sith struck a match and lit a solitary candle. She lifted it from a low table and moved with it towards her bedroom. Above her, IMP hovered in relentless observance - her ever-present companion and one of her most hated captors. She stopped in the doorway, turning on her heel and looking up at the gleaming droid, its red 'eye' brilliant in contrast to the darkness surrounding it.

"Do you mind?" she sniped, annoyance clearly conveyed in her tone. "I am allowed some space you know. After all this time, some private mediation isn't too much to expect, is it?" The droid rotated slightly, much the way a person would incline the head an inch or so in order to hear a discreet remark. Helghast was having his say. Hera steamed inwardly as IMP began to propell forward into the room. She shot up an arm, slapping her palm against the droid's bulk and halting its advance, its red eye semi-screened by her spread fingers.

She forced herself to speak calmly.

"I want an hour to myself, surely you can allow that?"

A short, sharp jolt of electricity was the reply and Hera pulled back her hand with a yelp. Damn Helghast. She'll cut the mans eyes out with a blowtorch first chance she gets.

Sucking at her palm, Hera watched the orb sail past her and take up position in a corner of her room. She followed it inside, resigning herself to the situation, even more fuelled with determination to find some shred, no matter how small or hidden, of the inner force that had been so long eluding her.

Sitting on the carpeted floor, the candle set a few feet infront of her, Hera did her best to ignore the presence of the watchful droid, and, taking a deep, centering breath, the former Sith Master cast her mind back to twenty years ago, and began to remember..

[Hera]

.....


The rain fell in near silence, muffled by the soft fog that veiled the woods and hung like bands of rotting silk between the trees. Trunks and branches alike appeared detatched and severed from any tangible conneciton to the earth, wreathed in the ethereal mist - their true shape hidden and their real form changing as the air moved, and the fog with it. The fog's creeping rendered everything damp and slightly distorted. It gave a feeling of unsettled quiet, and, of a shrouded malice that at any moment - a shift in the wind or the passing of a cloud - might reveal it.

Hera squirmed slightly, the leaves were wet and their chill damp was seeping through her clothing and into her skin. She had been astrew her leafy couch for over two hours and her toes were beginning to numb. Lying on the ground beside her, her Master scowled. His enourmous frame dwarfed that of her own by 1-2 feet at either end, and his width was easily three of hers. He didn't seem to feel the slightest discomfort. Hera didn't know if that was from his years of self-discipline, or simply because he was a creature different to herself by species and background both. It didn't matter. What did matter, was that she was weak, much weaker than he, and this failing irritated him. She could tell by the way his brows were knotting.

She thought frantically of some excuse to give for her lack of concentration, but knew to voice such would only damn her further in his esteem.

"Forgive me Master" she said, knowing from past experience that he much prefered her owning to a mistake than the farce of some clumsy attempt to conceal it.

She let a moment or two pass, at the least it was enough time for the brows to relax once more, before she spoke again.

"I don't feel it yet" she said softly, but in complete earnest, "The Force is clamouring all about me - in the earth, in the wind, in this cursed fog. But I cant sense the dark threads yet. I hear the earthworms wriggling in the soil. I hear the centipedes running along the bark. But there is so much life, so much light, that I can't hear the darkness."

Hera feared her Master. Feared to disappoint him. She ever feared he might cast her off for her weakness and failure to grasp his lessons. But she feared to loose his instruction more than anything else. And so she risked to speak so honestly, for she knew, if he was pleased to answer her, she would be richly rewarded.

[Hera]

His answer took so long to come that Hera had decided one wasn't coming at all. Maybe she had to work the answer out for herself. Maybe that was the lesson? Maybe it was one of those cryptic tricks of the obvious cloaked in--

"Will you be still" her Master rumbled, "Your inward prattling is annoying"

Hera hadn't realised she'd been prattling..maybe she was, she--

"Hera!"

The blond forced herself to blank her mind immediately. "Yes, Master"

"You are impatient. And lack experience. The one I can fix, the other not."

Hera held her tongue, waiting for the giant beside her to elaborate. Instead, he got up to his feet and started walking, picking sodden leaves off his limbs as he moved. Hera quickly followed suit, hurrying to keep up to his much larger stride.

She was almost caught up to him, when he spun and, holding out an enormous green hand, stopped her short as she collided into it with a dull thud.

"No - you stay here" he ordered.

Her blue eyes clouded - he was punishing her, making her to stay and freeze her tail off.

Her Master heaved a long-suffering sigh. Again his student had missed the point. This pupil was proving to be quite a trial of his own patience.

"Dont come back until you've found the tunnel" he said

"The what?"

"There is no point in coming back if you dont find it" he admonished, and inwardly, it saddened him to say it. Hera showed great promise, but certain skills must be present in order for her to cope with the dark truths he would show her. Not many moved beyond this point. Fewer still remained viable vessels even if they did. Hera did not yet know that this task was a make-or-break exercise.

This may be the last time the Sith Master would ever speak to his young apprentice.

"I will wait for you" he said and turned his back on her with finality. Now, it was up to her.

[Hera]

She watched in silence until her Master was eventually lost to sight amidst the trees. He hadn't looked back, and she had not expected him to, but she still couldn't turn until he was gone.

Her mind searched over the morning's events, and other past lessons she had had with him, but despite her effort, Hera could not recall mention of any 'tunnel' before.

Was it a real tunnel - a physical, definable place? Or was he speaking in spiritual terms, a tunnel of the mind?

She had no idea, and the fact irritated her, souring her already unhappy mood. "Dont 'spose the tunnel could have been on some sunny beach in the tropics some place, huh" she grumbled to her absent Master, "Gotta spend my time grubbing about in the compost like a snail.."

Hera tilted her head skyward, confirming what she thought was causing the soft tapping on her hooded cloak -- it had started raining. Lovely.


**************

It had been raining non-stop for 2 days. At times it was just as light as a mist, at others it would thunder down by the bucketfulls. But mostly it was a steady downpour, as it was now, leaving everything sodden and miserable.

Hera had first begun her search for the tunnel by the more spiritual means. She had returned to the grove where she and her Master had originally settled. With her back propped against the trunk of an old-growth Redwood, she had reeled in her mind and gone through the excercises of the Dark side, so far as she knew them. Time and again her efforts brought her to solid walls until eventually she persuaded herself to look to a more linear course of action.

It was night-time before she moved from the Redwood, and she was feeling very cold and very hungry. Darkness was a factor now, and she could not see much, even with her activated lightsaber held up high to radiate some light, the going was precarious. Many times she stubbed her toes on rocks and roots and caught her sleeves and cloak on thorny bushes or naggardly branches. A tunnel, if it were to be found any where, she reasoned, would be nearer the mountains. A cave or some such. And from the woods, she headed north.

By the next morning, and all the next day, Hera was no nearer her goal.

Fatigue, hunger, exposure. These were the least of her concerns as for the first time, she began to fear she would actually fail this task. Hera fought down a desperate feeling she had hereto never experienced before.

Before, in any task, one learned it by trying, and trying again. But he had told her to not return until she found the tunnel. What if she couldn't find it? What if she wasn't allowed to return? That could not happen. She must find it.

A sense of panic began to sweep over her emotions as the hours continued to pass and still she had no sign whatever, no hint of direction, as to the tunnel location. She was becoming increasingly disorientated and she was certain hypothermia was making it difficult for her to think straight, but yet she felt powerless to combat it. Hera felt like she was flailing about in an overwhelming current with no means to anchor herself. She had the ability, of course, but not the experience to tap into it in order to do so.

A violent shivering began to wrack her body, and Hera felt the desperate need to sleep.

She was failing, she could feel herself slipping.

All she could think of, and her desperation made her frantic, All she could think of -

She was going to loose everything.




******************

Seated in a large, overstuffed chair beside a blazing fire place, Hera's Master had not moved for many hours. In other wings of the great house, the rest of his family and servants went about their usual business - their muffled sounds of movement registering only slightly on his peripheral consciousness.

Hunched slightly forward, eyes hooded as if in slumber, one might mistake the Dark Lord for stealing a nap in the warmth of his study. But one would be mistaken.

Sith Master Ogre Mal Pannis was not sleeping. Nor was he in his study, not really. While his low steady breath lifted and lowered his huge chest in rhythmic regularity, his ethereal form stood in the cold, continuous rain of the ancient forrest watching his struggling apprentice teeter on the ledge of success and failure. Watched as she slipped on the precipice that divided life, and death.

***********************

[Hera]

<i>Hera's eyes sprang open.

They could only have been closed for an instant, an instant only, as she was still standing. Though, swooning would be more accurate a description. She was holding on desparately though the desire to just fall down and sleep was overwhelming. If she gave in, however, closed her eyes and slept, she was not likely to ever open them again. She knew she was suffering the effects of exposure, but still held the mental awareness to know enough to not yeild to it.

The situation made her angry.

"What stupid tunnell!!" she yelled out in frustration, lifting her hands and channelling a violent pulse of the force through her being. The leaves and debris of the forrest floor whipped up into a funnel of frenzied
turmoil about her body. The tops of the enormous old-growth trees bent backwards and the lower branches shook in agitation at the unnatural disturbance. Within the epicenter of this minor force-storm, Hera screamed aloud, adding her own personal touch of chaos to the malestrom.

It lasted just moments - a lifetime for anything caught within the sphere or the tumult. A number of small creatures caught within did not survive the onslaught, but they were inconsequential as far as the darksider was concerned.

When Hera's fit subsided, she was drained and droppoed dejectedly to her knees, her head bowed. The forrest grew quiet and disconsolate around her. Nature itself was unforgiving of her assault against it and stood grim sentinal around her, watching eagerly for hypothermia to claim her.

She opened her eyes, this time much slower than the time before.

In front of her sat Ogre, http://sw-fans.net/forum/images/usr/customavatars/avatar2823_1.gif His dual facial tusks only an inch from her face as she knelt on the carpet of his study. He didn't move, and as Hera peered closer, she could see reflected in his half-hooded eyes this very scene - her kneeling, he sitting - as if she were a third-person observer. There was an odd silence that attended the setting, and afterward, Hera would puzzle on it. For now, though, she made to speak, but a log in the fireplace spat and sizzled in the hearth, making her turn quickly to look at it.

The resulting vertigo from her sudden movement threw Hera back off her knees and onto the ground with a thump. Gone was the fireplace, the rug, her Master and the unearthly quiet. The leaves were wet and stank of rot against her face and the rain was coming down heavier again, beating out a deafening thrum.

Her Master had seen enough. He wrapped his cloak around him to thwart the billowing wind's attempt to whip it from him and like a mist that gives way before the morning sun, the Sith Master allowed his presence to slip softly away. With him departed a cloaking darkness he had held in place to
hide a roughly constructed shelter, and from its doorway, a young woman with braided brown hair called out.

"Hera!"

The darkside apprentice squinted through the driving rain, assuming at first that she was hallucinating. But the hallucination kept on calling out.

"Hera! Come in where its dry!"

Hera lifted her head, still not trusting her eyes, yet slowly registering that the vision was a person somewhat familiar to her, "Who are you?"

"Come inside" came the shouted reply, "Its done"</I>

[Hera]

The room felt cold, but that was just the mind playing tricks - the psychological effecting the physical - as the room temperature had remained the same.

Hera flicked open her eyes. The candle had burnt down, the remainder of the blackened wick coiled in the now congealing wax as it cooled. IMP remained static, a slight increase in the radiance of its red eye the only response to Hera's now altered awareness.

The woman calling to her in the forrest had been a clone her old Master had once created - the product of long and laborious experimentation that had eventually rewarded him with some successes.

She had attended Hera in the little shack, restoring her health with warm broth and cool water, and some form of medicinal ointment that had brought on a welcome recovery.

<i>"I think I found that frelling tunnel at last"</i> Hera remembered saying groggily.

<i>"I know" </i>the clone had replied, <i>"He wouldn't have let you see me if you hadn't" </i>

Sitting on the floor in her room of the Inquistitoriate, Hera began to understand why this particular event from the past had come into her mind. She had found her ability A) from a place of desperation - something that had morphed into a lethargic acceptance of status quo in her present circumstances as a prisoner of Project Nightmare and B) there had been a catalyst of some kind. Some form of focusing agent. In the history of the Sith, focusing agents had come in different forms - the most notable being Crystals or Amulets. Hera had owned an Amulet once, given to her by Ogre himself, but that had been lost in the swampy mires of the Mykyrr boglands upon her first escape to the planet.

Back in the woods, the agent had not been a single tangible item, but the sodden forrest ground itself. The particular place where Hera had dropped to her knees had once been an altar of dedication for the Sith Lord Aru'N Dire. Ogre had known its history and had waited to see if the force would draw his apprentice to it. The outcome had not disappointed him.

Hera unfolded herself from the floor and stood, stretching the stiffness from her limbs. She allowed a guarded smile as she flicked the IMP droid with her fingers. An idea had come to mind, that, for the first time in what was her loosers role in the Inquisitions game, gave her hope of clawing her way back to some semblence of a winning hand.

"Im hungry" she said looking directly into the Unit's red eye. And repeating for Helghasts benefit as much as for her own, "Suddenly, Im really very hungry."

[Hera]

Acknowledgement: OOC Thanks to 'Big Green' for his permission for me to write his character, Ogre, in this story. I hope I did him justice :)