Fate’s Delusions: Shadows of the Past

[Delirion]

(This RP takes place a few months in the past, shortly after Jeseth Cloak’s death, and following the events in <a href=http://pub58.ezboard.com/fcandelabraofmalicefrm3.showMessage?topicID=13.top ic>Angels & Visitations</a>)

<center>all i do
i can still feel you

numb all through
i can still feel you
hear your call
underneath it all
kill my brain
yet you still remain
crucified
after all i’ve died
after all i’ve tried
you are still inside

all i do
i can still feel you

you remain
i am stained</center>

Fleeing. She was fleeing from something she feared she could not hide from. Fleeing from death that had stared her in the face, so inescapable. Fleeing from the shadow at the back of her mind, from the malicious intent of Adalric. But how could she flee from something that she could not escape from?

Adalric was there, would never leave her. Would not give her the freedom to do and think and feel as she wished. Would not let her live, or love, or choose her own fate. Would not let him return.

He. Jeseth. Her brother of the Black Hand.

Oh spirits, what had she done? She had witnessed his death, had been the messenger of his last wish, had been all that - and never realised what it was that tied her to him. Only when his spirit had returned to her, when he had asked for her help - and for that of Adalric - had she known what all these past months she had denied herself. Had known that she would do anything for this man, anything to keep him alive, to return him to the living. And why?

Because she loved him.

But he had come to her, too late. What good was it now, that he was no longer alive, and she could not help him? She had seen him die once before - she could not bear to witness this second death, as his spirit would die, too; could not stand there helpless once more.

She was running; running as fast as she could, away from where he had come to her. She was running to her ship, to anywhere she could go where he could not follow. Minutes passed by and she had no clear recollection of what she was doing - time slipped by in a blurred vision, locations changed without her really noticing where she was going. It didn’t matter… as long as it was taking her away.
Her mind racing under the onslaught of emotions and memories stirred up during the past hour, she could not find calm, could not find time to think.

The ship was carrying her away from the place she had once considered her refuge, her home. But now she could not bear to remain there - black space was all that she could endure. Black space, and the void it almost created in her mind. No memories, no emotions connected to it. Just darkness, and a feeling of weightlessness and speed, as the ship plummeted towards nowhere.

<center><img src=http://delirion.clanpages.com/del/Delirion_7.jpg></center>

[Jaalib Brandl]

Somewhere in that inky blackness of space surrounding the planet Vjun, another ship was waiting. The sole occupant of that ship had been disturbed from his restless sleep by the shrill alarm of a proximity alert – and upon rushing to the cockpit, had spied his prey. How fortunate indeed that it was the ship he had been waiting for.

Now he was following, from a safe distance, fully awake and alert, his heart beating loudly from the excitement and triumph he felt. He was so close now – and determined not to let the other ship’s occupant get away again before he had a chance to meet her.

Jalib Brandl had come a long way to get here. Determined not to follow in his father’s foot-steps, he had decided to become a Jedi; but had soon again parted ways with his Jedi teacher, and embarked on a different journey, to find a long-lost heirloom. After a chance meeting with a somewhat dubious woman who claimed to be his father’s first wife, he had let himself drift along, and soon found himself looking for something quite different. Swept along by the memories of his past, something had sparked within himself when he had heard of the real circumstances of his father’s death… and now, contrary to all that he had promised himself, he was on his way to meet with his father’s murderer.

He had told himself that he simply meant to talk to her; to understand her side of the story. Surely this woman who the old General on Salliche had overheard could not have delivered his father into death without a reason – the reason surely had to have been important, the danger to herself grave, if she had seen the only way out in his death.

But no matter how much he wanted to believe in this, deep in his heart, he knew that he was not true to himself. How many of his recent actions had been influenced by emotions that had nothing to do with following the right path, but instead had followed the path of darker emotions? Was it vengeance he was seeking now?

There were no answers to this; he could find none. The more he tried to understand his own reasoning, the more he feared that he was simply hiding the truth from himself. He feared the true extent of his emotions, the truth behind his actions could only be discovered when he would face her.

Face her. Yes. That was what he would soon do.

He had come to Vjun a day before, to find that his courage had left him. The determination to go down upon the planet and ask for her, confront her in her home, had left him as soon as his ship’s computer had made a sweep for life-signs on the planet. Amongst a sea of hostile wild-life, there were merely four humans on he entire planet – and the environment readings showed him no place he could possibly land other than directly in their front yard.

No – meeting there was not something he had wanted to do. Instead, he had settled in for a long wait, telling himself that she would have to leave some time. And which one of the ships on the planet belonged to her - well, that had been one bit of precious information Moranda had found for him: the Silverthorn. It had been there all the time.

And now it was ahead of him by only a few klicks. There was nothing she could do to escape him now. Keeping at a safe distance, he matched her course and speed, and sat back, smiling grimly to himself.

[Delirion]

No, she could not bear to be witness to this second death. She did not know how he had come to be, how he had kept his spirit alive when his body could not - it seemed there were some powers she had no knowledge of as yet.

It was too horrid; she tried not to think of how it had come to be. To simply imagine the transformation and the pain it must have caused, the confusion and chaos he must have felt... it pained her deeply to think of it.

There had to be something. There had to be a way. There had to be hope - just a small spark of hope that it might yet all change once again, that they might regain what they had lost...

Unconscious of doing so, the co-ordinates she finally entered into the navigational computer were ones already familiar - maybe too familiar, to her. They led back to the small backwater world of Rannon, where she had once met another Dark Jedi, and come under his spell.

Events had changed too fast - she had no memory of his fate. Perhaps that was the reason why her ship now was on its way back to that small planet, to seek out Danaan Kerr - and find another answer from another one of her mentors.

At the back of her mind, Adalric's voice was raging.