Miasma: A Sun That Never Sets [complete]

[imported_Taja Loraan]

A sun that never sets burns on
New light is this river's dawn

When to speak of a word so old
Is to relearn what is known
A time to think back and move on
Rebuild the loves of lives long gone

The blood that flows through me is not my own
The blood is from the past, not my own
The blood that leads my life is not my own
The blood is my strength, I'm not alone...

***

Hush...

Taja ran her fingers over the coarse wall, the condensed water trickling down the uneven surface to settle in invisible crevices. Along with the rivulets, there came cries; screams embedded deep within the very edifice of Bast. They were aged, mournful, yet their sorrowed laments never ceased, never paused in their remembrance of times past. It was for them that all other voices within the castle were quiet, as though in silent reverence of spirits for whom solace had forever been denied.

Don't breathe a word.

Pressing her palm against the stone, she exhaled slowly; the voices were maddening in their incessant despondency. The Dark Jedi focused elsewhere, on the physical cold: suicide was a tried and tested formula, and their calls resonated with that very message. Wrenching her down, drowning all thoughts in hopelessness ... there was no release, save to veil the bereaved echoes in her own tendrils of shadow.

They wept, and she wept with them.

Taja heard all, and in that there existed both her greatest ally and the curse which had damned her into this pathetic shell.

Now, there resounded inside her mind a different voice, mirroring her own in its genesis. One who had not been born, but was instead conceived by a young girl in tribulation, given truth and form through the pains of an innocence lost. She looked down the passageway.

"Master?"

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

Deep within the lower tunnels of Bast Castle, a figure sat alone against a cracked stone wall. She hummed to herself a tune that has not been heard in over three centuries past, methodically rocking her head back and forth. Sometimes she even hit the back of her head against the fractured stone at the change in tempo. Never to cause pain .. No. It was a way of thanking the hallowed voices within the Castle to share such memories with her. Making them a part of her moment.

She could hear the symphony clearly as if but only yesterday. It was like sitting three rows from the front of the stage and feeling all the turbulent emotions that came with it!

Sadness, anger, love and glory! All rolled into one little sonnet ....

Then her eyes snapped opened at the call of her title of Master.

Taja was lurking around these parts and was curious as to how her Apprentice found her way down here. This was a special location for Dalethria. It was almost like sacred ground for the recently returned member of the Black Hand.

It was here, in this very end corridor, that Delirion had helped Dalethria exorcise the demon from mind. Finally gaining complete control of her mental capacity from the aftermath of Daalethria's death. The twisted and malicious clone that was killed and Dalethria had unwillingly become a victim upon her death ... But ... that was a story of another life.

This was about Taja. She needed her Master greatly for she too heard the voices. They were driving her mad!

"Over here, my darling Taja."

It echoed through the corridors, bouncing here and there ... making it seem like Dalethria was everywhere at once.

"Over here."

She repeated again. Slowly. If Taja wanted the voices to stop, the girl would have to find her.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Seeking out her Master was not so great an ordeal as was the case when Taja had first set foot within the walls of Bast, when the voices had first embraced her. The hall extended in one direction only; but more importantly, as Dalethria's words reverberated in the corridor, they seemed lost in the torrent of misery, much as though it was greeting an old friend. Not only that, it was ... singing??

Withdrawing her hand, Taja allowed herself to be fully immersed in their calls. They sang of fury, loss, death and dejection, but also of love, victory ... hope. It was an absurd concept, and yet one soothing nonetheless in its perversity.

Whereas normally Dalethria's maddening echoes - meshed together with the other inhabitants of Bast - would have steered her further into the depths of lunacy, they now carried with them an air of decisiveness, of resolution. Just as they had lured her down to these tunnels, they now enticed Taja to follow the sound of their music. And she did.

Her footfalls in step with the warped melody, Taja slowed her pace as the figure of a stooped woman became visible. At that same moment, the song hit a deep bass note. She almost winced as the grave interlude came into play.

"Why do they cry?"

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

She kicked at a stone on the ground with her foot as if playing with it like a small child.

"Why do they sing?"

Dalethria knew why they sing. Taja knew why they sang too for she was staring at the reason.

"Because of me. They are happy to have me home again."

Her back shifted against the cracked wall in the hopes of finding a more comfortable spot.

"But ... I think there is a better question to be asked..."

Patting the ground next to her, Dalethria finished her sentence in a sing song voice.

"... Why does darling Taja hear the voices!"

Taja picked up on the tune immediately. Her Master was signing along her words with the new song the voices had decided upon.

It was a song of curiosity but for the Apprentice, it quickly shifted into the beckoning wails of despair and loneliness. They called out loudly to Taja, wanting the deadly rose to join them in their choir!

[imported_Taja Loraan]

The voices switched their ballad to accommodate for the change in atmosphere, and with it the Apprentice's patience began to evaporate. It wasn't honest inquisitiveness that she heard, but rather ... mockery. They laughed at her. They scolded her for being so inept, ridiculed her impertinence.

And what for?? She had never once asked them to speak to her, nor called for the voices to unleash upon her their howls of pain. They were just ... there. Taja did not protest ... for in their twisted screams, their also existed an understanding. Perhaps that was what angered her most now: during her time away from here she had been alone, isolated within her own thoughts. She felt abandoned; and now that she was finally returned, how dare they rebuke her!

"Darling Taja hears because she listens. Because she can listen."

Her throat was dry, tight; she swallowed, but it was to little effect. The spirits too were forsaken; and from their mournful blaspheme there dawned on her a new realization.

"Because she too sings their song."

Following Dalethria's gesture, Taja sat on the ground beside the Dark Mistress and hugged her knees. She opened her thoughts to the voices, allowing them to reach and touch that which hurt her. They repeated the sonnet, over and over and over. Repeated until she too hummed their tune.

"And what of her Master? Why have they chosen her?"

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

The spirit voices were an entity that require respect and a certain insanity to understand them ... Even hear them at all. As soon as Dalethria had stepped foot in these hallowed halls, they had screamed in her mind! It was only through sitting, staring at the walls with nothing to do did Dalethria even gain a glimpse into what was really being shown.

"I was born out of insanity. When I came here I was mad. Now when I return my mind is my own but never have I forgotten my family here."

Her arms outstretched, brushing lightly against the top of Taja's knees.

"I have not forsaken the lost ones within the stones."

She smiled and rolled her head to look over at her Apprentice, playfully shoving her knee.

"You and I are alike remember. Similar yet different. Different in flesh but the same in mind."

And then the wails raged higher, catching Dalethria off guard somewhat. It had to be deafening for one untrained like Taja to hear the screeches and high pitched moans.

"Different in flesh but same in mind."

She repeated and closed her eyes again, smiling to herself...

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Taja gasped; she hadn't expected the voices to change again so abruptly. This melody seethed with a new passion, such that she heard their wails only as strident, incoherent screeches.

"You lie ... "

They echoed in her mind, tempting its other residents to follow suit. The one voice of reason, the only remnant of her old self, was drowned in the chaos. And without that restraint, there was nothing to prevent Taja from transforming into the beast she really was.

Her hazel irises flickered crimson, lips curling back to reveal elongated canines -

No.

She bit down into her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes closed. Control, they needed to be controlled ... but how? She was but a mere pawn. She couldn't do this; whatever faith Dalethria had in her was a fallacy. Taja depended heavily on her voices, and the spirits of Bast were well aware of this. They nudged the whispers in the back of her mind, coaxing them to make themselves heard.

If she was entirely submissive to their calls, she would fall. If she resisted, she was mad.

You are alone.

Alone ... stranded. Ignored.

Worthless.

"YOU LIE!!!"

Chest heaving, she sputtered the words to no one in particular. Her ears rang with laughter, but she was past caring. Dalethria had accepted her as an Apprentice, mentored her in the Dark Arts ... but for what purpose? What had Taja done in return? Why did the Dark Mistress still bother??

Spinning around to face her Master with a look of defiance and mistrust, she hissed through clenched teeth.

"You lie. We are not the same in mind, because whereas you have mastered your madness, mine still plays me for a fool!"

With a choking sob, Taja slackened her jaws and shrieked into the darkness, unearthly and shrill.

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

"Fine."

The word was flat. Apathetic and brutal.

"Believed that I have lied to you. Fine!"

Dalethria stood up, laughing as she threw her head back ... It was almost as if mocking her until the towards the end when Taja felt a coldness radiating from her Master.

Suddenly, she turned around and planted a boot across her neck. The strength was still the same; just as she remembered. Unwavering power that Dalethria had stored within the fibers of her muscles and buried deeply inside the marrow of her bones. Taja could still breath in gasps but it was becoming quite the issue.

What worried the Apprentice more was the lack of movement her body could accomplish.... Arms and legs felt like they were weighted down with cement, as was her whole body....

Dalethria's doing of course. Her mastery over telekinesis was well know to Taja ...

"You know being me isn't easy. You saw it for yourself! Every moment of my life until she was destroyed I jockeyed for position in my own mind for years!!! I was at least strong enough to overcome them in time! Basts spirits testing my own will and I succeeded! I became stronger!

You on the other hand might as well drown in them for all I care for misplacing your trust in me, Taja!"

The malice Taja heard next in Dalethrai's chuckled caused her sense of danger to heighten as the voices backed her Master's judgement ten fold!

Her chuckling mirrored Bast's denizens and then grew to laughter ... They wanted Dalethria to call them forth and take Taja down now! Her mental capacity wouldn't be able to take the full blown shock of hundreds of voices on top of Taja's own demons.... Only Dalethria was keeping them at bay.

"Tick ..."

A smile.

"... I let them loose ..."

It grew wider.

"Tock ... I release you ... Tick ... Tock ... Tick ... Tock ..."

At this moment, it would take a miracle from Taja to survive this. The dishonor she had shown her Master cut deeply ...

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Taja giggled. She seemed to have upset the spirits, for they wanted to strangle her … choke her, suffocate her in their madness. Funny; they were quiet enough until she spoke out against her Master. They guided her through Bast’s winding tunnels and into Dalethria’s private halls … Now they laughed. Oh, the irony; she too saw the humor, yes. It was all very amusing.

"So kill me."

The sniggering escalated to uncontrolled, icy laughter, matching that of the voices before coming to an abrupt halt as she violently threw her head back into the wall. All at once they fell silent, awaiting some explanation for her sullying their home. She remained facing the ceiling, the livid marks from when Dalethria had grabbed her by the neck so long ago only just beginning to fade. Taja was no healer, whether the wounds were physical, emotional or mental.

She continued knocking against the wall, the pulsating ache from shoulder up proving to be some distraction from their deafening howls. A pause. Taja rotated her neck with a sickening grind and dropped her head to glare up at Dalethria through bloodshot eyes. Her lips were twisted into a sneer, thin lines of blood trickling down her nose and chin.

"Misplaced my trust? Bloody frell, you're the only one I do trust!"

Invisible hands grabbed Dalethria’s wrists, deathly cold to the point of numbing. They pricked her skin … Tiny needles spearing through with a venom of sorts, paralyzing in its chilliness. The ‘poison’ worked as an anesthetic, rendering her sense of touch useless.

Let me go …

The lack of feeling increased with the cold into the bitter pain of frostbite, but …

Why?

Release … something Taja had craved during most of her life, in one form or another. But now that her Master offered it to her …

"You're right … I have nothing left. I have no reason to fight."

The grip on the Dark Mistress’ arms grew limp and the cold evaporated altogether, planting instead within the mind of its owner. There it spread, augmented by the devils already present. Taja smiled slowly, wearily. Her gaze focused on Dalethria.

"Why then didn't you let them loose before? Why not end it before I believed?"

As answer to her Master, Taja lowered her mental defenses and staggered to her feet.

“Believed I could live …”

Her bones were deadened due to both the telekinetic force acting upon them and the cold that withered her insides, but … not yet. She would not fall this easily.

"I call you Master. I swore loyalty to you and you only, and it is because of you that I have survived this long. I owe you my life."

Taja’s knees collapsed under her and she bent forward to touch her forehead with Dalethria’s boot.

"Take it."

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

The last of the coldness has dripped away from Dalethria's skin, leaving only the familiar chill that normally coated her being because of the damage that was done because of the Dark Side. Something that strangely was getting better since coming back to Bast ...

Her hold over Taja was released, letting her fall upon the dusty black boot that offered nothing of what she asked. Only a shove to remove her Apprentice off her person.

"Why?"

Dalethria crouched down and played with the settled dust and broken stones upon the ground.

"Why not kill you."

A pause while she started to move the stones around in an unfamiliar pattern.

"I've trained many Appentices in my time, Taja. Some I've forgotten, others have meant something to me. Miryan for one is special because of his training and loyalty ..."

Brown hair parted Dalethria's eyes so the picture of Taja laying on the ground was clear to her now as she move some of the smaller stones within the pattern of larger ones.

"... but you. ..... You. Like a daughter to me you are."

The corners of her mouth twitched, fighting off the urge to smile.

"Always had such potential. Like me. We're alike in so many ways that it angers me you cannot confront these feeble spirits like I could!"

Her hand balled into a fist with some of the rocks still wedged inside. A mix of grey stone dust and blood started to seep through the cracks of her fingers because of the sharp edges cutting into her flesh.

"You are strong! Don't you see that! You know how to stand up against me! Stood against Lynch and forsaking the Empire to follow your own path! You can stand up against them as well!"

Violently her body twisted around to throw the pieces of rock into the black hallway. They couldn't see where they landed but could hear them hit the ground, the sound strangely soothing like rain pelting hard against stone.

"Like all of us here, you're a Goddess Taja. These ghosts are mere tools for us to gain insight into their failures so we don't repeat them! They are mere plebians that failed in their own quests that have caused them to grow jealous of the new denizens of Bast Keep!

We are stronger then them and they know it. Don't let them take you away from me or the Hand!"

Her Master's shoulders drooped down. Tired and slowly gained the strength to look sideways at Taja.

"You have an understanding of the universe that needs to be shared as do all of our Brothers and Sisters. It's a gift. Which is why I will not take your life.

Not ... ever."

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Several minutes passed in silence. Taja stared intently at the wall opposite, refusing to look at her Master. When finally she did direct her gaze toward Dalethria, it was only to glance at the blood trailing down her wrist.

“Your hand. It’s bleeding.”

This blatant declaration was a means to avert the topic of discussion away from herself more than anything. Without making any further eye contact, the Apprentice stood to her full height and noiselessly stepped to the solid fence she was scrutinizing just a moment ago.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me …”

She breathed the words quietly, as though not intending to disturb the now mute ghosts lying within. After another long pause, she spoke again almost as if Dalethria had said nothing, although her voice remained barely audible and monotonous.

“That’s all they have, isn’t it? Words. They only need someone to listen. I just listened too hard.”

Raising her eyes from the ground, she traced her finger across the coarse surface. The winding designs were completely arbitrary, and from her tone it was clear that she was somewhat bemused; hazed, and voicing her confused thoughts out loud merely for the sake of breaking the macabre peace in the tunnels.

“Tools … I never viewed them as such. Either they were a pestilence that plagued my conscious and required cleansing, or an old friend I could trust to be there.”

Taja pressed her forehead against the stone. Her eyes fluttered close, and all that could be heard was her ragged breathing. A daughter … that was how Dalethria described her. And deep down, a child she was indeed, struggling to prolong a deprived innocence and youth. Her Master more than any had experienced such similar hardships.

As she spoke now, Taja inhaled shakily. Her breaths were shallow and her voice shuddered.

“Have you ever been alone, Master? Alone in your thoughts, I mean. You laugh, act like any other person … but inside, you cry, and nobody can hear your tears. They eat right through you. Leave you hollow.”

Dalethria was the only one who knew. The only one who had ever seen her like this, so meek, so feeble … the only one in whose word she trusted.

“I was always alone. So when I heard their calls, it came as deliverance. Only, they abused my mind. Ravaged it, then left me for dead. Yet still I need them … and they need me. Because of that I cannot try to expel the voices.”

She jerked her head up and around to stare passively at her Master. She would not fall, not today.

“I can only try to face them.”

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

At the mention of her hand, Dalethria brought it before her face and watched the blood fall down her skin like tears. Cleansing tears for they washed away the dirt that had become an infection. It was more interesting to her right now then Taja musing to herself about what Dalethria was trying to get her Apprentice to understand.

Would have to mend the wound later of course before it truly becomes a nasty infection. But it was simple beautiful to behold. Her own life pouring out of a small opening.

It was much like the way she saw their; and of course their meant her and Taja's, predicament. Both of them suffered from madness and inexcusable torment from happenstances within separate lives. It opened a tear in their being that the denizens of Bast decided to exploit.

But everything has a weakness. Including the spirts of Bast.

Dalethria didn't realize she was sing songing it to herself until it registered that her head was bobbing to the music in her mind.

Taja had returned her focus to Dalethria, who had simply become wide eyed to her Apprentice's verbal display of understanding. With each question came and answer that Taja was finally coming around to condensing the problem into simple words and a simple deed.

Try to face them.

Here is when a bemused Master closed her fingers into her hand, dancing the tips of nails within the blood.

"Try?"

A smile came, one filled with silent laughter. She moved to Taja and extended a finger...

"Must..."

With a bloody stroke, she painted a line over Taja's left brow....

"... I ..."

... then the right brow...

"... quote ..."

... down her nose ....

"... a frelling ...."

... across a cheek ...

"... Jedi ..."

... then the other ...

"... Master!"

Like a painted finishing the work upon their canvas, she dotted Taja's chin with a triumphant serious look.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Dalethria's blood boiled. And that was no overstatement.

Her face itched as the acidic quills prickled her skin; it would eat right through to her very bone, if it were not for Taja's instinctive defense mechanism. The shadows moved over the affected areas to counter the increasingly burning sensation. It nullified the corrosion – not before, however, the epidermis was completely scalded and her features marred. Raw and fiery, and with a persisting sting.

Except, Taja was too preoccupied with tackling another problem to realize this acute pain: she was suddenly feeling febrile, and her insides churned. No doubt consequences of the unnatural chemicals present in her Master's body, mingling with her own less-than-human blood. It made her sick; a lump had, quite literally, risen in her throat.

Steadying herself with the support of the wall, her stomach heaved.

After a long minute, with the back of her hand pressed against her mouth, Taja's expression drew on a vile look. She straightened her posture and tenderly placed a finger on her cheek, cringing as she did so. Wonderful - first the slash from Lynch, and now this; her face was prone to quite the beating. But by Dalethria? Her own Master scarred her ... and the Dark Mistress above all should know the importance of preserving one's appearance.

Then a new, more disturbing thought struck her. What would Taro think??

All the while, the silence achieved from her armistice with the spirits endured. Taja gathered enough of her disoriented wits to glower up at her Master with swollen red eyes. The woman was insane!

"Oh, that was funny. That was very. Funny."

There was only one thing she knew of that could possibly make Dalethria suffer enough for having ruined her visage. For her to see and feel Taja's pain (blemishes aside), and not only on a temporary basis such as their previous mind share. Something more ... permanent.

She grabbed her Master's injured hand and hissed through gritted teeth.

"Well, mother dearest, how say we engage in a little family bonding!?"

The contact exposed the tear within the very fabric of their souls and formed a channel between the two, through which the Dark Mistress could feel something crawl its way into her inner core. Inching ever closer as the spirits all of a sudden resumed their song ...

Yes, Dalethria would see, and feel, her pain.

Always.

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

She hissed through her teeth as Taja made a grab at her hand. Her Apprentice's nails dug into the broken flesh causing a quick burst of pain to shoot up her arm but no, oh no, it didn't end there.

It felt like something reached into her chest and cut her soul into two equal portions and slapped them back together again. But it was in that tear that Taja worked her magick to gain some revenge against her Master for what she had done. The girl was intelligent upon attacking her Master as fast as she had done. Dalethria was caught off-guard and could feel the complete effects that Taja desired.

Apparently Taja had taken it personally that Dalethria seared pieces of her flesh off. The blood streaked faced glistened so beautifully in the dimmer of light down here. It was like Taja was crying red tears ....

... and that's when she screamed. It was a high pitched wail that caused the nearby bricks to crack where the cement had bonded the stones together, and it didn't do well for Taja's hearing either. But could take comfort that the scream wasn't as powerful as their fellow Sister, k'Vik could do.

Dalethria could feel the acid eating away at her flesh, the blood trickling down her face, and the pride that was stained in her heart, just as Taja was feeling it. The pride that Taja felt for being mutilated. And then there was this strange thought about Taro ...

Dalethria didn't care. Not right now. Her focus now had become on sequestering the pain from her body and mending the spirit that Taja had manipulated to her own liking. She brutally forced her way back through the channel that was created. It was a fatal flaw in Taja's hasty actions. She should have known Dalethria was strong enough to retaliate through the same means that were produced.

Now it was Dalethria who was gripping Taja's hand with vice like strength. Her hand latched out and grabbed at Taja's hair; pulling her forward so their foreheads met. The blood acid didn't affect Dalethria at all. Her skin was immune to its deadly sting.

"So daughter wants to bond with mommy does she now?"

Her Master's laugh caused her skin to vibrate; which made her wounds tingle strangely. She almost couldn't feel Dalethria's lips pressed against the side of her face.

"As you wish then. Hmm. As they wish."

The song ended. Everything became deathly quiet as the spirits of Bast quieted themselves long enough to feel the Force link Master and Apprentice together for all time.

Taja felt Dalethria's presence become dominant in her mind since the voices had silenced themselves. She also felt Dalethria opening herself completely as the Mistress now was the one digging deeper into the spirit of Taja. There was no finesse to it. Dalethria merely broke down the walls she had come to know so intimately from times past, and broke into her spirit.

As with her pupil's assault, the channel was only one sided and needed to be solidified by the other. In theory. Dalethria had the strength, that Taja did not have, to force the connection, much like Hob did to her blood sister, Sorsha; but she would offer a choice.

How much did her Apprentice believe in Dalethria after today's events. Anger, fear, and even love had passed between them. They had both bared their souls to one another .... something that Dalethria did not do with just anyone or without purpose.


The connection continued to emanate with only half a presence ...

[imported_Taja Loraan]

If she thought the wails of Bast's spirits were deafening, Dalethria's voice possessed an unparalleled musical quality; never had Taja heard a scream so other-worldly that the dead too were silenced in reverence. The cry was not cacophonous, as those of the voices, but was unique in the sense that it was designed to slowly and excruciatingly rip apart Taja's mental barriers.

And as the scream subsided, she could feel all the pain she had concentrated into the channel creeping back toward the fracture existing in her own soul, and now exposed due to Dalethria's sonic outburst. As the ringing in her ears quieted down, Taja frowned; did her Master think her such a fool that she would fall victim to her own ploy?

For several months after her resignation from the Empire, Taja's body had been reduced to little more than an empty vessel. The facet of her psyche that eventually managed to wrest control (and the one standing before Dalethria now) had nothing but the shadows to sustain her during that period.

Even once this dominion was obtained, Taja did not immediately take control of her own body. Instead she survived in the ethereal plane, and it was only through the special bond she shared with the serpent, Vasukii, that the Apprentice was able to 'move' and finally arrive on Meras, and so return to the mortal sphere.

But her time as a disembodied spirit had not been wasted, oh no: she had honed her skills in manipulating the metaphysical Force. Training and repeating every little exercise until her precision and control - two qualities she was severely lacking previously - were bettered, in the realms of the subconscious at least.

So what exactly was Dalethria trying to achieve?

The answer came in the form of her Master's thoughts viciously entering hers. Only, the feelings which were conveyed were her own; it was odd, how her every sentiment was reflected back into her mind, but through another. And as that little something, that part of herself she had just shared so intimately, weaved its way deeper into her mind, so also did Dalethria's presence increase.

The pain was becoming close to unbearable; it was as though the channel was being widened, ever expanding to rip open the tear in her soul and amplify the hurt. But with the hurt, there came something else: an element of Dalethria's mind itself. It was cruelly forced inside her conscience, spearing further and further into her chest and embedding itself there but, concurrently, patching together the lesion it had revealed.

There was an instant when she thought she even heard Dalethria's breathing, but it was detached; isolated, just as her words were. Taja's concentration was on that channel, and that alone. For although Dalethria had intensified its capacity tenfold what her Apprentice had intended, it was still empty. Unfinished.

Physically, Taja was weak. Her mind worked as a separate entity altogether, and it was only through sheer resolve that she maintained the steady grip on Dalethria's hand. Everything else had faded away, and her body was numb. Cold and limp, and unable to feel.

And all through the tribulation of having a new aura take up residence inside her head, the Dark Mistress' perception was clouded by phantasmal screams, echoing from within the very core of Taja's soul. Because a fragment of it had been cleaved away ... a thin tendril of shadow that wound around the channel, progressing faster and faster.

As it reached the tear from whence Dalethria's dark vine emanated from, it divided into several other branches which slowly encompassed the spiritual wound, sealing it forever with a part of Taja herself. At the same time its roots, entrenched in the Apprentice's mind, melded together to complete the channel.

It was done. The last ounce of strength Taja had in her body and which was being used to uphold the contact dissipated, and she collapsed heavily to the ground.

[Dalethria Mal Pannis]

Screams. Dozens of screams filled her mind momentarily but did not leak through her lips. Every sliver of pain that was caused by this intrusion, Dalethria internalized. It caused her body to shake but then subsided quickly. Pain was a source of power and her will was strong enough to channel the whiplash of Taja's own connection to her Master's being.

Now all that remained was a slight tickle in her chest that alerted Dalethria of Taja's presence. Her feelings. Her injuries. Everything. It had to be same for Taja ... if she was conscious to feel it. Then Dalethria lurched forward after Taja's mental and physical grasp had been detached. Her uninjured hand was planted upon the floor while looking at the nail marks in the other. Already her healing factor was closing up the superficial wounds. But the mark left inside her was permanent. She could feel Taja's pain from the blood scars that Dalethria created but there was that simple hum of unconsciousness that was felt too. It was like every fiber of Taja's being extended into Dalethria's own soul. And yes, it was her soul. Her Apprentice had weaved her own tendril of being into Dalethria's aura at the perfect time when all of the Dark Mistress' defenses were lowered.

She brushed away the hair that had fallen over Taja's face, as she went down, gently. With a mother's touch you could almost say. Taja had come so far since first being her Apprentice. There weren't too many that Dalethria taught that were as loyal as Taja.

"Or as brave."

It was said out loud. The halls were so silent that the sentence sounded ethereal. Maybe she didn't say it at all. There weren't any echoes. Perhaps Dalethria whispered it?

"Forget these idle thoughts. Our new Daughter needs her rest after battling her Mother this day."

Reaching underneath Taja, Dalethria picked up her Apprentice underneath her shoulders and knees; lifting her as she stood upright. Dalethria wobbled, giggling in the process, finding it amusing before straightening herself out and walking slowly out of her dusty lair towards Taja's quarters.