Paperdoll: Charcoal Stains [complete]

[imported_Taja Loraan]

I look at her in that paper dress
I wonder why she won't burn
She's just a paperdoll, that's all
Just a paperdoll

I dress her up, she knocks me down
I dress her up, she knocks me down

They try her on for size
She fits nice, one size fits all
They try her on for size
She fits nice, one size fits all

Now her soul is dead
Now her body's raw
You can numb her pain

Watch the blood run down her face
But don't take notice
Watch the blood run down her arms
Please don't take notice

I know you have her soul
I see it in your eyes
She knows you have her soul
She sees it in your eyes

Now her soul is dead
Now her body's raw
You can numb her pain

She wants you to ease her pain
She wants you to eat her remains
She wants you to ease her pain
She wants you to eat her remains

Now her soul is dead
Now her body's gone
Wash away her pain

***

The dagger dropped from her hands. The knife edge glistened with red, and her tearstained face stared back from the surface of the blade. Her hazel eyes were faded; hollow. Damp locks of hair were strewn across her ashen skin, the scarlet hauntingly vivid against the pallor in her lips, her cheeks ... her entire body. She was drained; numb and cold for everything save the dark crimson which trailed down her wrists.

What...?

Her eyes burned fiercely but no tears came. Here, locked away in her chambers at Bast, no one could see her cry. No one heard her screaming; that charred facet of her soul, secreted from even her Master, calling for deliverance. Not from the voices, not from anyone ... but from herself.

A shiver ran down her bare back, and she closed her eyes.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Something was up with Jeseth. Those that had known him during his earlier years at Bast Castle never knew if they would get him back just as he had been once before. He was all alone up in his study, locked away inside. He never said a word, and some would wonder if he'd died.

Sith legends are buzzing my skull... will they let me be? I cannot tell. There are so many things I cannot grasp - Now I think I got it (again), at last!

His slender fingers creased over yet another page, his large black eyes moving as two onyx marbles would, devoid of any endearing qualities. One of the words he attempted to decipher smudged noticeably as his finger skimmed over. He had read the same Sith writings so many times, but what they meant he had no sooner come to find.

There's something here I'm not quite getting - though I try, I keep forgetting, like a memory long since past...

His left hand moved across the table as he continued to pour through the book, and seized a bloodstained holocron. The leather that covered his artificial appendage stretched audibly his fingers clutched around the object.

A simple object, nothing more... but something's hidden through a door to which I do not have the key! Something's here I cannot see!

His skull was so full it was ready to burst. He had employed hundreds of freelance archeologists and bounty hunters to retrieve such objects for him, and all of them had yielded something clear and concrete - except for this one! What secret was hidden away within this holocron? The writings spoke of a god... Krath. What foolishness...

What does it mean?! ...Something's wrong - or am I trying much too hard? Perhaps it's not as difficult as it seems. Could the answer be right in front of me?

The Dark Jedi's white-feathered wings were heavily bandaged, and hung in the air absently, twitching as if they had a mind of their own. Jeseth continued staring at the scripture, tightening his leathery mechanical hand around the holocron. His wing span continued to grow outwards from his back, and he finally uttered a sound from his throat, lips still closed.

"Hmmm..." Jeseth's wings pressed against the walls of his study, and then instantly pulled against his back as if they had been shocked by the sudden contact. He winced loudly, not having expected the sudden stab of pain. He had taken considerable injuries during his last encounter with a Jedi on Coruscant... His wings had shattered and sprained

But the pain he felt had not been his own... An intruder, he wondered... No, this pain is familiar. His eyes narrowed in thought as he released his grip on the holocron and stood from his chair.

The door to his chamber automatically opened as he approached it, and his head quickly shot out into the corridor just beyond it, searching to either side of it. His dark black hair clung smoothly to the sides of his face, falling just below his ears. He had just showered not long before he had begun his study of the artifacts he'd acquired... but how long ago had that been?

Damn! I Lost track of time again!

Again, another sharp stab of pain struck at his awareness. Who was doing this to him?! Could it be Hob, playing some childish trick to prove a point? The short and stalky alien had very interesting ways of spread his philosophies... ways that at times aggravated Jeseth to no end - but alas, he owed the creature his life, and so even if he found that it was Hob causing him the discomfort, there was little he could do in retaliation.

With the pain though, there came a wave of sadness. Jeseth stepped out of his study, and began to walk down the hall. The door hissed shut loudly behind him once he had moved several feet away from his abode. The Force continued to guide him towards the bottomless well of sorrow that was hopelessly running over.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Taja's breaths grew shallow with every gasp of air. It wasn't fair... why was she still here? Why did the pounding of her heart sound so clearly, long since it should have ceased to live? The metallic taste of blood that singed her tongue... why did she feel it?

Why couldn't she just die?!

Her ears were deaf to all but the rasping of her throat as it desperately fought against her will, battling for survival. She felt acutely the burning of her insides as they withered and disintegrated. Her metabolism slowed with each passing second, preparing for a conclusion, but her mind was alert as ever. Her body was dying - but her soul struggled on ahead.

That cursed life bond! At the time it had seemed an effective means of retaliation: vengeance against her Master for injuring her pride. Little was improbable to those touched by insanity. Now, that same spiritual link she shared with Dalethria, forged by their psychosis, was preventing her from leaving this wretched plane. Every cut felt as though made by the puncturing of a thousand needles; severe and painful, slowly piercing into her psyche... and yet it refused to expire.

She wanted to scream, but her body was already too weak, too exhausted... wasted, so that not even her lips could part. Her glassy eyes no longer saw but gazed emptily, unblinking, up at the ceiling. Her thin shoulders drooped sideways and her head heavily collided with the floor. She lay still on the ground, naked and prostrate, hair spilling forward to shroud her frozen visage. Her lungs made one final attempt to inhale before collapsing. And then...

Let me go...

...silence.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Jeseth's search had brought him before the door of Taja Loraan. Her presence was fading away slowly, and the stabs of pain were becoming more difficult to withstand. Darkness was surrounding him, filling him... and not even air could be forced into his lungs. His knees were giving way, so he placed one of his hands against the door to keep himself upright.

Jeseth's attempt to regain balance failed. He fell forward, his hand sliding along the door. Everything was spinning... he couldn't breathe. As his hand slid down along the cold steel of Taja's door, he palmed for the keypad. His fingers skimmed over it briefly - long enough for him to let out a small current of Force lightening. It arched and laced through the keypad, short-circuiting it.

The door his open and Jeseth fell forward into the room. He could breath again... but Taja's presence had faded. He looked in front of him and saw her lying there, pallid and unmoving. Is she dead..? Jeseth got to his feet slowly and looked down at the floor. Blood... His hands were coated with the dark, thick fluid. It was still warm.

"...Taja?" Jeseth's dark eyes blinked. No answer came... he took a few more steps towards her body and ran his fingers over her forehead, wiping a few strands of hair from her face. He could sense there was a faint whisper of life in her.

With hesitation, he placed his hands over wounds... and called upon the Dark Side. He mouthed alien words, speaking the long-dead language of the Sith. Pain, cold, suffering - all of a nature Taja had never experienced - called her out of her coma. She came back into the world, only to find that her wounds had healed over... they were scarred and infected, and her flesh had lost all sensation.

"You've lost much of your blood," Jeseth whispered calmly, trying not to frighten her with his presence. He wondered if she could even hear him; her body would probably be in shock from the lack of warmth.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

And just as soon as the welcome bliss of peace descended upon her, it was shattered. Rage, it was pure rage and the most primal of furies that tore into her resting subconscious and dragged her back into the realm of the living. The taste of agony poured into her mouth, coursed through her veins... mercilessly willing her to return. Accompanying it were the screams of those long dead and forgotten; they erupted in her mind with such anger that Taja woke with a start, her mouth drawing in the stale air of Bast with one long breath.

Master...?

The fog clouding her vision slowly cleared, but instead of the cold, cerulean eyes of Dalethria, Taja found herself staring up into two spheres chiseled from the deepest black. Squeezing her eyes shut, she coughed and propped up on her elbows, rising up to lean against the bed. Then coughed again, this time sounding more as a choke and spitting out blood. Her face grimaced and she wrapped her arms around her sides, pulling her knees up under her chin. So cold...

Her eyelids fluttered open. No... it can't be. Please don't let it be...

Jeseth.

"Let me go..." she murmured softly, clutching her head with both hands. Let me go let me go let me go let me go –

"GO!!!" she shrieked, driving a weak telekinetic blast into his chest. The result was nothing more than a feeble push but it sapped away whatever little energy she had left. With a groan, she slumped forward and buried her face in the folds of Jeseth's shirt, her voice cracking into sobs once again as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Jeseth’s eyes opened wide. She had lashed out at him… and he had tried to help her. There was a spark of anger in him… and then she began to cry. He looked down at her and moved his left hand across her face. The touch of his glove was cold and artificial, but it was the most he could hope to offer her for comfort. “What makes you so unhappy that you would choose to take your own life...” His hair dropped towards Taja’s head as he turned his face down to look at her.

“Dying alone... has everyone forsaken you?” His wings spread out and arced forward to embrace her. They were warm and soft, so unlike Jeseth... The heat confined within the down of his feathers filled her body and helped to push back the pain.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

The touch of his gloved hand against her skin calmed her somewhat and her cries quieted to just barely audible whimpers, and then muted altogether as Jeseth's wings enfolded around her. Taja closed her eyes again; her breaths slow and ragged in the sudden stillness, and pressed her tearstained cheek against his chest. The warmth, it was so... real.

She pulled herself in closer toward him. The diagonal gashes across her wrists, although healed, had been set ablaze by some invisible flame. But that warmth, that wonderful warmth... Its owner voiced a question, but Taja simply raised a finger to her lips in a plea for silence. "Listen..." She placed her hand over his heart, the steady beating echoing clearly in both her ears and his.

Her forehead creased into a frown and she looked up, Jeseth's dark, wet hair sweeping over her features. She lifted her hand to gently stroke the side of his face. "You cry also," she whispered, her fingers tracing along his jaw line and down to his chin before coming to rest on his chest. "Why?"

[Jeseth Cloak]

It hurt to stretch his wings out as he was doing. The bandages that were wrapped and draped around them how hung taught across his barely mended bones. He only did it to keep her from dying of shock... or at least that’s what he told himself. "Crying," Jeseth asked quietly. He hadn't noticed... but she was right. He could taste the tears as they rolled onto his lips. Human tears were salty... Jeseth's tears were sweet. One of those tears fell onto Taja's lips.

"I don't know. Your pain... I felt it. I thought you were attacking me... Why do you hate me so?"

[imported_Taja Loraan]

She blinked, Jeseth's tear warm and sweet on her tongue as she ran it absently over her lip. It seemed to somehow jerk her back to reality, and all at once she became aware of her unclothed body. Her cheeks flushed a light pink and Taja moved backwards, the wings releasing their hold on her as she did so. "I..." What was she? Lost, empty... forsaken? Perhaps, but by whom? There remained no one to abandon her.

To all these nameless feelings I can't deal with in my life...

Their encounters so far had been brief, but the piercing stabs of pain she felt whenever in his presence... well, what did it matter? Taja's soul always ached, and the reasons why seldom made any difference. ...Forgive me, she whispered, the words echoing gently in Jeseth's mind.

...I know it's time to leave these places far behind.

Taja collapsed backward, her back hitting the side of the bed; she had regained most of her senses, but her body was still weak and it was a strain to just sit up. Grasping the corner of the bed sheet, she pulled it down and wrapped it around her protectively, then transfixed her gaze on the ground. "You should leave," she muttered coldly.

[Jeseth Cloak]

I'm staying... He ran his right hand down the side of her face. His skin was smooth and cold, yet more real than the leather that covered his left hand. His fingers trailed through her hair. "If I leave now, you'll die." She felt her skin suddenly come to life with warmth wherever Jeseth's fingers passed. “Taja... “ He sighed. It was hard to tell her, but he knew he‘d have to eventually... If he didn’t tell her, then he’d be left with no choice but to leave her behind. “I’m going to leave this place. I want you to come with me...“

[imported_Taja Loraan]

"I have already chosen death."

She still looked down as the words escaped her lips, away from him, but a frown was etched across her forehead. Jeseth had been the one to guide her to Vjun and seek membership before the Hand, only to disappear shortly after her initiation. And now that he had returned, years later, he was asking her to discard of everything she had forged during his absence?

He wanted her to come with him... Why? So you can leave me again? Wincing, Taja bit into her lip when his fingers touched her skin, deadened and unfeeling. As it came to rest on her cheek, she took his hand into her own and squeezed it lightly. Why me?

"Bast is my home... The Black Hand, my family." And not only the other Dark Jedi. The ethereal denizens of the castle, despite their ceaseless cries of madness, were just as great a part of her. "If I leave now, I will have nothing."

[Jeseth Cloak]

"You were going to die. You would have had nothing then, too." He squeezed her hand as he leaned closer to her. His breath was against her ear as he spoke. "I could live forever, but what would it be worth to live out eternity without you? I need you by my side." A tear fell against her face as she felt Jeseth's lips press against hers gently. A sweet and icy taste filled her mouth... and then warmth. Her whole body was growing warmer, and all feeling was returning to her.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Their tears blended together into a single stream. She kissed back slowly, her senses returning with a strange warmth that was almost alien to her cold blood in its realness, its simplicity, its... sincerity. Her fingers laced with Jeseth's and for a while they breathed as one. It felt like... home?... Taja pulled away and pressed her face against his shoulder, softly nuzzling his neck. Her voice shuddered. "I... I can't," she choked. "I can't let you chase something which can never exist." He could feel her crying, her body trembling in his arms.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Jeseth closed his eyes for a moment, running his fingers through Taja’s hair. “You can‘t stop me.” He gently pulled her head back, their eyes locking. He was struggling against his instincts, his blood boiling in a way he had never experienced. His lips trailed along her cheek, right to her ear. “Make your decision. I can’t stop you, can I? Indulge yourself for once.” His face moved away from hers slowly. He was very tired... for some reason he could hardly stay awake anymore.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

Wiping a corner of the sheet brusquely over her eyes, Taja slowly rose to sit on the edge of the bed. She could feel Jeseth's exhaustion, and was overcome by a similar sense of weariness as she raised her knees under her chin, hugging them uneasily.

She stared absently at some point past his shoulder. "If I said yes... what then?"

[Jeseth Cloak]

He placed his hands on her shoulders, blood staining her skin. "Then you'd be mine, and we'd leave this place. Why look back? We don't need it..." His eyes pulled her gaze towards him. "You want to be mine. Give in." His words were reassuring, not forceful. His voice seemed as if it was so easy to trust... He pulled one of her hands up to his lips and licked the drying blood of it. She tasted wonderful to him, and under any other circumstance he would have already made her a meal.

Love did such strange things to him.

[imported_Taja Loraan]

The feel of Jeseth's tongue against her cold skin made her cringe and she drew back her arm quickly. The burning sensation caused something inside her to stir, commanding her to attack him for his insolence... and yet another something begged her to concede.

"Why look back? We don't need it..."

Neither of the voices succeeded. "I need my Mother." She spoke with such innocence that only a child could muster, and in the darkness of the room her features suddenly appeared much younger. The Dark Jedi squeezed her hands together, absently chewing on her bottom lip; he would have no way of understanding what Taja meant, but she could not betray Dalethria. The spirits of Bast were far from forgiving.

Her eyes stared into his pleadingly. "I can't leave. They won't let me. Please... just go."