I can't either but given the current state of affairs I'm assuming they're not in the best shape and with out an actual transition of power things will get worse instead of better.
Jedi Padawan Quest (Star Wars)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Pronouns
- They/Them
They do have a democratically elected parliament, and even a supposed actual head of state whereas the Count is meant to only be symbolic.
The fact that you've heard almost nothing said about him is probably telling.
Pretty much what I was thinking.
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
OK, if I don't see a better plan before it's too late, going with this one:
[X] Plan Kriff Dulia
[X] Plan Kriff Dulia
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] Plan All Is As The Force Wills It
-[X] Dulia, the daughter.
--[X] [Dulia] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
-[X] Hali, the bureaucrat.
--[X] [Hali] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
-[X] Hyrem, the noble.
--[X] Keep neutral on his candidacy.
-[X] Axia, thesoldier.
--[X] [Axia] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
-[X] Dulia, the daughter.
--[X] [Dulia] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
-[X] Hali, the bureaucrat.
--[X] [Hali] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
-[X] Hyrem, the noble.
--[X] Keep neutral on his candidacy.
-[X] Axia, thesoldier.
--[X] [Axia] Keep neutral on her candidacy.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm putting a timer on it, now.
- Location
- Georgia
[X] Plan Kriff Dulia
Vote closed
- Pronouns
- They/Them
LVIII: Daymare
- Pronouns
- They/Them
LVIII: Daymare
"I don't know what to think about Dulia," Mala Tyruti admitted, staring at her daughter with a frown. "It's terrible that she's making light of threats to you, but you don't sound as if you hate her."
"I didn't like her, but the juice was good and the conversation decent," Nima admitted, remembering the strange tangle of emotions towards the end. She was used to dealing with them, sorting through them and placing them in the right context. It was hard, though. "She was both kinder and crueler than I expected. She didn't care enough, I think, that the position she was going to take is one where you have to care to get anything done. But maybe she would have surprised me. Or maybe she would have proven far worse than I thought possible." Nima didn't like this, in a way: being the person to make sage judgements of others. Diplomacy was also supposed to be about coming to agreements that work.
But something she had seen had made her decide that this wasn't enough. Uncertainty could never be accepted in these situations.
Dulia was an unstable element liable to explode in some unpredictable way, and so she couldn't be part of the formula for whatever was best for the planet.
So Nima had acted. But to act, she needed to figure out how and what Nylirah did… if anything.
That's where it got hard.
That, in fact, is where the doubts piled up. A single moment, not quite real and not quite unreal.
******
"I assume you will need proof to be sure that she's behind it," Master Massick said. "How are we to find such proof? I've been looking at his mind for quite some time, night after night."
Nima didn't think there was some easy, simple solution to this. Still, her lekku curled a little at that phrase. She stood before him, and said, "I… don't know. Can I have some time to think?" She was tired, still reeling from the discussion that revealed that, in truth, they didn't have a candidate they truly supported. They were all suspect, but all of them for different reasons.
Dulia was suspicious and immoral, but also perhaps amoral and willing to go with the flow, if the right offer was provided. Still, that wasn't enough for Nima, not when there was the fact of her probable actions.
Hali was not a good fit for the Count, for all that her ideas seemed rather correct, at least in general. At the same time, she had concrete ideas. Axia was just viciousness and revenge (against terrible wrongs, but still) in a package: they didn't want the planet to go to war directly, the Coalition didn't need the troops that desperately, though the ships could help. Which is why Axia could not be entirely ruled out.
Then there was the noble, Hyrem. He was clearly angling to institute some sort of 'responsible nobles' government' that went against much of what Nima had been taught or picked up from Master Bell. But then again, the whole of this planet and its Count system was just as terrible.
Nima went for a walk, again going to the grounds. She was worried about attacks, but she could sense nobody nearby. It was almost dawn, and thus it was almost time to sleep. They seemed to live by the night, as if in an endless waking dream that had long since shifted--at random and without sense--into a nightmare.
She'd never actually seen the garden grounds during the day. Were all the flowers planted to look best at night? Some of them were glowing, so it was at least possible. It was as if the entire planet itself had flipped upside down in the face of the Count's whims. She walked along, thoughts nagging at her.
He didn't trust anyone, he didn't seem to regret anything, at least not enough not to keep on doing it. The same with Dulia, and far worse than her, Nylirah. Dulia was what he made of her, to some extent, but she was still all that was.;
So, what did this all mean?
Besides that people really needed to start sleeping in hours they preferred, rather than a Count.
Even Master Massick had been made to fit around the schedule, to scan his mind while the man went about his daily… tasks…
Nima froze. Was it possible? It shouldn't be possible. Things in the mind, however hidden, should be able to be found in both a waking and sleeping mind. Still, the thought kept on coming up.
All of those silly holovid stories, some of which included people being stabbed by an icicle dagger, were starting to come back. If there was some way to hurt him that was only viable while he was asleep… but then, how could he sleep through the day? If he hadn't been doing so, then he'd probably have fallen apart from deprivation.
Could it be related to the night in some way, then, going the other direction? Something activated only by nighttime?
If so, how could Nylirah have hidden it? She was a very different Force-user, but she was an illusionist, not a Mind-Healer. Whatever this was, it was clever and subtle, and Nima believed it far more likely that Nylirah was relying on some sort of clever trick than that she was just better with minds than a noted Jedi Master with extensive experience.
Besides, the truth was… if she was, then there was nothing Nima could do, because she certainly wasn't a better telepath, empath, and Mind-Healer than Master Massick. She'd have to make the assumptions that gave her a chance--slim as it was--to figure out whether Nylirah was doing anything. If she was doing it so subtly that nobody could notice, it was the same as her not doing it, for all that mattered.
So, that was an idea.
******
"You wish to watch me while I sleep?" Count Nives asked, spitting the words as he lay in his bed, datapads covering him like leaves on the green, seeming to only increase as the minutes went by and aides set down other datapads, with other sets of data and information. The fat old man's bronze skin was pale and sleek with sweat. "What next, watching me while I defecate?"
"I don't believe that'd teach us anything new," Massick said, still with the cheery smile. Still, Nives didn't say no, and Nima could feel his exhausted despair, the growing uncertainty. It was skin deep, in a way. His fundamental self was the same cruel man she'd felt before. If you coated a stone in sweet dough and sugar, you'd still break your teeth if you tried to bite down on it, trusting on the coating to determine the inner core. (Well, Nima wouldn't, but she was pretty sure a human would break their teeth on stone.)
If he was thinking and feeling like this in a year, perhaps that'd mean something. Even a week after the problem was solved would be easier to believe. Yes, it was possible for sudden conversions and realizations… but this was more simple. He was tired. His every emotion was at once heightened and dulled.
He was who she had to work with.
"What wit. I suppose so, there's no other choice now. If I cannot solve the problem I will have to retire, and I am increasingly sure that none of them are truly deserving. They will all ruin the planet, and so I must reign for another decade, at least! Once the crisis between your 'Coalition' and this 'Republic' is done with your little war, I can make a decision."
The room was richly appointed, the data slates standing out against all the wood and old, fine materials. Nima had the feeling he would have wanted even the data slates to be wood or stone if he had his way. He had a vision of how the world should be, and if that didn't involve mass suffering and misery, that wouldn't have even been a bad thing in itself.
But this old man, sitting in his bad, had more power than any hundred thousand people. He sat, and the world watched. And waited.
So it was.
******
Minds did not have rooms. Minds did not have doors. Everything was visualization, the creation of images that held meaning and power. So Nima was not standing in a dour room in the mansion, staring at a ticking clock that was ticking faster and faster with each second. She could not smell blood and smoke, or feel Master Massick's hand on her shoulder as she tried to take all of it in.
It was not much of a room, but it must be very familiar to Massick for him to be able to manage to pull it together so easily. She steps forward, frowning. "He's running out of time?"
"That's what he feels," Massick said. "That much is very clear. But this looks a little different. The blood, for one…"
There's blood on the walls, bleeding from small cracks in it, dripping down slowly but steadily. Each drop seems to boom and echo when it hits the ground, before sizzling up as if the floor itself was hot. But it wasn't. Nima could tell it wasn't. At a certain point, of course, minds met. What Massick was seeing wasn't purely a vision of his own. It had to connect in some way to what was there, or else it would have no power, no influence. You couldn't look through someone's memories if you didn't know what they were and who they were.
There was a scream in the distance, and the sound of heavy footfalls.
"You can't, you can't," a man's voice echoed down the halls.
There was the crack of a blaster bolt. A mother was crying. The sounds seemed as if they were filtering through the crack.
"This is new?"
"Yes. It was just this room, and then you stepped into his subjective memories. As a lesson, Padawan, beware of attempts to clean up and make sense of what you see. All that does, often enough, is leave you interacting with an illusory version of reality."
Illusions were why she was here. What could Nylirah have done to cause this? "Why is it visible now?"
"I… don't know. How could dreaming change the state of someone's mind, truly? Everything you dream of, unless you are Force Sensitive, comes from within your mind. It is a tangled labyrinth, but I tested him for such sensitivity, and he wasn't. Not even borderline. Slight elevations of midichlorians, but not enough to do anything with. It's likely just another family myth." Massick's smile grew a little brittle. "If you ever serve as a recruiter, you will see that a lot. People whose great-uncle supposedly once lifted something with their minds… it is saddening, in a way."
"That they don't?" Nima asked, frowning a little.
"No, that they think that force sensitivity is what makes them valuable. They hold onto the rumors like a…" Massick trailed off.
"Like a?"
"Like those here and their stories about the Count's bloodline," Massick admitted, striding over towards a door. "Their stories about the holy nature of it. If anything is holy, it isn't a single sentient. Let's go."
They wandered through a bizarre array of sights and sounds. It was as if the memories themselves had been shaken up, burst loose from some dark hole. No, it was… it was more as if the mind itself was decaying from within. Nima kept on trying to figure out how she'd describe this to others.
(Mala Tyruti frowned and tried to understand, but she didn't. Mala Tyruti had never walked in a swamp, but had she ever walked on a rickety roadway? She lived in Coruscant, so surely? Or had she ever been to a neighborhood where she knew things were only going to get worse, and never get better? Or had she ever seen an animal, like one of the bird-like creatures of Coruscant, hit by a speeder and laying on the ground, decomposing but not yet dead?
It was that same feeling.
"Nima, are you okay?" Mala had asked when Nima had finally found a way to describe it.
Was she? Mostly. Was he? Not then.)
She stepped as lightly as she could, and still felt the mind warp beneath her. She imagined this was boggy ground threatening to sink her deep within it. She passed by a flash of something, of color, of a man's dark face as he fell to the ground, placard slipping from his…
"Master, what is this?"
"When he was newly the Count, there was a large-scale protest and strike by one of the unions. After rumors and reports that some of them were armed with blasters, the Prime Minister at the time sent in armed soldiers. Hundreds died, and the union was broken. Some suspected that the new Count had a hand in it."
The smile on his face was strained, almost ironic now.
Nima, aghast, said, "Why… what does helping… what does?" She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't even form it.
Her Master, Jordyan Bell, would be trying to find a way to overthrow him if he was here, not save him. But she tried to focus. She was supposed to be a professional, and neither diplomats nor Mind Healers could just decide to abandon people like that.
She could taste the tears of those he hurt, and see the harsh words he'd had for everyone he met: there would be millions who mourned his retirement, but few of them had ever met him, and plenty who'd never seen him before had cause to hate him.
Was it dark of Nima, now fourteen, to think that it was a surprise that everyone hadn't tried to kill or harm him?
Eventually they found themselves in front of something that looked like a giant, pulsing knot of flesh and wire and cords, reddish-brown at places, and clear, steel-like grey at others. It stank of… what? What sounded like poisonous mushrooms, tasted like the groan of agony of a dying man, and smelled like chartreuse? "Guilt. Despair," Nima said, finally recognizing it. "But… not natural?"
"No, it is natural. In the same way cancer is," Massick said. At last the smile was gone. He looked haunted. It pulsed in front of them, sickeningly. "Whoever did it made him have guilty dreams. Bound it up in… a very small amount of real guilt. And now here it is. Somehow, it's hidden outside dreams, or was. Something like this can't be hidden much longer."
"And if it isn't taken away, what happens?"
"Since he would never admit and acknowledge guilt to get rid of it naturally?" Massick asked, stepping back away from the pulsing mass. "He'd go insane, or finally begin to feel guilt. Bottled up, with nowhere to go…"
She knew what that did to people.
It was an 'ironic' punishment.
Who did Nima know who was most likely to try to punish the Count 'ironically'? It was Dulia, most likely. So he'd felt guilt. A lot of it, but only when sleeping. But if this took weeks to build up, then Nylirah had somehow been here before any of the diplomats. Either that, or someone else had started it and then Nylirah had continued it.
But… this was all so elaborate. If Nylirah could get close enough to infest his mind, why couldn't she have just assassinated him, or driven him insane, or any number of choices?
Spite? Probably some of it, but… there was more. Did she see it as an act of art, a sort of total destruction?
It was true that having a longer lead-in time made it easier to try to manipulate the succession, but there were ways around it, surely?
"Can we destroy it?"
"Can we. It's all the guilt he can feel. Sentients who cannot feel guilt and shame cannot actually function. But if we try to unravel it, who's to say it won't backfire? We'll need to consider our actions. And we'll need to confront Dulia." Massick paused, then added, offhand. "There is one problem. Something has been watching us the whole time."
Nima whirled around, as if there'd be a person peeping in the mindscape, and saw nothing. "What?"
"We needed to find the source of this before we left so we could act later… but we must hurry. If Nylirah has learned of it, she might act in a drastic way. I can't sense her anywhere in this room… but that means very little."
*****
He was still sleeping when they left. Most people were. A servant was outside the room though, frowning, dressed in black and grey. She was an old human, withered and yet with bright, feverish eyes. "Oh, it's you. So the Master has gone to bed? I wanted to share the news about his daughter." Ah, someone who loved gossip, Nima guessed.
"What happened?" Massick asked.
"It's terrible! She had this giant argument with Axia, and now she's decided she doesn't want the seat and is going to be leaving for abroad again! He'll be so devastated when he hears that!"
Nima almost shivered. She was going to get away. They needed to talk to Dulia if they were going to figure out what had happened, and why. Now they were almost out of time, and Nima felt the stress building, the sweat and tension that had nothing to do with exercise. She was tired, of course. Anytime she blinked, behind the lids she saw that abomination, the thing that she couldn't quite describe to Mala.
It was like attempts to make others understand the differences in how Twi'lek and human noses worked, or Bothan and Human. Everything was almost the same, but not quite. She could almost grasp what she'd seen well enough to give a real description, but like a flat drawing it had none of the power it should. Even weeks later, she could only imagine it in synesthesia: in the taste of poison-green, the smell of the last goodbye to a loved one.
She shuddered, and almost missed Nylirah as they walked.
They couldn't run, because this wasn't supposed to be a crisis. It might not be yet.
They just turned a corner, and there she was, in the middle of a hallway, a hand on her hip. She had a smirk glued onto her face, and her hip was cocked as if she was posing for the front of some Holomagazine.
A silly part of Nima wondered if she'd been standing there the whole time, waiting for them.
"Hello, Jedi. I cannot let you step further without talking to me."
"Talking? Is that all you intend?" Master Massick asked. He was leaning forward slightly, the hallway too small to pass through without being in lightsaber range. His bright eyes glowed, the yellow seemingly a danger sign.
"Just talking," Nylirah said. "I have a feeling that going against you would be like playing without background tracks. You'd just slick and roll, and then you'd be karped."
Massick didn't understand, and Nima didn't need to read the brittle smile to know that. Nima didn't understand either.
"Just so," Massick said, moving a hand to rest it over his lightsaber. "So, how will you distract me?"
"Talking, of course. You want answers? I have ways to keep it from being recorded, and any Mind-Healer tricks like sharing memories won't hold up, will they?" Nylirah asked. "I also know you, Mr. Massick. You're the type that wants to know just as much as you want to win. You can't win, not really. Honestly, I could tell you that the entire purpose of this expedition was to test my abilities and a new way to manipulate others… and it wouldn't be a lie. It's unfortunate that I was caught, but there's no way to save him, I'm sure of it." Nylirah's cruel face and her dark, enchanting eyes seemed almost to shine like Massick's. "But you shouldn't want to, to be honest."
She waved a hand, and the walls seemed to warp and twist. They stretched like taffy, and then compressed, shifting around and around until she was almost dizzy trying to follow it. An illusion was circling around them as tight as a waistband after an act of gluttony. Nima could see ways to ease the tension, to break through the illusion, but she didn't want to even try. Not yet.
Not when this hateful ball of darkness was before her.
But she seemed… different.
"Why are you stalling?" Nima asked. She began to move forward, carefully, a part of her wanting to strike Nylirah down where she stood, no matter what the cost.
"To allow Dulia to escape, duh." Nylirah rolled her eyes.
"Remarkably loyal," Massick said, sounding approving.
"She's fun enough to hang around. I'd have to kill her if we continued to, so perhaps it's for the best… for her… that we're going to be parting ways," Nylirah said it remarkably casually, but Nima felt something. A thrum, just a small thrum, of pain. Less like she was imagining an infinite sorrow, and more an unfortunate coincidence. But Nima was startled by it. "She's far more interesting than either of you. Interesting, and yet boring. Just another young scion with a thousand reasons to hate her father. She truly does want to do a decent enough job at ruling the planet to not be overthrown. That was the most boring thing about her." Nylirah rolled her eyes, and then stalked a little closer. Nima tensed, but she stopped herself.
"So, she bored you? Or… Nima has mentioned the music. Did you like an audience?"
"It should be destroyed now," Nylirah said. "I'm surprised she told you about it. Too busy trying to make me a bogeyman, as if her thoughts aren't visible on her face. It's cute." Nylirah stretched herself out, a dark and foreboding vision, golden-brown hand impossibly smooth and untouched, moving as if to captivate.
"So, you did something to the Count's mind?" Nima asked.
"Oh, yes. The good thing is I have diplomatic immunity and my own way out of here. But all I did was what his own conscience should have done long ago. I really wouldn't care if he was an innocent, kind man. It'd be fun to do anyways…"
Lie. No, not a lie. Nima focused on Nylirah's emotions. It was the truth and not the truth. "You enjoyed it more because of who he was."
"Have you truly never seen him for that?" Nylirah asked. "Ah, yes, you have. And yet you don't realize the hopelessness and despair of the world, the senseless chaos and destruction that is the truth. Anything you try to hold onto will rot away before the Darkness. I realized that long ago. You could too. Each of you would be powerful indeed if unshackled from the pretenses of the Jedi." She said it idly, musingly. She wasn't actually trying to seduce them to the Dark Side. No, it was the planting of a midnight seed, that she hoped to see grow in the light of day.
"You say all this, but, Master Massick, did you know about her father? He was a vigilante, a Jedi who went rogue," Nima said, quietly. "I wonder: did he hurt you, Nylirah?"
This wasn't kindness. These were the cruelest guesses she could make.
Nylirah stared at her. Even Massick looked shocked. Nima made sure to look her right in the eyes. Nima wasn't going to drive her to attack, but she was going to see what she said.
Nylirah stood there, almost seeming to sway in the breeze for a moment before she said coldly. "One day you will be kneeling before me, all hope lost, aware that death is meaningless and so is life. When that day comes, I will laugh and torture you to death. It will be all you deserve."
"You don't have to be what you are," Nima said. But she wasn't trying to redeem Nylirah. No, it was a realization. Face to face before one of the most disgusting sentients she'd ever met, Nima realized that even now, she could be saved. She could even now turn around. Perhaps that's why she had to kill Dulia if she got too close. Perhaps that's why she was directed, or decided, to destroy her own work. To create bonds gave you something to lose.
She could have been a regular monster, cruel and vicious, but with those she cared about. Horrific, but different. Instead, she had chosen to cut herself off, one by one.
Or perhaps it had been chosen for her. But she was an adult. Nima was fourteen, and she'd still worked to try to forge her own path.
So the realization came, looking at the darkness and hate and joy and glee at the suffering of others… that she could be something else. Perhaps not a good person, but one that wouldn't destroy everything around her in the name of destruction.
It was worse than if there was no way back.
She was here, and the only way she could take even a single step from the path was if she chose to do it. Nylirah stood before them, and her words were a claim.
It was a claim that Nima had to fight.
Nima shook her head. All she had were simple words. "You don't have to be, but can you change? You are trapped in your illusions."
"Do you know how sickening it is, to hear you prattling?" Nylirah asked. "To hear you pretending wisdom you like? That is pretension at its core. I have lived more than you ever will. I have seen more of the truth of the galaxy. And I thought my hatred of you couldn't grow. But then you do this. Then you stand here, and by even your own system you are evil. You protect a monster. That's good. Protect monsters. Justify evil. Revel in cruelty. But don't lie to yourself and talk about how you're saving the Count out of anything but selfishness."
Nima didn't have an answer to that. It was selfish. Nylirah and the Count should both spend the rest of their lives in prison. They should be properly punished for their crimes, and to prevent them from hurting others.
The Count hadn't done as much as she had, but they were not so different, people turned inside out, every dark and bitter thought and inclination defining who they were in every sense. Now she was staring into the darkness and it was glaring back with slick lingo and endless, almost childish, hurt.
The more she looked, the more she thought that perhaps Nylirah would regret quite a few things more than she said. But she didn't want to look deeper. She didn't want to stain herself. Nylirah was edging ever closer as they stared at each other. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to break.
"It is interesting to see such byplay," Master Massick interrupted with an uncertain smile. "But we really have… other things to do. I don't think you can keep us any longer. We'll find a way to save the Count because he's a sentient, and if I thought there was a way to save you, I would try that as well."
Nylirah responded with something so crude and crass that Nima was not going to ever repeat it in front of her mother at any point. So Nima instead told Mala that Nylirah had said:
"Ah, well. Not going to happen. Bye."
And then disappeared.
One blink, and she was gone.
"Well, that was rude," Master Massick said, mildly.
"Rude? I didn't know what half of those words meant," Nima said.
(Mala looked at her daughter. "What words?"
Oops.)
"She was simply being honest about her feelings. I am pretty sure the things she said are physically impossible, however," Massick said, seemingly entirely untroubled by the insults. Nima couldn't feel any annoyance, even. As if it didn't matter. As if she didn't matter. Nima could never take that point of view, not with Nylirah and perhaps not with anything. "I would advise you not to pay them much mind."
Nima bit her lip. The hallway seemed oddly empty, now. One person shouldn't have been able to fill it, but Nylirah had managed to do so. She had a magnetic pull… like the metaphorical speeder crash. "I'll try, Master Massick."
"We need to get to Dulia's room," Massick said. They hurried on, not quite jogging, but coming remarkably close. Nima almost wanted to cut loose and get there ahead of time… then she realized, why be so subtle? She could always just say that she was in a hurry for some other reason. So she started to run. "What are you doing?" He sounded confused.
Nima sped up. "We don't have time," Nima said. "What if Nylirah destroys any evidence? Even if she's gotten away, things might be left behind."
"A fair point," Massick said, and sped up to match her fast jog.
People watched them, startled, as they raced through the halls before stopping in front of a wide door. Nima strode forward and yanked it open, and then strode forward. The carpeting was thick and dark, and the whole room smelled faintly of alcohol and perhaps other narcotics Nima couldn't place. The walls were black and purple, with what seemed like steel-like grooves here and there. The wardrobe was thrown open, and entirely empty. She'd sensed that Dulia wasn't in here when she got closer… but a part of her had hoped she was somehow wrong.
On the bed, there was a holorecorder, and a note on flimsipad. The recorder was silver, and against the dark sheets it stood out. The note read: 'For Nylirah.'
Nima, who was not particularly known for her respect for privacy, pulled off the note and pressed the button.
A projection of Dulia, three hands high, stood in front of her. "So, Nylirah, we're parting ways. Stuff got fudged--"
("She did not say that," Mala accused, with a crooked smile on her face.
"...okay, no she didn't.")
"And it all fell apart, but I'd like to give you advice. I haven't destroyed your music yet, because it's too good. Good enough that you could do it as a full-time gig. I've heard about all the massive evil you've done, and… eh." Dulia shrugged expansively, a smirk on her face. "Not saying I would ever do anything like that, but I don't think that judgement and forgiveness matter. I'm not suggesting you stop this cause being more moral is nice." Dulia rolls her eyes. "I say it because… Nylirah, I think you'd be happier. You don't have to repent: who would forgive you. I'd never forgive my father for what he's done to me, no matter how sorry he was. I'm no white knight or Jedi. You'll probably say no… but if you wanted money to go and disappear and reappear as some musician somewhere… I'd give it to you."
Dulia frowned and shook her head. "Darling, you're a much better musician than you are a war criminal." She sounded like she meant it, and thought that a valuable distinction. The frown seemed so, so sad. "You don't have to pet small animals or be nice or be anything other than yourself: it's just that I don't think 'yourself' is quite this. And I don't think you want to destroy your music. I think you feel you have to, ideologically. Well, you know me and ideology: it's made up. It's bunkum--"
("No, she didn't use the word bunkum," Nima said, interrupting Mala's sly question.)
"So, there you go. There's an offer. You'll probably destroy this and then hunt me down because that's your ideology too: destroying what you value." Dulia seemed remarkably undisturbed. "I'd probably even deserve it. But hey. It is what it is. Keep the music, or don't. I'm just going to go somewhere with my money and my circle. Maybe we'll meet again, maybe we won't. I hope one day you're happy, whatever form that takes. Music's in the drawer. Bye."
And then the message ended.
Nima stared at it, and slowly came to some realizations. Dulia had cared a great deal about Nylirah, and Nylirah about Dulia. If friendship and love could redeem, then they'd certainly failed here. Dulia's mindset, the blithe dismissal of redemption, the blase attitude towards unforgivable crimes… and yet, Nima certainly would be happier if Nylirah went off to make nothing more than music for the rest of her life, if the alternative was having her out there.
It had been personal for Nylirah, in more ways than one.
But Nylirah was never going to change unless she chose to, and that wasn't happening anything soon.
"Nima?" Master Massick asked.
Nima didn't know what she was feeling, not really. She strode forward and opened the drawer, taking out the music player. She thought about Nylirah's cruel smile, and about the pain that defined her. The pain she'd felt and the pain she dealt out with calculated evil, believed in as an article of faith. Destroy what you love, perhaps? But then, how did that fit into anything else? Perhaps it was about destruction in general: Music and friendships were creations, organic and living.
She didn't know. She pressed a button. A song began to play. It started slow, but with an insidious creeping flute-like instrument that contrasted to the metallic, electronic sound of all the rest. It was like some animal stalking through the jungle of industrial destruction. For a moment she felt like she understood exactly what Nylirah meant by the song, and even almost agreed. With what? She wasn't sure. In the next heartbeat it was too beautiful and too horrible, an insinuation of the dark edge of empathy. You could empathize your way to dark places, couldn't you?
She shut off the music.
But not, she knew even then, for the last time.
"Master," Nima said. "How are we going to save the Count?"
He didn't deserve it. Not even a little. But maybe Nima didn't care, maybe she shouldn't. She just wanted to be done with this and him. It wasn't about deserving, about repenting and making up for crimes.
She was selfish, but there were larger issues than the guilt or innocence of a single man.
Nima felt like she was waking up.
What do they try to do?
[] Just tear it out. Clumsy, crude, and could end badly. But it's the most straightforward in ending the nightmares… though who he'd be afterwards is hard to say. Depending on how it ends… the ability to replace him might be great, or nonexistent.
[] Try to unravel and unwind it. This is high-precision surgery, and that's if there's not some sort of sick trap in it. Perhaps they can use it as leverage to convince him to retire?
[] Try to convince him to retire and get therapy… perhaps combined with Mind-Healer work, it would be enough to save him. But he can't do so while still in the seat.
[] Write-in.
******
A/N: Nylirah and Dulia are both pretty terrible people, but I find them interesting to write.
"I don't know what to think about Dulia," Mala Tyruti admitted, staring at her daughter with a frown. "It's terrible that she's making light of threats to you, but you don't sound as if you hate her."
"I didn't like her, but the juice was good and the conversation decent," Nima admitted, remembering the strange tangle of emotions towards the end. She was used to dealing with them, sorting through them and placing them in the right context. It was hard, though. "She was both kinder and crueler than I expected. She didn't care enough, I think, that the position she was going to take is one where you have to care to get anything done. But maybe she would have surprised me. Or maybe she would have proven far worse than I thought possible." Nima didn't like this, in a way: being the person to make sage judgements of others. Diplomacy was also supposed to be about coming to agreements that work.
But something she had seen had made her decide that this wasn't enough. Uncertainty could never be accepted in these situations.
Dulia was an unstable element liable to explode in some unpredictable way, and so she couldn't be part of the formula for whatever was best for the planet.
So Nima had acted. But to act, she needed to figure out how and what Nylirah did… if anything.
That's where it got hard.
That, in fact, is where the doubts piled up. A single moment, not quite real and not quite unreal.
******
"I assume you will need proof to be sure that she's behind it," Master Massick said. "How are we to find such proof? I've been looking at his mind for quite some time, night after night."
Nima didn't think there was some easy, simple solution to this. Still, her lekku curled a little at that phrase. She stood before him, and said, "I… don't know. Can I have some time to think?" She was tired, still reeling from the discussion that revealed that, in truth, they didn't have a candidate they truly supported. They were all suspect, but all of them for different reasons.
Dulia was suspicious and immoral, but also perhaps amoral and willing to go with the flow, if the right offer was provided. Still, that wasn't enough for Nima, not when there was the fact of her probable actions.
Hali was not a good fit for the Count, for all that her ideas seemed rather correct, at least in general. At the same time, she had concrete ideas. Axia was just viciousness and revenge (against terrible wrongs, but still) in a package: they didn't want the planet to go to war directly, the Coalition didn't need the troops that desperately, though the ships could help. Which is why Axia could not be entirely ruled out.
Then there was the noble, Hyrem. He was clearly angling to institute some sort of 'responsible nobles' government' that went against much of what Nima had been taught or picked up from Master Bell. But then again, the whole of this planet and its Count system was just as terrible.
Nima went for a walk, again going to the grounds. She was worried about attacks, but she could sense nobody nearby. It was almost dawn, and thus it was almost time to sleep. They seemed to live by the night, as if in an endless waking dream that had long since shifted--at random and without sense--into a nightmare.
She'd never actually seen the garden grounds during the day. Were all the flowers planted to look best at night? Some of them were glowing, so it was at least possible. It was as if the entire planet itself had flipped upside down in the face of the Count's whims. She walked along, thoughts nagging at her.
He didn't trust anyone, he didn't seem to regret anything, at least not enough not to keep on doing it. The same with Dulia, and far worse than her, Nylirah. Dulia was what he made of her, to some extent, but she was still all that was.;
So, what did this all mean?
Besides that people really needed to start sleeping in hours they preferred, rather than a Count.
Even Master Massick had been made to fit around the schedule, to scan his mind while the man went about his daily… tasks…
Nima froze. Was it possible? It shouldn't be possible. Things in the mind, however hidden, should be able to be found in both a waking and sleeping mind. Still, the thought kept on coming up.
All of those silly holovid stories, some of which included people being stabbed by an icicle dagger, were starting to come back. If there was some way to hurt him that was only viable while he was asleep… but then, how could he sleep through the day? If he hadn't been doing so, then he'd probably have fallen apart from deprivation.
Could it be related to the night in some way, then, going the other direction? Something activated only by nighttime?
If so, how could Nylirah have hidden it? She was a very different Force-user, but she was an illusionist, not a Mind-Healer. Whatever this was, it was clever and subtle, and Nima believed it far more likely that Nylirah was relying on some sort of clever trick than that she was just better with minds than a noted Jedi Master with extensive experience.
Besides, the truth was… if she was, then there was nothing Nima could do, because she certainly wasn't a better telepath, empath, and Mind-Healer than Master Massick. She'd have to make the assumptions that gave her a chance--slim as it was--to figure out whether Nylirah was doing anything. If she was doing it so subtly that nobody could notice, it was the same as her not doing it, for all that mattered.
So, that was an idea.
******
"You wish to watch me while I sleep?" Count Nives asked, spitting the words as he lay in his bed, datapads covering him like leaves on the green, seeming to only increase as the minutes went by and aides set down other datapads, with other sets of data and information. The fat old man's bronze skin was pale and sleek with sweat. "What next, watching me while I defecate?"
"I don't believe that'd teach us anything new," Massick said, still with the cheery smile. Still, Nives didn't say no, and Nima could feel his exhausted despair, the growing uncertainty. It was skin deep, in a way. His fundamental self was the same cruel man she'd felt before. If you coated a stone in sweet dough and sugar, you'd still break your teeth if you tried to bite down on it, trusting on the coating to determine the inner core. (Well, Nima wouldn't, but she was pretty sure a human would break their teeth on stone.)
If he was thinking and feeling like this in a year, perhaps that'd mean something. Even a week after the problem was solved would be easier to believe. Yes, it was possible for sudden conversions and realizations… but this was more simple. He was tired. His every emotion was at once heightened and dulled.
He was who she had to work with.
"What wit. I suppose so, there's no other choice now. If I cannot solve the problem I will have to retire, and I am increasingly sure that none of them are truly deserving. They will all ruin the planet, and so I must reign for another decade, at least! Once the crisis between your 'Coalition' and this 'Republic' is done with your little war, I can make a decision."
The room was richly appointed, the data slates standing out against all the wood and old, fine materials. Nima had the feeling he would have wanted even the data slates to be wood or stone if he had his way. He had a vision of how the world should be, and if that didn't involve mass suffering and misery, that wouldn't have even been a bad thing in itself.
But this old man, sitting in his bad, had more power than any hundred thousand people. He sat, and the world watched. And waited.
So it was.
******
Minds did not have rooms. Minds did not have doors. Everything was visualization, the creation of images that held meaning and power. So Nima was not standing in a dour room in the mansion, staring at a ticking clock that was ticking faster and faster with each second. She could not smell blood and smoke, or feel Master Massick's hand on her shoulder as she tried to take all of it in.
It was not much of a room, but it must be very familiar to Massick for him to be able to manage to pull it together so easily. She steps forward, frowning. "He's running out of time?"
"That's what he feels," Massick said. "That much is very clear. But this looks a little different. The blood, for one…"
There's blood on the walls, bleeding from small cracks in it, dripping down slowly but steadily. Each drop seems to boom and echo when it hits the ground, before sizzling up as if the floor itself was hot. But it wasn't. Nima could tell it wasn't. At a certain point, of course, minds met. What Massick was seeing wasn't purely a vision of his own. It had to connect in some way to what was there, or else it would have no power, no influence. You couldn't look through someone's memories if you didn't know what they were and who they were.
There was a scream in the distance, and the sound of heavy footfalls.
"You can't, you can't," a man's voice echoed down the halls.
There was the crack of a blaster bolt. A mother was crying. The sounds seemed as if they were filtering through the crack.
"This is new?"
"Yes. It was just this room, and then you stepped into his subjective memories. As a lesson, Padawan, beware of attempts to clean up and make sense of what you see. All that does, often enough, is leave you interacting with an illusory version of reality."
Illusions were why she was here. What could Nylirah have done to cause this? "Why is it visible now?"
"I… don't know. How could dreaming change the state of someone's mind, truly? Everything you dream of, unless you are Force Sensitive, comes from within your mind. It is a tangled labyrinth, but I tested him for such sensitivity, and he wasn't. Not even borderline. Slight elevations of midichlorians, but not enough to do anything with. It's likely just another family myth." Massick's smile grew a little brittle. "If you ever serve as a recruiter, you will see that a lot. People whose great-uncle supposedly once lifted something with their minds… it is saddening, in a way."
"That they don't?" Nima asked, frowning a little.
"No, that they think that force sensitivity is what makes them valuable. They hold onto the rumors like a…" Massick trailed off.
"Like a?"
"Like those here and their stories about the Count's bloodline," Massick admitted, striding over towards a door. "Their stories about the holy nature of it. If anything is holy, it isn't a single sentient. Let's go."
They wandered through a bizarre array of sights and sounds. It was as if the memories themselves had been shaken up, burst loose from some dark hole. No, it was… it was more as if the mind itself was decaying from within. Nima kept on trying to figure out how she'd describe this to others.
(Mala Tyruti frowned and tried to understand, but she didn't. Mala Tyruti had never walked in a swamp, but had she ever walked on a rickety roadway? She lived in Coruscant, so surely? Or had she ever been to a neighborhood where she knew things were only going to get worse, and never get better? Or had she ever seen an animal, like one of the bird-like creatures of Coruscant, hit by a speeder and laying on the ground, decomposing but not yet dead?
It was that same feeling.
"Nima, are you okay?" Mala had asked when Nima had finally found a way to describe it.
Was she? Mostly. Was he? Not then.)
She stepped as lightly as she could, and still felt the mind warp beneath her. She imagined this was boggy ground threatening to sink her deep within it. She passed by a flash of something, of color, of a man's dark face as he fell to the ground, placard slipping from his…
"Master, what is this?"
"When he was newly the Count, there was a large-scale protest and strike by one of the unions. After rumors and reports that some of them were armed with blasters, the Prime Minister at the time sent in armed soldiers. Hundreds died, and the union was broken. Some suspected that the new Count had a hand in it."
The smile on his face was strained, almost ironic now.
Nima, aghast, said, "Why… what does helping… what does?" She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't even form it.
Her Master, Jordyan Bell, would be trying to find a way to overthrow him if he was here, not save him. But she tried to focus. She was supposed to be a professional, and neither diplomats nor Mind Healers could just decide to abandon people like that.
She could taste the tears of those he hurt, and see the harsh words he'd had for everyone he met: there would be millions who mourned his retirement, but few of them had ever met him, and plenty who'd never seen him before had cause to hate him.
Was it dark of Nima, now fourteen, to think that it was a surprise that everyone hadn't tried to kill or harm him?
Eventually they found themselves in front of something that looked like a giant, pulsing knot of flesh and wire and cords, reddish-brown at places, and clear, steel-like grey at others. It stank of… what? What sounded like poisonous mushrooms, tasted like the groan of agony of a dying man, and smelled like chartreuse? "Guilt. Despair," Nima said, finally recognizing it. "But… not natural?"
"No, it is natural. In the same way cancer is," Massick said. At last the smile was gone. He looked haunted. It pulsed in front of them, sickeningly. "Whoever did it made him have guilty dreams. Bound it up in… a very small amount of real guilt. And now here it is. Somehow, it's hidden outside dreams, or was. Something like this can't be hidden much longer."
"And if it isn't taken away, what happens?"
"Since he would never admit and acknowledge guilt to get rid of it naturally?" Massick asked, stepping back away from the pulsing mass. "He'd go insane, or finally begin to feel guilt. Bottled up, with nowhere to go…"
She knew what that did to people.
It was an 'ironic' punishment.
Who did Nima know who was most likely to try to punish the Count 'ironically'? It was Dulia, most likely. So he'd felt guilt. A lot of it, but only when sleeping. But if this took weeks to build up, then Nylirah had somehow been here before any of the diplomats. Either that, or someone else had started it and then Nylirah had continued it.
But… this was all so elaborate. If Nylirah could get close enough to infest his mind, why couldn't she have just assassinated him, or driven him insane, or any number of choices?
Spite? Probably some of it, but… there was more. Did she see it as an act of art, a sort of total destruction?
It was true that having a longer lead-in time made it easier to try to manipulate the succession, but there were ways around it, surely?
"Can we destroy it?"
"Can we. It's all the guilt he can feel. Sentients who cannot feel guilt and shame cannot actually function. But if we try to unravel it, who's to say it won't backfire? We'll need to consider our actions. And we'll need to confront Dulia." Massick paused, then added, offhand. "There is one problem. Something has been watching us the whole time."
Nima whirled around, as if there'd be a person peeping in the mindscape, and saw nothing. "What?"
"We needed to find the source of this before we left so we could act later… but we must hurry. If Nylirah has learned of it, she might act in a drastic way. I can't sense her anywhere in this room… but that means very little."
*****
He was still sleeping when they left. Most people were. A servant was outside the room though, frowning, dressed in black and grey. She was an old human, withered and yet with bright, feverish eyes. "Oh, it's you. So the Master has gone to bed? I wanted to share the news about his daughter." Ah, someone who loved gossip, Nima guessed.
"What happened?" Massick asked.
"It's terrible! She had this giant argument with Axia, and now she's decided she doesn't want the seat and is going to be leaving for abroad again! He'll be so devastated when he hears that!"
Nima almost shivered. She was going to get away. They needed to talk to Dulia if they were going to figure out what had happened, and why. Now they were almost out of time, and Nima felt the stress building, the sweat and tension that had nothing to do with exercise. She was tired, of course. Anytime she blinked, behind the lids she saw that abomination, the thing that she couldn't quite describe to Mala.
It was like attempts to make others understand the differences in how Twi'lek and human noses worked, or Bothan and Human. Everything was almost the same, but not quite. She could almost grasp what she'd seen well enough to give a real description, but like a flat drawing it had none of the power it should. Even weeks later, she could only imagine it in synesthesia: in the taste of poison-green, the smell of the last goodbye to a loved one.
She shuddered, and almost missed Nylirah as they walked.
They couldn't run, because this wasn't supposed to be a crisis. It might not be yet.
They just turned a corner, and there she was, in the middle of a hallway, a hand on her hip. She had a smirk glued onto her face, and her hip was cocked as if she was posing for the front of some Holomagazine.
A silly part of Nima wondered if she'd been standing there the whole time, waiting for them.
"Hello, Jedi. I cannot let you step further without talking to me."
"Talking? Is that all you intend?" Master Massick asked. He was leaning forward slightly, the hallway too small to pass through without being in lightsaber range. His bright eyes glowed, the yellow seemingly a danger sign.
"Just talking," Nylirah said. "I have a feeling that going against you would be like playing without background tracks. You'd just slick and roll, and then you'd be karped."
Massick didn't understand, and Nima didn't need to read the brittle smile to know that. Nima didn't understand either.
"Just so," Massick said, moving a hand to rest it over his lightsaber. "So, how will you distract me?"
"Talking, of course. You want answers? I have ways to keep it from being recorded, and any Mind-Healer tricks like sharing memories won't hold up, will they?" Nylirah asked. "I also know you, Mr. Massick. You're the type that wants to know just as much as you want to win. You can't win, not really. Honestly, I could tell you that the entire purpose of this expedition was to test my abilities and a new way to manipulate others… and it wouldn't be a lie. It's unfortunate that I was caught, but there's no way to save him, I'm sure of it." Nylirah's cruel face and her dark, enchanting eyes seemed almost to shine like Massick's. "But you shouldn't want to, to be honest."
She waved a hand, and the walls seemed to warp and twist. They stretched like taffy, and then compressed, shifting around and around until she was almost dizzy trying to follow it. An illusion was circling around them as tight as a waistband after an act of gluttony. Nima could see ways to ease the tension, to break through the illusion, but she didn't want to even try. Not yet.
Not when this hateful ball of darkness was before her.
But she seemed… different.
"Why are you stalling?" Nima asked. She began to move forward, carefully, a part of her wanting to strike Nylirah down where she stood, no matter what the cost.
"To allow Dulia to escape, duh." Nylirah rolled her eyes.
"Remarkably loyal," Massick said, sounding approving.
"She's fun enough to hang around. I'd have to kill her if we continued to, so perhaps it's for the best… for her… that we're going to be parting ways," Nylirah said it remarkably casually, but Nima felt something. A thrum, just a small thrum, of pain. Less like she was imagining an infinite sorrow, and more an unfortunate coincidence. But Nima was startled by it. "She's far more interesting than either of you. Interesting, and yet boring. Just another young scion with a thousand reasons to hate her father. She truly does want to do a decent enough job at ruling the planet to not be overthrown. That was the most boring thing about her." Nylirah rolled her eyes, and then stalked a little closer. Nima tensed, but she stopped herself.
"So, she bored you? Or… Nima has mentioned the music. Did you like an audience?"
"It should be destroyed now," Nylirah said. "I'm surprised she told you about it. Too busy trying to make me a bogeyman, as if her thoughts aren't visible on her face. It's cute." Nylirah stretched herself out, a dark and foreboding vision, golden-brown hand impossibly smooth and untouched, moving as if to captivate.
"So, you did something to the Count's mind?" Nima asked.
"Oh, yes. The good thing is I have diplomatic immunity and my own way out of here. But all I did was what his own conscience should have done long ago. I really wouldn't care if he was an innocent, kind man. It'd be fun to do anyways…"
Lie. No, not a lie. Nima focused on Nylirah's emotions. It was the truth and not the truth. "You enjoyed it more because of who he was."
"Have you truly never seen him for that?" Nylirah asked. "Ah, yes, you have. And yet you don't realize the hopelessness and despair of the world, the senseless chaos and destruction that is the truth. Anything you try to hold onto will rot away before the Darkness. I realized that long ago. You could too. Each of you would be powerful indeed if unshackled from the pretenses of the Jedi." She said it idly, musingly. She wasn't actually trying to seduce them to the Dark Side. No, it was the planting of a midnight seed, that she hoped to see grow in the light of day.
"You say all this, but, Master Massick, did you know about her father? He was a vigilante, a Jedi who went rogue," Nima said, quietly. "I wonder: did he hurt you, Nylirah?"
This wasn't kindness. These were the cruelest guesses she could make.
Nylirah stared at her. Even Massick looked shocked. Nima made sure to look her right in the eyes. Nima wasn't going to drive her to attack, but she was going to see what she said.
Nylirah stood there, almost seeming to sway in the breeze for a moment before she said coldly. "One day you will be kneeling before me, all hope lost, aware that death is meaningless and so is life. When that day comes, I will laugh and torture you to death. It will be all you deserve."
"You don't have to be what you are," Nima said. But she wasn't trying to redeem Nylirah. No, it was a realization. Face to face before one of the most disgusting sentients she'd ever met, Nima realized that even now, she could be saved. She could even now turn around. Perhaps that's why she had to kill Dulia if she got too close. Perhaps that's why she was directed, or decided, to destroy her own work. To create bonds gave you something to lose.
She could have been a regular monster, cruel and vicious, but with those she cared about. Horrific, but different. Instead, she had chosen to cut herself off, one by one.
Or perhaps it had been chosen for her. But she was an adult. Nima was fourteen, and she'd still worked to try to forge her own path.
So the realization came, looking at the darkness and hate and joy and glee at the suffering of others… that she could be something else. Perhaps not a good person, but one that wouldn't destroy everything around her in the name of destruction.
It was worse than if there was no way back.
She was here, and the only way she could take even a single step from the path was if she chose to do it. Nylirah stood before them, and her words were a claim.
It was a claim that Nima had to fight.
Nima shook her head. All she had were simple words. "You don't have to be, but can you change? You are trapped in your illusions."
"Do you know how sickening it is, to hear you prattling?" Nylirah asked. "To hear you pretending wisdom you like? That is pretension at its core. I have lived more than you ever will. I have seen more of the truth of the galaxy. And I thought my hatred of you couldn't grow. But then you do this. Then you stand here, and by even your own system you are evil. You protect a monster. That's good. Protect monsters. Justify evil. Revel in cruelty. But don't lie to yourself and talk about how you're saving the Count out of anything but selfishness."
Nima didn't have an answer to that. It was selfish. Nylirah and the Count should both spend the rest of their lives in prison. They should be properly punished for their crimes, and to prevent them from hurting others.
The Count hadn't done as much as she had, but they were not so different, people turned inside out, every dark and bitter thought and inclination defining who they were in every sense. Now she was staring into the darkness and it was glaring back with slick lingo and endless, almost childish, hurt.
The more she looked, the more she thought that perhaps Nylirah would regret quite a few things more than she said. But she didn't want to look deeper. She didn't want to stain herself. Nylirah was edging ever closer as they stared at each other. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to break.
"It is interesting to see such byplay," Master Massick interrupted with an uncertain smile. "But we really have… other things to do. I don't think you can keep us any longer. We'll find a way to save the Count because he's a sentient, and if I thought there was a way to save you, I would try that as well."
Nylirah responded with something so crude and crass that Nima was not going to ever repeat it in front of her mother at any point. So Nima instead told Mala that Nylirah had said:
"Ah, well. Not going to happen. Bye."
And then disappeared.
One blink, and she was gone.
"Well, that was rude," Master Massick said, mildly.
"Rude? I didn't know what half of those words meant," Nima said.
(Mala looked at her daughter. "What words?"
Oops.)
"She was simply being honest about her feelings. I am pretty sure the things she said are physically impossible, however," Massick said, seemingly entirely untroubled by the insults. Nima couldn't feel any annoyance, even. As if it didn't matter. As if she didn't matter. Nima could never take that point of view, not with Nylirah and perhaps not with anything. "I would advise you not to pay them much mind."
Nima bit her lip. The hallway seemed oddly empty, now. One person shouldn't have been able to fill it, but Nylirah had managed to do so. She had a magnetic pull… like the metaphorical speeder crash. "I'll try, Master Massick."
"We need to get to Dulia's room," Massick said. They hurried on, not quite jogging, but coming remarkably close. Nima almost wanted to cut loose and get there ahead of time… then she realized, why be so subtle? She could always just say that she was in a hurry for some other reason. So she started to run. "What are you doing?" He sounded confused.
Nima sped up. "We don't have time," Nima said. "What if Nylirah destroys any evidence? Even if she's gotten away, things might be left behind."
"A fair point," Massick said, and sped up to match her fast jog.
People watched them, startled, as they raced through the halls before stopping in front of a wide door. Nima strode forward and yanked it open, and then strode forward. The carpeting was thick and dark, and the whole room smelled faintly of alcohol and perhaps other narcotics Nima couldn't place. The walls were black and purple, with what seemed like steel-like grooves here and there. The wardrobe was thrown open, and entirely empty. She'd sensed that Dulia wasn't in here when she got closer… but a part of her had hoped she was somehow wrong.
On the bed, there was a holorecorder, and a note on flimsipad. The recorder was silver, and against the dark sheets it stood out. The note read: 'For Nylirah.'
Nima, who was not particularly known for her respect for privacy, pulled off the note and pressed the button.
A projection of Dulia, three hands high, stood in front of her. "So, Nylirah, we're parting ways. Stuff got fudged--"
("She did not say that," Mala accused, with a crooked smile on her face.
"...okay, no she didn't.")
"And it all fell apart, but I'd like to give you advice. I haven't destroyed your music yet, because it's too good. Good enough that you could do it as a full-time gig. I've heard about all the massive evil you've done, and… eh." Dulia shrugged expansively, a smirk on her face. "Not saying I would ever do anything like that, but I don't think that judgement and forgiveness matter. I'm not suggesting you stop this cause being more moral is nice." Dulia rolls her eyes. "I say it because… Nylirah, I think you'd be happier. You don't have to repent: who would forgive you. I'd never forgive my father for what he's done to me, no matter how sorry he was. I'm no white knight or Jedi. You'll probably say no… but if you wanted money to go and disappear and reappear as some musician somewhere… I'd give it to you."
Dulia frowned and shook her head. "Darling, you're a much better musician than you are a war criminal." She sounded like she meant it, and thought that a valuable distinction. The frown seemed so, so sad. "You don't have to pet small animals or be nice or be anything other than yourself: it's just that I don't think 'yourself' is quite this. And I don't think you want to destroy your music. I think you feel you have to, ideologically. Well, you know me and ideology: it's made up. It's bunkum--"
("No, she didn't use the word bunkum," Nima said, interrupting Mala's sly question.)
"So, there you go. There's an offer. You'll probably destroy this and then hunt me down because that's your ideology too: destroying what you value." Dulia seemed remarkably undisturbed. "I'd probably even deserve it. But hey. It is what it is. Keep the music, or don't. I'm just going to go somewhere with my money and my circle. Maybe we'll meet again, maybe we won't. I hope one day you're happy, whatever form that takes. Music's in the drawer. Bye."
And then the message ended.
Nima stared at it, and slowly came to some realizations. Dulia had cared a great deal about Nylirah, and Nylirah about Dulia. If friendship and love could redeem, then they'd certainly failed here. Dulia's mindset, the blithe dismissal of redemption, the blase attitude towards unforgivable crimes… and yet, Nima certainly would be happier if Nylirah went off to make nothing more than music for the rest of her life, if the alternative was having her out there.
It had been personal for Nylirah, in more ways than one.
But Nylirah was never going to change unless she chose to, and that wasn't happening anything soon.
"Nima?" Master Massick asked.
Nima didn't know what she was feeling, not really. She strode forward and opened the drawer, taking out the music player. She thought about Nylirah's cruel smile, and about the pain that defined her. The pain she'd felt and the pain she dealt out with calculated evil, believed in as an article of faith. Destroy what you love, perhaps? But then, how did that fit into anything else? Perhaps it was about destruction in general: Music and friendships were creations, organic and living.
She didn't know. She pressed a button. A song began to play. It started slow, but with an insidious creeping flute-like instrument that contrasted to the metallic, electronic sound of all the rest. It was like some animal stalking through the jungle of industrial destruction. For a moment she felt like she understood exactly what Nylirah meant by the song, and even almost agreed. With what? She wasn't sure. In the next heartbeat it was too beautiful and too horrible, an insinuation of the dark edge of empathy. You could empathize your way to dark places, couldn't you?
She shut off the music.
But not, she knew even then, for the last time.
"Master," Nima said. "How are we going to save the Count?"
He didn't deserve it. Not even a little. But maybe Nima didn't care, maybe she shouldn't. She just wanted to be done with this and him. It wasn't about deserving, about repenting and making up for crimes.
She was selfish, but there were larger issues than the guilt or innocence of a single man.
Nima felt like she was waking up.
What do they try to do?
[] Just tear it out. Clumsy, crude, and could end badly. But it's the most straightforward in ending the nightmares… though who he'd be afterwards is hard to say. Depending on how it ends… the ability to replace him might be great, or nonexistent.
[] Try to unravel and unwind it. This is high-precision surgery, and that's if there's not some sort of sick trap in it. Perhaps they can use it as leverage to convince him to retire?
[] Try to convince him to retire and get therapy… perhaps combined with Mind-Healer work, it would be enough to save him. But he can't do so while still in the seat.
[] Write-in.
******
A/N: Nylirah and Dulia are both pretty terrible people, but I find them interesting to write.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think the first option wouldn't really be in character, and I doubt that the Count would go for the 3rd. I doubt he'd willing retire, but I think if the risks are explained he would at least pick a backup so if the worse happens there'd still be a line of succession. Of course in that case it would be really easy to spin it as the Jedi having murdered him so that's not too good either.
He was considering retirement anyway? But as presented, yeah probably not. That would involve confronting the very little real guilt he feels. The second one is probably the best combination of results and actually getting him to accept it, but it's pretty risky. And the first sounded like it would basically lobotomize him and leave him even more apathetic and unfeeling than before from what her Master said when they were in his mind.
- Location
- United States of America
[X] Try to unravel and unwind it. This is high-precision surgery, and that's if there's not some sort of sick trap in it. Perhaps they can use it as leverage to convince him to retire?
[X] Try to convince him to retire and get therapy… perhaps combined with Mind-Healer work, it would be enough to save him. But he can't do so while still in the seat.
Safe option that also gets him out of power, even if it's a long shot.
Safe option that also gets him out of power, even if it's a long shot.
TimEd
Meteor maker
[X] Try to unravel and unwind it. This is high-precision surgery, and that's if there's not some sort of sick trap in it. Perhaps they can use it as leverage to convince him to retire?
I think this chapter specifically suffered from the narrative (nima to her mom) way this was told.
I think this chapter specifically suffered from the narrative (nima to her mom) way this was told.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hmm, interesting. When writing, it felt like it mostly only intruded in a few places, but I might have also found the bit with Nima trying to dance around curse words more amusing than my readers might have.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Personally, I liked and enjoyed those parts.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Right. I don't really care about the count as a person, but
[X] Try to convince him to retire and get therapy… perhaps combined with Mind-Healer work, it would be enough to save him. But he can't do so while still in the seat.
this isn't about him in the end. It's about the planet, the diplomatic mission, Nima herself, Nylirah being a weird nihilistic murderhobo cultist even weirder and more nihilistic than normal Sith, eh.
It's about a lot of things, but mostly. The count either accepts, or he doesn't. If he doesn't he goes insane and dies, and I think he cares about himself a little more than about being a Count or whatever.
If he accepts, the next Count is going to be easier to deal with by the sheer dint of not being an ossified piece of shit.
Though there are gradations, obviously, but I don't know who he would select as his successor, he doesn't seem to like any of them, so it's useless to talk about.
edit: also, can I just say how confusing it was to find out that the Jedi Master didn't observe him while he was sleeping even once? I mean. FFS, nightmares. How about, I dunno, checking them out to figure what the problem is?
[X] Try to convince him to retire and get therapy… perhaps combined with Mind-Healer work, it would be enough to save him. But he can't do so while still in the seat.
this isn't about him in the end. It's about the planet, the diplomatic mission, Nima herself, Nylirah being a weird nihilistic murderhobo cultist even weirder and more nihilistic than normal Sith, eh.
It's about a lot of things, but mostly. The count either accepts, or he doesn't. If he doesn't he goes insane and dies, and I think he cares about himself a little more than about being a Count or whatever.
If he accepts, the next Count is going to be easier to deal with by the sheer dint of not being an ossified piece of shit.
Though there are gradations, obviously, but I don't know who he would select as his successor, he doesn't seem to like any of them, so it's useless to talk about.
edit: also, can I just say how confusing it was to find out that the Jedi Master didn't observe him while he was sleeping even once? I mean. FFS, nightmares. How about, I dunno, checking them out to figure what the problem is?
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