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| - A moving backdrop of slightly reflective dark colors shift in the distance, like a huge sky made up of metallic hues picked from the canvas of a painting of an autumn evening. A uniform, non-directional luminescence is the only lighting, and it lends everything it touches a soft silvery-blue glow. Like water, the Force stretches out as far as the eye can see, small ripples here and there growing into gentle concentric rings. Everything is rooted in this mercurial reality, growing from essence and life here into the world of matter and being. Living, unliving, the past, present and future; all of it is permeated by This. For Orson, time and some badly needed rest are slowly knitting together the jagged wound on his shoulder. It's stopped bleeding. For a full two days after receiving the cut and having it treated, it still leaked. The healing is going to be a long process. Orson's mind is not intentionally here. This new demon, this burden of Jessalyn and the woman's decision to change sides, as Orson sees it, is weighing heavily on the man. Strangely, it is a more powerful and insistent demon than the small, meddling imp of Marina's memory. He walks slowly here, seeing but not seeing, watching a shadow version of Jessalyn and Simon move through the Force together. It's hard to know how much of the Jessalyn he sees here is really her, and how much is the past, a memory... but it was clear that she and Simon were together, somewhere, and that their Force essences had comingled. Simon's had become a shade lighter. And Jessalyn... Orson bows his head. The Force has been intentionally blocked from Jessalyn's consciousness. She was bitter about her inability to keep her vow not to use it again -- compelled by circumstances to save the Selas' life, to keep alive that little quiver of hope that he could be saved. Wasn't this the same fatal flaw she'd made before? It was different than then, certainly. This time she wasn't deluded about the hold the Dark Side had on Simon. This time her energies would be better served worrying about her own destiny. They had spent half the evening evading any forces searching for them, the sewers an unpleasant but apt enough metaphor for the state of her mind, she tells herself grimly. After finding a dry spot on which to rest and sleeping in shifts, Jessalyn is huddled in a grimy, dark corner with her knees drawn up to her chest in a fetal posture. Her eyes drift shut, and as she drifts into a light doze, the firm walls that divide her mind from the Force begin to dissolve, letting it vibrate once more within her mind. The sensation of being observed should have been enough to jar her awake -- but instead she turns her senses outward, curious and too unaware to be afraid. Orson has not been in this deep a meditative state for some weeks now. It's an uneasy moment for him, and he whips his head to the horizon, looking both ways, as if expecting to be blindsided by a stealthy foe. "Jessalyn," he says, voice deep and gentle, baritone power echoing across that small distance. He could not have found her so easily had he intended it. Something else. "The Dark Side..." A laughing whisper, like a hundred malevolent children exhaling at once, ripples through the landscape. Simply pronouncing the words at this pure state has an effect. A silver ripple leaves the small man. "I've been here before," someone's voice whispers, and Jessalyn is unsure if it's her own, or some entity created by her mind. The dream hasn't become lucid yet; she drifts in unreality, nudged by ripples of the Force without entering onto its plane. Another reason she can't bear to touch the Force: sensing the alterations in her own aura is troubling enough. Confidence and hope have been shattered, replaced by an incipient self-loathing that infects every thought, every relationship, every memory. Seeing her Darkest self, seeing the true nature of her heart -- it was enough to take all the life out of her, it seems. Despite her lost faith, the switch of allegiances is a false veneer. The truth was, Jessa couldn't go back to the Jedi tainted as she was. And her continued presence with Simon would ultimately lead to her own death, if she was lucky. If she was on Simon's side, she would not have made certain the Jedi escaped with the hidden prize from the Dimlyn Titan. If she was on Simon's side, they would even now be hunting down the Uwannabuyim to begin his insane purge. No. Jessalyn simply has nowhere left to go. "Leave me alone," she states from some deep corner of her mind that's aware of Orson's essence, drawing so near. Orson does. He leaves her alone, turning away again, tilting his head to look down at his hands. Gray and burned, flesh sagging from them. Ancient hands. Still wearing the thin silver marriage band that he had exchanged with Marina. It sparked sinister there, grown into his flesh and impossible to remove. It's an eternity before he speaks again. Orson looks up. "The guilt could destroy us both," the man says, voice neutral. The former student folds his arms up on his chest and simply peers at the shadowy woman. That remark drags her kicking and screaming out of her complacency, and her mind blazes across the distance, not using the Dark Side, but the full knowledge of him, his soul that's so closely attuned to hers. He hadn't been there when she'd been in full submission to the Darkness, he hadn't intervened to try and save her from its grasp. She knows her corruption, but would rather accept insanity than betray those she had loved and served. "Oh, Orson," she calls, her voice not so different from the woman he had known. "When you told me that I was your weak point, did you ever stop to consider what you were to -me-?" The green eyes stare at him, sad and forlorn. "I don't want you to mourn over me. I want you to go and fulfill your destiny...." It would be incorrect to say that he doesn't regret their last conversation on the Dimlyn Titan. That wasn't true. He did regret it, the consequences and the untimely arrival of Simon. But he had no delusions that he was responsible for the woman's soul. Orson had seen her strength, he still saw her as teacher, perhaps former teacher, but someone who was wiser and stronger than he. "I wasn't strong enough for you," he says quietly, drifting further away even as she arrives fully. The moment is fleeting. "But I will not leave you there." If he had to crawl through the Force to her and fight Simon again, he might, those fierce gray eyes suggest. "Don't be ashamed." They've erred on the side of feeling too much, that's all. Orson has to begin walking toward Jessalyn to keep from being drawn away, and works to keep the distance the same. His lips move, and he's trying to speak, but nothing is coming out. Useless explanation, false words to get her back that ring hollow in this medium. Her shadowy form drifts in place; Jessalyn makes no effort to shrink back or move closer to him, keeping enough distance that she can feel at least somewhat safe. But even being in his presence at all is having a detrimental effect on the state of her mind. "You don't have a choice," she warns him, mournfully. "You're the strongest man I know, Orson. Yet you're afraid of your own goodness, your own happiness. I can't go back. I'm so sorry. I can't face you or Luke or any of you, after seeing what I really am inside." Jessalyn's own head bends, a tremor in her soul bleeding out despair and abandonment and the layers of hatred that have formed like callouses on her heart.... _____________ .... The little girl swayed where she stood in the darkness of early morning, having snuck out of her bunk and padded barefoot through the secret jungle paths that brought her to the base's landing pad. A single freighter was there, running lights already on, the hum of the engines warming up as a few crew members scurried around her to prepare for takeoff. Jessalyn's feet were damp with dew, and she shivered, tiny arms wrapping around herself since the flimsy nightgown offered little in the way of warmth. At only five years old, she was already mostly leg; gawky, skinny, with wild red hair carefully braided by a foster mother more interested in her appearance than Jessa herself ever was. She clutched the little bouquet of wildflowers in her hands as she crossed the tarmac, looking for someone... But he found her, instead. Dr. Xavier Nighman stepped up behind the girl and scooped her up into his arms, a booming baritone voice breaking the quiet and making her giggle with glee. "And what are you doing here this time of the night, young lady? You should be in bed!" he scolded, laughter in his eyes. "I had to give you this!" Jessa squealed, offering the flowers. The professor knew even at this age that this girl's smile was going to steal hearts someday. "Why, thank you! They are quite lovely," Nighman said, setting her down and taking the bouquet, scrutinizing each flower with an educated eye. "Now it's time for little girls to be back in bed before Miss Dietra realizes you're gone, hmm?" Jessa shuffled her feet, big green eyes suddenly wide and sad, and she tugged on Dr. Nighman's sleeve. "Please take me with you!" she asked in a heartbreaking voice. He was the only one who had ever taken an interest in her, taught her the names of the flowers she loved so much and told her stories about the homeworld she had never even set foot upon. And since he was going back to Corellia, she wasn't at all happy about being left behind with the boring and indifferent family who had taken her in. Her lower lip quivered as he crouched down and took her shoulders in his broad hands. "You belong here, little one. You know I have to go. I'm sorry." After a tearful hug, Jessalyn watched him disappear up the ramp of the ship, and moments later the vessel was curling up into the dark sky, bright lights punctuating the morning mist that swirled up like a ghost to obscure her vision.... "You can!" Orson is already moving, disappearing, intent focus and tremendous Distance between them making it so hard to maintain this sort of contact. He's got but a word, or two, to share, and those are the ones he chooses. Like he's been drawn back, reeled in, rapidly on a string, he shrinks to a tiny dot on the horizon before slipping into the silvery cool of the Force fabric which surrounds their bodies. Jerking his eyes open, the man snaps his head up from its half-tilt. His feet are carefully propped against the workstation of the Uwannabuyim, with screens of news stories scrolling copious amounts of information surrounding him. In the screens, the reflection of the main corridor behind him, and a memory of the Jedi, asking him months ago if he wanted to learn about the Force. "I would have said no," Orson says aloud, whispering it to the blurry image of her on his screen, leaning forward earnestly. "I would have said no."
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