Chapter 48 (Patreon)

“@₽#@&&!!!” Talli breathed under her breath so no one would hear as she approached the sorcerer and one of the Senior Sisters. The Dathomiri woman walked quickly, but with her head bowed respectfully and her eyes lowered. Right now, she was terrified. More terrified than when she’d been caught in someone else’s library. More terrified than during the Long Patrol’s scrapes. More terrified than after their group had been captured.

“@₽#@&&!!!” she repeated, this time only in her head, barely suppressing a whimper when she felt the emerald-green gaze of the third most powerful Senior Sister in the clan settle on her. Mother Talzin. Fucking Mother Talzin was controlling the body of the Nightsister group’s leader right now. No one else would have had the strength to take control of a gifted woman that powerful. And the Third Sister would never have allowed anyone else to crawl into her skin.

How did this happen? Why? The only thing worse would have been Mother’s personal presence. Though having some of the clan’s stronger fighters here, plus a medium possessed by Talzin, was still one hell of a pile of rancor shit.

Talli hadn’t expected anyone to come for them at all. Her patrol “friends” had been waiting for help, but V’arna had been hoping they’d simply be written off. Her Sisters from the patrol didn’t understand that being forgotten would have been far better for them than being rescued. It happened often enough: no one was surprised when another bunch of Long Patrol screwups vanished without a trace. The next group sent along their route would try to find out what had happened to them, but that would be the end of it.

After spending a week aboard the Rung and getting to know the sorcerer and his crew, the girl was almost certain that nothing particularly terrible was going to happen to her personally. The sorcerer didn’t seem to have any intention of killing the idiots in the pen either; otherwise, it was hard to explain why all his “research on the gifted” had been so remarkably humane. So Talli had been counting, at the very least, on getting her freedom back once Siith left Dathomir. Shame her best-case plan had probably just gone straight to Sith hell.

Why the hell did they have to come after all?! the girl panicked, cursing the universe. Everything she had done over the past week had probably been for nothing, and what awaited her now was unlikely to be pleasant. If anything awaits me at all, came the bleak, hopeless thought.

Life in captivity had been calm and pleasant. Siith had turned out to be a perfectly reasonable person once you got used to his smiles, and a good Teacher who explained things remarkably well. Talli shared her own knowledge in return and behaved with the utmost respect. The rest of the people aboard the ship treated her either with indifference or even with some degree of sympathy. The latter, of course, was thanks to the Dathomiri woman making a deliberate effort to leave a good impression on everyone.

She wasn’t stupid, so for the first two days she watched the sorcerer’s interactions with his subordinates very closely. That was what kept her from putting her foot in it. The kind of contempt and harsh treatment of those lower in the hierarchy that was perfectly normal in her clan simply wasn’t practiced here. Siith gave orders and commanded, but the atmosphere was nothing like the tyranny of the strong she was used to among the Nightsisters. The girl adjusted quickly, shoved her pride and arrogance as far down as she could, and set about making a good impression on the entire crew, from the sorcerer himself all the way down to the tedious, irritating protocol droid. Yes, even with that metal idiot she was unfailingly polite. Any little thing could ruin the favorable impression she was working so hard to build, and she was certain she was being watched closely.

So Talli’s relationship with the owner of the Rung and his crew was perfectly normal, and for the most part she was satisfied with how things were going. Especially considering that no one had even thought of humiliating her. But more than anything, it was the level of comfort she’d never known before her captivity that warmed her heart and made it easy to put up with the role she had chosen.

To be perfectly honest, for the first time in her life she was almost completely satisfied with the conditions she was living in. A born Nightsister, daughter of one of the clan’s gifted women and a Zabrak slave, she had grown up like everyone else—in an atmosphere of brutal competition. Competition for a mentor’s attention, for knowledge, for decent equipment. Hell, even for decent food and bed linen that wasn’t torn.

The concept of “maternal care” wasn’t exactly popular among the Nightsisters. Talli hadn’t even learned such a thing existed until she was already a teenager and came across it on the HoloNet. They all had one Mother, and her name was Talzin. Everyone else was merely a sister. Shitty sisters. Absolutely fucking awful ones. Really, judging by those same holofilms, Talli had one remarkably rotten family. Her own biological mother could quite easily arrange a brutal punishment for her daughter if she stepped out of line. Blood relatives were punished even more harshly than everyone else, so no one could accuse anyone of favoritism or of trying to build a rival faction. Running into your actual mother in a corridor guaranteed only one thing: the kick she used to send you out of her way would hurt more than anyone else’s.

Talli had always been alone, always against everyone. Concepts like friendship, respect, or love were difficult for her to grasp, though she had tried to imitate something resembling them. Dark gifted had enough trouble simply coexisting; positive feelings toward one another were almost out of the question. What held them together as a single society was fear. Fear of Mother’s power. Fear of the shamans’ wrath. Fear of the inevitable destruction that would come at the hands of other clans and raider bands if their unity ever fell apart. And until now, Talli V’arna had believed their way of life was the only correct one.

The strong and capable moved forward, leaving the failures behind to choke on their dust. Intrigue, sabotage, clever little schemes that ended with your “friends” falling out of favor with the Seniors while you walked away with the rewards. Talli liked that. She took pleasure in her own cunning and in watching the despair of whatever trash had lost out this time. Right up until the moment she found herself among that trash.

On patrol, her life had gone from merely shitty to a full-blown nightmare. Constant filth, an unwashed body, the stink, not even the bare minimum of comfort, sleeping in trees, and endless watches. Danger to life and limb, disgusting food, and the miserable company of “sisters” who held her in exactly the same contempt she felt for them.

And now she was a prisoner. A prisoner. Ha! May a rancor tear her apart, the contrast between her “free” life and what Talli had now was so fucking spectacular that she was seriously considering selling herself into the sorcerer’s slavery. Hell, she could even throw herself in as part of the deal. Talli had already dropped a couple of hints that she wouldn’t mind thanking her new Teacher with more than just the knowledge in her head. So far, though, he either had all the sexual perception of a rock, had his lust more than adequately taken care of already, or simply considered bedding a witch a needlessly creative way to get himself killed.

The last option was, of course, the sensible one. The problem was, Talli had no intention of harming the sorcerer. Quite the opposite. She wanted to earn enough of Dziha’s favor that he would actually want to take her off Dathomir and, ideally, keep teaching her. What Siith could do with his sorcery had impressed the Nightsister deeply, and she was very, very interested in learning magic. Dathomiri sorcery fascinated her too, of course, but there was a rather obvious difference between vague prospects within the clan and the very real opportunities standing right beside the red-eyed man. Nothing was stopping her from learning everything she could from him first, then returning to Dathomir and taking the witches’ secrets not by begging for scraps, but by right of strength! Hell, she could even trade for them afterward. Even at a terrible exchange rate.

So Talli took her Teacher’s request to bring two mugs of caf perfectly calmly. She’d noticed that the metal idiot, Threepio, irritated Siith almost as much as he irritated her, so she was “happy” to help the sorcerer keep his interactions with the tedious droid to a minimum, quietly earning herself a few more points of favor in the process. And staying near the red-eyed man as much as possible—without making it too obvious—was part of the plan anyway.

The Dathomiri witch went into the galley, picked up a tray with two mugs of caf from the dispenser, and headed back outside. The instant she saw the Nightsisters’ combat group, she nearly dropped the tray. And when she realized the gifted women were being led by a Senior Sister possessed by Mother herself, it took everything she had not to turn right around and retreat back into the cruiser. A day that had begun with a delicious breakfast after a night in a soft bed was now completely ruined by fear—and by the looming collapse of every plan she had made.

What calmed her somewhat was that Mother merely flicked a glance in her direction before returning her attention to the sorcerer, who was enthusiastically telling her something with yet another of those unsettling smiles. The other Sisters, standing a short distance away while Talzin spoke with the robed man, looked more or less relaxed as well. They were surveying the camp with open curiosity and smirking mockingly at the pen holding Talli’s “comrades.”

“…and if you boil it all down…” Talli caught Siith’s voice as she drew closer. He fell silent for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his beard, then continued. “I’m almost certain the Fanged One and the Winged One are one and the same entity. They are Dathomir—or rather, avatars of it, each embodying a different polarity.”

Mother remained silent for several moments, studying the sorcerer’s face, then her lips curved into a benevolent smile.

“Unfortunately, Lord Dziha, neither the Fanged One nor the Winged One has ever answered us.” The voice of the Senior Sister possessed by Mother was not entirely human. A terrible, otherworldly echo ran beneath it, carrying Talzin’s true voice and sending shivers over Talli’s skin. And the way she had addressed the red-eyed man… could he really be a Sith after all? “There have been times when the two fought one another, but among Allya’s records preserved by our clan are theories very close to your own.”

“There’s nothing strange about their conflict. We fight with ourselves too when we have difficult decisions to make; it’s just that, for ordinary mortals, the struggle doesn’t leave marks on the world around us. Still, I’d be very interested in seeing Master Allya’s records, if that’s possible, of course,” the sorcerer hinted with remarkable shamelessness as he took a mug of caf from the tray. “Thank you, Talli. Please, Mother Talzin, help yourself. Excellent caf—Jabba Desilijic Tiure sent it to me as a gift. The rogue made a tidy profit reselling admission slots for the Academy’s first intake. I suspect he was having a quiet laugh at my expense, but caf made from Hutt beans is genuinely superb. Somehow, I don’t even feel like taking revenge.”

“Thank you.” The second mug left the tray, and Talli let out a silent breath of relief when Mother didn’t even spare her a glance. She was already preparing to head back to the cruiser and hide somewhere deep inside when—

“Stay a moment, child,” Mother’s voice stopped her, though she continued smiling pleasantly at the sorcerer. “As for the Hutts, I suspect it was a sincere expression of gratitude. Something like a gift to thank the man who gave Jabba the opportunity to profit. You didn’t actually lose anything because of his little scheme, did you?”

“Nothing except my dignity,” Siith snorted.

“That means very little to them. The way Hutts treat other species is very different from how they treat their own kind.” A soft, infernal chuckle escaped Mother’s lips. “But they are extremely useful. The Nightsisters conduct most of their trade through Hutt smugglers.”

“Smugglers…” The sorcerer’s expression became complicated.

“Your old friend Villie?” One eyebrow of the possessed Sister rose slightly, and a trace of irony entered her voice.

“The very same,” Siith snorted. “His daughter studies at my Academy. I have to admit, she’s quite talented. Both as a mage and as a businesswoman.”

“Hardly surprising, with a father like that,” Mother said with a quiet chuckle of her own. “A pity not everyone inherits their parents’ better qualities.” The possessed woman turned her head toward the pen for a couple of seconds. The emerald glow seemed to settle on the witches inside with displeasure and reproach.

We’re fucked, Talli realized with a quiet sigh. It looked like Talzin had plans for the red-eyed man, and the screwups could very well be killed just to demonstrate Mother’s goodwill toward her guest.

Her mood was atrocious. Fear gave way to anger, anger to fear, and then back again in an endless loop, while Mother and the sorcerer carried on talking about all sorts of nonsense. Dathomir, the Jedi, trade, separatist sentiment across the galaxy, Count Dooku, slavery…

Gradually, faint glimmers of hope began to break through the dark curtain hanging over Talli’s seemingly hopeless future. She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up.

“Master Siith, would you mind if we stepped aside for a private word?” the witch asked with a charming smile, looking at the sorcerer after they had finished discussing the Kwa, a race that had lived on Dathomir many thousands of years ago before being wiped out.

“Of course not, Mother Talzin. She is your daughter, after all, and this is your world. I’m merely a humble guest who came here to satisfy his curiosity.”

“If only some of our guests had your humility…” the woman drawled with mild irritation, nodding for Talli to follow her toward the group of Nightsisters.

They stopped among the group of Dark gifted. The young woman trembled beneath the emerald glow of the possessed Sister’s eyes, while a black sense of dread spread thicker and thicker through her chest. Siith’s words had made one thing painfully clear: no one was going to fight for her. He was only a guest.

“I see, child, that you had enough sense to make yourself comfortable?” Talzin asked, looking Talli straight in the eyes.

“Yes, Mother.” The girl dropped to her knees the moment she felt the powerful witch’s pressure. The young Dathomiri began trembling, and her heart felt ready to burst out of her chest. She bowed her head, fixing her gaze on the ground at Mother’s feet. Everything she had been holding in since the moment she saw the Sisters and the possessed woman crashed down on her all at once, tearing through her composure and drowning her mind in a wave of panic.

“Stand up, daughter.” The tenderness in the possessed woman’s infernal voice nearly made Talli V’arna whimper. She found the strength to rise to her feet again by sheer miracle.

“Tell me.” One word, spoken with a warmth and concern Talli had never heard from her before. It was gentle and… something she had longed for? Talli felt tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, while something in her chest tightened with a strange, aching warmth. Love? A mother’s love. The thing the girl had dreamed of so desperately without ever truly knowing what it was. A lonely child, lost in a cold and endlessly hostile galaxy. At last, she understood what it meant. A mother.

And Talli began to talk. She told her everything—what had happened, how she had ended up on Long Patrol—breathlessly, with every nuance and every tiny detail. Because Mama would pity her. Mama would understand and forgive. Mama wouldn’t scold her. She was the closest, dearest person in the entire universe. The only one who loved her… And all that bliss bloomed over an all-consuming terror buried deep in the girl’s mind. Down there, another Talli thrashed in an ocean of fear and panic, struggling to reach the surface, to regain control, to shut up that idiot who was practically pissing herself with happiness while talking her own way toward a death sentence.

Terror and love. Half and half. That was what Talli felt now, split between two selves as she poured out everything that had happened to her and those idiots from the Long Patrol. She couldn’t make herself stop, adoringly sharing every last detail with her beloved Mama. She feared her anger and craved her approval.

Wet. Wet tracks of tears down her cheeks. Resentment. Resentment toward her idiot commander. Toward the hypocritical girls from the patrol who had never appreciated her, even though they were supposed to become comrades united by one goal: making it back to the clan. Toward the greedy shaman who had thrown her into Long Patrol just because Talli had broken into her library. The blind witch simply hadn’t recognized Talli’s talent! Mama would understand. Mama loved her… She did. Didn’t she?

“Child, tell me about your encounter with Siith.” Mama’s warm palm gently stroked her cheek, wiping away the tears of resentment. “How did my daughter end up a prisoner?”

“Forgive me, Mama!” Why hadn’t she realized that this was what Mama wanted to hear about? Of course she wanted to know about the sorcerer! She probably already knew perfectly well what had happened back in the clan. Talli was such an idiot…

She ignored the desperate scream that no one could hear but her own—the voice inside her, warning her to be careful, which Talli simply brushed aside. Because Mama was asking. And Mama would never hurt her daughter! So there was nothing stopping the girl from honestly telling the one person in the entire universe who loved her everything. The words poured out of her in a torrent, and Mama listened, nodding with understanding, gently stroking her hair, smiling. Talli’s heart ached with warmth…

“Pathetic.” Mother’s word came down like a slab of concrete when Talli finished recounting their clash with Siith and his Mandalorians. She wanted to simply collapse and die. Her heart skipped a beat; her breath caught. What was the point of living if Mama—

“Stop.” The gentle smile and the soft touch of that beloved hand practically brought her back to life. “You’re a clever girl. This was all the patrol leader’s fault.”

Talli’s breathing came quick and shallow. Mama had told her to stop crying, but that praise… The girl had dreamed of hearing those words for so many years. Even the Talli screaming from somewhere deep inside, warning Mother Talzin’s daughter to be careful, fell silent. Because for the first time in her life… for the first time in so many years… someone had praised her.

The tears came harder, but now they were tears of relief and happiness. Talli couldn’t stop them, and the gentle, affectionate touch of her mother’s hand nearly made her cry out in sheer delight.

“Easy now. Be a good girl. You don’t want me to be disappointed in you, do you?” The young witch bit her lip, trying with all her might to calm herself. Of course she didn’t want to disappoint Mama. “Now tell me what you’ve been doing with the sorcerer all week.”

From somewhere deep in her mind came a furious scream, warning her not to trust, not to tell her everything, but… what nonsense was that? Mama had asked! Asked! So she had to tell her! A mournful howl from the depths of her mind accompanied every word the young witch spoke.

Talli, trapped deep inside a mind flooded with false bliss, bitterly mourned the life that was about to end. Mother Talzin, having thoroughly clouded her thoughts, would never forgive plans of betrayal, and that was exactly what the girl was confessing now: that she intended to leave Dathomir with Siith, who had already begun teaching her. At least the part of her mind drunk on love wasn’t admitting that she had recently planned to learn everything she could from Siith, then return home and take the witches’ knowledge by right of strength. That was the only thing giving her any hope of a quick death instead of a long stretch of agony at the hands of some Senior Sister who’d gone completely mad with sadism.

“Hmm… And do you think you have a chance of interesting the sorcerer?” The strange question startled the blissfully besotted idiot on the surface and silenced the young witch trapped inside, who had been mourning her own impending death. The emerald glow in the possessed woman’s eyes seemed to see straight through her. That question… Did Mother actually want Talli to have a chance?

“Yes.” For the first time in the entire conversation, both Tallis wanted to give the same answer, and they gave it firmly. One wanted to please Mother. The other wanted to survive.