what?

saw you

dunno what he's planning, but

helps to have someone to talk to

if you want

thanks. (this is a sith thing probably kind of dangerous but oh well)

not bad so far but i'm not confident it's gonna stay that way.

why is this happening?

yeah, I'm a Sith. not in much better shape than you, though. Frustration and a slow-burning stubbornness come through with this observation.

he - experiments. torture. usually just slaves; usually not that. dunno what he has you for. guessing - figure out - that not being fun? you're not goona have a good time.

ok. gonna stop being fun. good to know.

think i was a special order or something. guys came and got me where i was working.

- unusual; not uncharacteristic. he's very straightforward, most things. very Sith.

what's happening to you?

There's another wave of rage-frustration-stubbornness, and the communication devolves from wordless thoughts to direct sensory impressions - of trying to talk, to think, to even hear properly, to make sense of spoken words, and finding herself unable; of some other Sith, older, male, in crimson robes, who she loathes and fears and wants to kill and needs to deceive, giving a barely-understood order, but one that she knows means that she is to harm herself, push herself further into the abyss, and her hand twitches toward her saber, involuntarily, and he flicks a spark of painful electricity at her for it, like she's a misbehaving pet; of being pushed aside in her own head while the Force uses her as an instrument of destruction, and of getting just a little, and just a little, and just a little less of herself back afterward, a slow death.

i'm sorry.

There's a light swirl of acknowledgement-appreciation, and then a long pause - maybe she's done; maybe that's it for today. But, eventually -

I'm not supposed to be a person any more.

I'm not sure how much longer I will be.

well

when you kill him, let me know.

A sensation like laughter, but without much humor.

She echoes his wry amusement, and there's a sense of, yes, of course killing him is the plan; there's even some hope that it might succeed. Will.

and if you wanted to pick me up on your way out, i wouldn't say no.

More amusement. He has no expectation that she would.

If I can. She seems to think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but the logistics of it might be a problem; she doesn't expect to be able to beat the Sith who has him in a fight, in particular, and while she seems confident that she can avoid running into him, she might not be able to do that and get anyone out of the slave quarters.

oh

thanks.

The fact that the situation he's in is actually a bad one is...a little difficult to keep hold of, but he's grateful nonetheless.

Another pause; she seems to be trying to figure out how to respond to that.

Nobody deserves this place, she settles on after a minute, and there's a sense that doing so was an exhausting effort.

He doesn't know what to say after that.

(He's afraid.)

She meditates.

I am here, now; I am surviving this moment.

It's the only thing I need to do.

This moment is survivable; I am surviving this moment.

He starts to drift off while he feels her meditating.

He doesn't know, now, how important it will be to hold onto this, but he holds onto it nonetheless.

She drifts off, too.

The next night, she's back, starting off as just a gentle sense of presence.

He grabs onto that as soon as he feels it.

i wondered if you'd come back.

A strong sense of relief.

Yeah, I'm here. It's a little further from being words than she was yesterday; more a sense of her flowing around him, surrounding him with her presence.

You okay? She knows he's not, but she doesn't know what's wrong, or what happened.

The presence helps. Being able to feel someone helps.

...showed me him taking arms and legs off. one at a time.

thought it was real the first couple of times but they started coming back.

Oohf. Sympathy; a sense that she's familiar with the phenomenon, if not the exact scenario.

it didn't...feel bad. but i kept thinking it was really going to be gone.