Ask Breaking the Ice

[Ashla Ti]

In their brief time together, Ashla had started to get a sense of when to do what she was asked to do, and this seemed like one of those instances. So no matter how curious she was about the two figures, she started walking. The world came into focus as they moved, building around them like a simulation being rendered as they moved through it. She knew this place, it was home, or what she thought must have been her home. Shili. Sweeping grasslands spread out around them, a pebbled path forming under their feet as they walked. It wasn't Shili as she knew it to be, she had never been there, but it was how she imagined it would be.

She came to a stop in front of a small hut, stopping for a moment as she drew in a deep breath. She knew what waited there, she had seen this memory many times, lived it over and over in her dreams. Letting out a breath, she steeled herself and stepped in through the dark doorway. Stepping through Raze would find not the insides of a primitive tent, but the sharp, cold angles of a room. A simple table lay at the center of the room, everything else too ought of focus to identify. A younger Ashla stood besides the figure, both watching what lay on the table.

On the table in front of them lay another figure, a young girl, of similar age as the Togruta. "What a disappointment." The figure said before turning to walk away. As he turned, the Togruta's arm twitched, moving for the blade that hung at her side. "Come, little one." On hearing the words, she stopped, and her hand fell away, as she stood there frozen. She blinked, and the world around them shifted.

They were in a small cell, barely high enough for Raze to stand straight. No windows, no lights, just a single door on the wall to their left. The door would whoosh open, letting in some warm, fresh air to just barely push away the oppressive chill that filled the room. As light flooded in a small, scared figure would be seen huddled in a corner across from the door, knees pulled up against her chest as haunted eyes stared at the figure that appeared in the cell's entrance.

"Come little one," the figure said as he knelt before the Togruta child, voice warm and kind, reaching forward with a hand that the child flinched away from "it's okay, it's over, you're safe now." They would watch as the figure walked out leading the Togruta by the arm. "You're safe now, little one."

As the vision started to fade, they saw the room with the body once more, Ashla still standing besides the figure, her gaze lingered on the dead girl as the figure walked away.

"That was my first loss." Ashla spoke as the vision slowly faded, falling away from them till they were standing once more in the open grassland. " No one else would have died if I had cut him down that day. But I couldn't, not till it was too late."

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

“You are naive if you truly believe he would have been cut down so easily,” Emryc’s frosty voice cut through her mind, reminding her of his imposing presence. He kept walking, expecting her to keep up. Things would crop up here and there all around them - every time she doubted herself, anything she said or was said to her that stuck with her for years, all of it lingered around them.

Emryc and Raze both walked methodically, paying no heed to the surroundings, “You are in full control of what happens in here. It’s the hardest lesson you will have to learn, but it is one you must learn to clear your thoughts. Only you may be the ruler of this domain, no one else. Nothing else,” He spoke before he jutted his chin to the side. The figure from earlier was standing there. He was taunting and grinning.

“Do you feel better after what you’ve done?” The figure asked, “Have all your demons been slain?”

Emryc didn’t move, quietly observing to see what Ashla would do. The figure walked closer, rattling off the names of every Cadre brother and sister Ashla had.

“Did it bring them back? Are you happy about what you’ve done?”

@Wit

 

[Ashla Ti]

Ashla stood where she was, staring at the the larger than life figure of her first master as he taunted her. She couldn't move, her emotions holding her in place. Fear, pain, regret, anger. They danced within her to the beat of her despair. And as the figure got closer, she felt herself sinking deeper.

"Have you forgotten?" It asked when she did not answer his questions. "Here, let me show you." The figure reached out with a hand and raised her head to make her face him, the Togruta not making an effort to stop him, and the vision shifted. She was back to that day, they day she gained her freedom, but lost everything. The day she lead her cadre to their deaths.

She had always fled from these memories, she hadn't been brave enough to face them. But he forced it on her now, though she could not tell whether it was the phantom of her dead master who did so, or Darth Raze pulling on strings she did not know existed. Either way she was there again, reliving that day, that fight.

She saw herself, fighting with the skill that had been beaten into her, that she had earned through sweat and blood. But it wasn't enough, and as she watched the battle slipped away from her. But then another figure stepped up besides her, then another, and another. They fought together, they were stronger together. They moved as one, years of brotherhood making them a sight to behold. The beauty of it momentarily made her forget what came next. For a moment she hoped that they might persevere. But then the blow came, striking down one of her brothers. He fell, and the illusion was broken. One by one she saw the others fall, and with each strike she begged him to stop, even though no words escaped her mouth. She could not bring herself to speak, she could not bring herself to look away. She could only watch.

Finally, only two remained, fighting together, till the she slipped up. The strike she could not dodge, the strike that should have taken her life. But instead of her it was her sister who fell, pushing her out of the way as she buried their master's blade and pulled him closer, but in doing so buying Ashla the opening she needed to stab him as well. And just like that it was all over, and only the vision of her younger self was left standing. Ashla pulled her eyes away and let them fall downwards. Not to the broken, beaten form of her master who lay dead at her younger self’s feet, but to the body of the young, golden-haired girl who lay at her’s. As Ashla stared at her lifeless eyes, the figure stepped up besides her, looking down from high above her own eyes.

The figure whispered from besides her. "I made you who you are, and when you killed me you lost everything. Without me," the voice seemed gleeful now, "you are nothing."

Her eyes stayed locked on the girl at her feet. Reliving, for the first time in years, the moment she had died. And there she saw a truth she had long run from. She remembered locking eyes with her as she fell, as she sacrificed herself and took the blade meant for her. Ashla had lead them there, it had been her fault. But there was no blame in those eyes, only determination. They wanted her to carry on, to finish what she could not. And with that a truth came to her. He had not made them into who they were, they had turned against him because they had grown beyond that. He would not have taken a blade for her so that she may continue fighting. No, they had found strength outside his teachings. And even after, she had grown. With every mistake she made, with every wrong step she took, she had learned. And with simple realization she no longer feared this memory, and accepted the pain it held. And pain was nothing new to her.

"No," she finally spoke up, turning to the side to look the figure straight in the eye, his form suddenly of an height with her, no longer the imposing figure he had been moments ago, "it did not bring them back. But it ensured that no one else would feel the pain that I did."

A lightsaber appeared in her hand, the very same blade she had used to cut him down years ago, his blade. And it sprang to life, stabbing him through the heart once more. As his figure started to fade, the memory around them fading as well, she turned to look at Darth Raze. His figure every bit as tall and imposing as he old master had appeared to her, but while he had been a lie, an illusion, in Raze she saw only truth. She had let her fears rule her for years, but in facing them she had found strength. She didn't know if she had fully conquered her fears, but se had come to accept that they could not rule them. She would fight them for this simple truth, that she ruled here.

"I am the ruler of this domain," she said, echoing his words from moments earlier, though to her it seemed like a lifetime ago, "no one else, nothing else."

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Raze was silent for a long moment after Ashla spoke. While she spoke with defiance and courage, he couldn’t help but see how she still failed to grasp the reality of her past.

“You are a fool if you believe killing your master was not part of the plan all along,” He stated flatly. They were not teachings outside of the Cadre lessons. All Cadre leaders went in accepting the risk their brightest students may slay them. It was one of the very few remnant traces of the rule of two that still existed. Emryc had killed his own master even after the coward fled the Sith.

While she took control of her own mind again, there were some hard lessons she would have to learn in order to embrace what she was. He began to walk, bidding her to follow.

“You are no hero. You didn’t save anyone, you didn’t prevent anything. The Cadre program has roots across the galaxy,” He faced forward as he walked, “And do you know what the Cadre has produced? Sith Councilors, Sith Lords, corporate leaders, world leaders, all disciplined leaders that don’t get swayed by silly frivolities and attachments.”

He turned to face her, the mask just as haunting even within the confines of her mind, “The sooner you accept you are a monster, the easier this will be. Starry eyed idealism has no place among the Sith or within anyone with any ambition.”

@Wit

 

[Ashla Ti]

Ashla was quick to brush aside his words about her slaying of her master, the man had been driven by greed, a psychopathic monster who only cared about himself, how could his death have been part of the plan?

But before she could think further on the matter Raze started walking, and she moved to follow, pushing aside the tiny shreds of doubt his question had managed to raise. Her old master had been a monster, and she could not imagine him ever considering the possibility that he would die. Her hands curled into fists as Raze turned to face her, betraying the resistance to his words that she tried her best to keep from showing on her face. "A monster like him?"

She couldn't believe that, not immediately at least, and with the obstinate certainty of one who finds herself facing a truth that might be harsher than the fantasy she lived in, she pushed back. "Where was his discipline? He used us, for nothing more than his own ambitions. Look what he did to my cadre, look what he did to me, what he turned me into. I was forced to watch my friends, my family..watch them die. And what did I do, let them die so that I could kill him. All in the name of revenge. Two years I spent driven by one purpose, to hunt him down, not giving a damn about what I lost along the way. I.." She paused, unable to say more, unwilling to say more.

Somewhere deep down she could see the truth in his words. The only reason she had prevailed against her old master was because she had let herself become a monster. A monster who could hunt another monster. It had given her purpose, focus, and above all it had given her the strength to best him. But while the truth took root, fantasy held on, and left her standing on the precipice of a cliff. She could accept the truth, one step and the fantasy she held onto would be shattered, but she did not know where it would take her. That uncertainty scared her, and for a moment that fear held her back.

@Sreeya