A Child in Darkness

( 154 ABY )

~ present day ~

“That’s all" the golden horned Iktotchi says as she closes a large crate that hovers at the centre of her small room. “take it to the transport, korg” The droid who had been standing in the corner of the room steps forward and pushes the hovering crate out of the room. Ammit walks to the window and grabs the small pot with a nightbloomer. Then she turns around and walks to the door, one last time she looks over her shoulder. Her life is about to change for good.

~ Ten days ago ~

The room trembled as she fell to the floor “Nooo!!! what have I done!!!” she cried at the top of her lungs. She could still see the image of the child, a baby boy with the blue skin and red eyes of his father. The tears ran down her pale cheeks, “my son!!!!” the mirror cracked because of the powerful cry. “Nooooo!”

The cries of her infant son still echoed in her head, she never wanted to leave the boy. It had broke her heart when she left him on Corelia ten years ago, remembering broke her heart once more

~Present day~

She follows Korg down the narrow stone corridors of House Vahl. She had decided to move to Korriban to be closer to the academy. It was a sudden change of plans, nothing she imagined would happen. A few days ago these plans didn’t even exist.

She walks out of the door, and sees the transport to Korriban waiting. Her KX-security droid walks with the crate to the cargo ramp. Ammit also approaches the transport, still holding the small pot. That flower was the only living thing she had been taking care of until now. A nightbloomer from Jakku, a desert flower that didn’t need much attention.

Moments later, with the flower on her lap she looks through the window. As the transport starts to move she starts to feel anxious, doubting herself. Did she make the right decision?

~ present day ~

“That’s all" the golden horned Iktotchi says as she closes a large crate that hovers at the centre of her small room. “take it to the transport, korg” The droid who had been standing in the corner of the room steps forward and pushes the hovering crate out of the room. Ammit walks to the window and grabs the small pot with a nightbloomer. Then she turns around and walks to the door, one last time she looks over her shoulder. Her life is about to change for good.

~ Ten days ago ~

The room trembled as she fell to the floor “Nooo!!! what have I done!!!” she cried at the top of her lungs. She could still see the image of the child, a baby boy with the blue skin and red eyes of his father. The tears ran down her pale cheeks, “my son!!!!” the mirror cracked because of the powerful cry. “Nooooo!”

The cries of her infant son still echoed in her head, she never wanted to leave the boy. It had broke her heart when she left him on Corelia ten years ago, remembering broke her heart once more

~Present day~

She follows Korg down the narrow stone corridors of House Vahl. She had decided to move to Korriban to be closer to the academy. It was a sudden change of plans, nothing she imagined would happen. A few days ago these plans didn’t even exist.

She walks out of the door, and sees the transport to Korriban waiting. Her KX-security droid walks with the crate to the cargo ramp. Ammit also approaches the transport, still holding the small pot. That flower was the only living thing she had been taking care of until now. A nightbloomer from Jakku, a desert flower that didn’t need much attention.

Moments later, with the flower on her lap she looks through the window. As the transport starts to move she starts to feel anxious, doubting herself. Did she make the right decision?

~ Two days ago ~

She hadn’t slept in days, the memories of her son haunted her. To difficult for her to deal with, she tried to numb the pain by abusing the drugs she used for her meditation. Knight Pallas had heard word of her being high on a daily basis, he warned her to stop this behaviour. She tried to obey her masters wishes but she felt lost and broken, she needed guidance...

Desperate the Iktotchian apprentice dropped to her knees. “Master, I have failed you.” She tried as she bows down in front of the Dread Sorcerer. “I am broken, I feel lost and don’t know what to do. Please I need your guidance.” She cried as her head touched the cold floor. Pallas' head tilted to one side. "Apprentice... What happened?" He asked sternly. Without lifting her head of the stone floor she responded “I... spend to much time meditating on my past. Reliving it... I thought it would help me become stronger..." Thinking back about it made her feel even more foolish, she felt embarrassed in front of her Master but she was desperate. "I uncovered a buried memory during my meditations.. it only weakened me. I hate myself.. I do not want to remember, I just want to bury it again.. " she took a deep breath as she pressed her head so hard into the floor that it started to hurt.. "I'm nothing more than a...” it was difficult for her to admit “a junkie... weak, a fool. I brought shame on to you my Master... forgive me.. help me"

"Tell me about this memory Apprentice. In detail, leave nothing out. Let me see what has brought you low." Pallas told her softly, "And let us than see how to fix it." remaining on her knees before her Master, she lifted her head and started talking. "I have been dwelling on the time I have spend on Csilla.. I..  I..." She felt embarrassed to tell the intimate nature of her memories, but he would know if she kept anything from him. "I met someone there.. it didn't last long.. but.. I cant seem to forget about him." She paused for a moment to find the right words. "Theres was more,  something I had buried away in my mind... After I left Csilla.. I.. I had a child.. I wanted to return, I... I wanted to keep the child.." A tear ran down her pale tattooed cheek. "I was told to get rid of it... I left him...." In shame she looked down at her Masters feet, waiting for his reaction.

An intense feeling of pressure built up in the air around them before Pallas opened a window and let out a burst of telekinesis through it to alleviate the build up he had caused. "The person you copulated with told you to get rid of the child?" Pallas asked, trying to understand exactly what it was his apprentice had done. "No” she shook her head “he didn't even know.. It was my mentor who told me to terminate it.. I didn't. I carried it full term..” she thought back about Corelia. An associate of her mentor had offered them a contract. She went into labour there, and was brought to the wife, who helped her during the difficult birth. “I left the child with the woman who helped me give birth" she explained to her Master. Pallas looked at Ammit carefully, as if deciding what to do. "You realise children can be raised within the Empire correct?"

Surprised she looked up. “they can?” she paused, she was still overwhelmed with emotions. The idea of raising her son never crossed her mind, it had been ten years, she wouldn’t even know where to find him "But it's been ten years now.. " "You are a sith. If you want the child back you will have it." Pallas told her. "However you would need to decide that you are willing to do that. As it won't give you back the years you've lost." Ammit was surprised to hear her Master say she could get her child back.. a part of her thought he would have suggested to forget about it, or worse kill him and erase her entire past. "I do want him back.. I never should have left him.. I..." She wipes the tears away “Thank you for you guidance Master.." In her mind she already started to think if ways to locate her son.

"That being said." Pallas told her sternly. "If you chose to uproot this poor child's life. Will you be actually happy? If he wakes up from a nightmare calling for his mother but you aren't the one he means, will you be able to live with that? Because that may well break you far more than remembering this repressed memory ever did." He said, his tone sliding to gentle over the course of that. "There is not a solution to this problem, not one that truly fixes everything. Do you understand that Ammit?" He asked carefully, sounding like he had an approach he wanted to suggest.

His words echoed in her mind. She had forgotten to think about the situation from the childs perspective. She only knew what she had felt growing up alone in the orphanage, she wanted a family.. but maybe her son was happy. What if he didn't want her in his life? "I... want to know if he is ok... if he..." Once again she felt tears forming. "If he doesn't need me, if he doesn't want me I will let him go..." As the words came from her mouth she already doubted herself.  Would she really be able to leave him? Could she forget?

Pallas looked at her carefully, he was not gifted in telepathy or empathy. But he was no idiot. Ammit's words seemed more like she was trying to lie to herself, as opposed to holding any measure of truth. It was just what she wanted to be true, and unfortunately Ammit was not at the point where what she wanted automatically became fact. Neither was he for that matter. "Ammit. I can arrange for someone to go and check on the child, but until I know you can handle it, you will not be going." He said bluntly. "You can't go and become a mother for this child, not really. All you can do is take him away from the mother he knows." Pallas told her, it was harsh, it was brutal, but he was a sith. "That pain might not go away. It might fill your waking hours with grief and distress. But that will only happen if you permit it to. You are a sith. You are wholly capable of restricting that emotion and reserving it for usage in the Force. Using it to help drive you and even aid you." Pallas told her, sounding not unlike how he had described his meditation process so long ago. "Sharpen the broken pieces of your trauma into a blade to defend yourself with." The words from her Master felt like a sharp blade piercing her heart.. she knew he was right and yet she did not want to accept it. "Yes Master.." She said as she wiped her tears away. She felt hurt, especially after he had just gave her hope that she could raise her child within the Empire. And now he kicked her down again. Deep inside she knew was right, but still it felt like a part of her was missing... a feeling that He, a Man, could never understand.

Anger started to build up in her.. anger at herself for being so weak..  anger at her mentor who made her gave her son up. Anger at her Master for restricting her. "I will stay away from the child." her eyes were still wet, tears kept coming but inside she was burning with hate. "I will do as you command Master.. " she growled at him.

"That being said." Pallas said, somewhat reluctant to say this now given he could feel her rage at him. He would prefer to nurture that rage, turn it into something lethal. However this could be an opportunity. "There is someone I would like you to meet. She is a child, a baby even. Her family and indeed her entire village were slaughtered by an angry sith. She is currently just resting in stasis. If no one takes her she will stay that way for likely the rest of her life. Or until I find a use for her blood." Pallas explained slowly, watching the apprentice with assessing eyes. "She will never truly know life unless someone decides to take her under well, wing." He says, not too happy with using the idiom but still. "You could start afresh, and give her a fresh chance as it is. She is too young to have formed any solid memories of where she came from. She needs someone to care for her. And I think you might benefit from having someone to care for." He admitted to Ammit. Pallas was hardly what you might call personable, but he understood that much. "Her name is Khara. If you are interested in raising her." A hint of uncomfortableness in his tone. "Before you make any sort of judgement, would you be willing to see her?" Pallas asked carefully. The Apprentice felt the fire smoulder inside, she tried to compose herself but at that point she hated the winged Knight. She wanted to lash out at him but she was caught of guard when he told her about the child. Confused she stood there silent as he continued telling her about this girl..

"Is this a trick Master?" she asked the Sorcerer, wondering what he was trying to do to her. "Is this some kind of test?" She grinded her red stained teeth, trying to comprehend his offer. The storm inside her started to calm. She was curious, although she didn’t know what to think of this strange offer. "I will see her..." she said as she slowly risen back to her feet.

Pallas led his apprentice out of his office. Taking her down to the hanger, to his ship. Answering Ammit's questions as he went. "It is not a trick. The girl would frankly be better off with someone raising her properly rather than her current situation." He clarified simply. "For once, this is not a test. Frankly I believe she could grow to become an asset to the Empire, but I am not in a position to do so." The s'kytri explained. As they neared his ship, the main ramp did not descend, but the cargo ramp instead. In order of noticeability: There was a large floating blue hunk of crystal that thrummed with the Dark Side. Exhoes of screams, pain, hate and fear only audible through the Force lashed out at the Sith. Pallas smiled. An upright coffin style container with a see through front showed the pantoran jedi Kemuel. The corpse preserved through cryokinesis almost perfectly. Other than the fingers missing from the body. Pallas' bone anklet rattled as he stepped past it. They also stepped past a collection of temperature controlled barrels. Roughly 950 liters of his clan's blood lay inside them. The signature of the Darkside was less here than with the crystal, but it was still present in that same agonized way. Last they came to a door to a boxed off area. Upon opening the door, they were able to see a medical droid, and a small cradle with a transparent top. Life signs and the like being tracked through a display hooked up to it. The child was large for a standard humanoid, but still very much a baby. Her soft green skin seemed healthy enough for what she was. A bed of gel in the cradle meaning that she could lie on her back without hurting her wings. The baby s'kytri didn't move except for a subtle rising and falling of her chest. "This is Khara." Pallas told Ammit softly.

For a moment Ammit didn't dare to step closer, she was still filled with emotion. The memory of her son flashed by in her mind, a crying boy with blue skin like his father... the Apprentice composed herself and stepped to the cradle, biting her lip she peeked down and saw the girl. Soft green skin and.. "wings"... she whispered and looked at her Master "she's a S'kytri?" asking him. She looked at the girl once more, the pain faded away, the same way a mother instantly forgets the pain of childbirth when she sees her child for the first time.. the pain and anger was still there, but it didn’t matter anymore. "Yes." Pallas told Ammit. "Typically the males of my kind have blue skin, and the females green. Well, more teal I suppose. Deviations from that are possible, but most of those children are killed at birth. One of many reasons why I am not a fan of my kind." He deliberately avoided mentioning that she was his sister, and that the only family she had other than him was sitting a few meters away in the barrels and as a large hunk of crystal. After checking with the medical droid, he opened the statis cradle. Almost immediately she moved, just turning a little in her sleep. Carefully Pallas picked up the child. Moving the necklace from where it had been hidden having slipped behind her back onto her chest. It was a small, perfectly smooth blue oval that hung on a piece of leather cord. "The necklace is a mark of her family and should not be taken off accept to change the leather out for a longer piece. Though I suppose if she proves force sensitive like I believe she will, Khara may wish to use it in a lightsaber later on."  It had been a piece of the crystal he made from their clan, though he had drained the dark side taint out of it. Growing up with a fragment of a darkside nexus around your neck probably wasn't good for one's growth after all. "Would you like to hold her Ammit?" He asked, offering the child to her after demonstrating how to hold her in a way that wouldn't hurt Khara's wings.

The Iktotchian looked at the girl, the slow rising and falling of her chest. She had no eyes for her Master anymore, she only heard his voice as he talked about his kind. Ammit could sense there was something about the girl he did not want her to know, but it didn't really matter to her anymore. As the Knight picked the girl up, she noticed a small blue oval shaped crystal. He told her the importance of the necklace, while he gently moved as he held her. It was a side she had never seen from him, he always seemed cold and distant.  When he asked her if she wanted to hold the girl she felt anxious, but nodded and stepped closer to take the girl from his arms. Holding her carefully Ammit instantly started to cry. "Hey little one.. " she whispered. Then she looked at the Knight, the whish to take care of this infant was there but she realized she wasn't prepared for such a big change in her life "I dont even have a place to stay" for almost 20 years she lived onboard a ship, and she had nothing when she came to the academy. She only had her small room at house Vahl..

"You have access to the Barracks on Korriban, and the Barracks of House Vahl. I believe there are even some Barracks on Ziost you can stay in. Pick one and allow yourself to settle in properly." Pallas told her mildly, dismissing the idea that she did not have a place to stay out of hand. There were countless rooms available to the Sith. Likely even some specifically set up with children in mind. Ammit wasn't the first sith in history to care for a child after all.

"I believe you are saving up for a shuttle are you not? How close are you to being able to afford one do you know?" Pallas asked mildly, "You could probably set up enough of a space in there for it to be a mobile home. Though a light freighter like mine might be better space wise, would be easier to customise to fit your needs too." He reasoned mildly. They were probably a little cheaper too all things considered.

"However." Pallas stated seriously, eyes narrowing as the mood changed subtly. "If you are going to become Khara's primary care giver then you need to become more sensible. Taking drugs to enhance your visions and to calm yourself is fine. But recreationally? That is a problem. As such, if you take Khara to raise as your own I will begin docking prestige for any reckless drug usage. Do you understand?" He asked with a hard tone, an eyebrow raised in an expression that demanded obedience as his eyes burned like molten gold. She felt stupid she hadn't thought about the barracks on Korriban and Ziost. But the truth is she never had to, she was quite content with the small dark room she had at house Vahl. But now things would become very different. With only 630c on her bank account she could never purchase a shuttle or a freighter. And the idea of raising her on a ship didn't seem appealing. She had lived most of her life aboard a ship, it just never felt like home. Slowly she continued to cradle the small girl and thought about the Knights words. "I guess I could move to Korriban, it would be more easy for me to continue my studies from there." She said as she looked at the sleeping girl. "We will stay there until we find a proper home." She added.

Embarrassed about her drug abuse she responded "My foolish behaviour was the reason I came before you" she said, which was true. She had been abusing her drugs ever since she recovered her memory. She used it to dull the feelings, but hated herself for doing so. She came to her Master because she wanted to end her misery. "I have no wish to use anymore and I will accept any punishment you see fit when I break your trust.." she said as they locked eyes "Do not say when Apprentice. Say if." Pallas told her sternly, a pale mockery of his usual: don't say if you make it to knighthood, but when. "My suggestion-" the Dread Knight paused, his eyes narrowing, "-no, I am telling you to give me the hardest drugs in your stash, your thyssel bark and whatnot, and if you need it to aid in a trance you can come and ask for it." Pallas told her strictly.

"You will have 36hrs to comply with that order. I will also insist you get your teeth whitened, as it will mean I'll be able to tell more easily if you get a new supply of thyssel bark as that appears to be your primary habit." Pallas explained coldly. A sith was a being of power, and Ammit had been verging on being an addict for far too long.  "If you find yourself going through withdrawal to a degrees that is effecting your ability to function you will come to me and I will aid you in overcoming it. Either by providing you with a limited dose to lessen the effects, or by using my own abilities to lessen the effects." Pallas told her simply, outlining her options if it reaches a critical point. "Do you understand me Apprentice Sorcerer Ammit Mandulis?" He asked clearly eyes narrowing as he took her in, holding the child in her arms.

At this very moment she was still under influence. She had her dose in the morning, other then feeling more calm the effects weren't noticeable anymore. But when he spoke about withdrawal she suddenly felt anxious.. she stopped cradling.. "I understand Master, I will obey your wishes, And bring you my supply." She said with some hesitation. "I will do my very best to stay off the drugs.." she meant it, she wanted to prove to him she could change but it would be difficult. She looked at the girl and walked to the cradle. "I'll come back for you Khara" she whispered as she carefully placed put her back in the cradle. "I have to start making preparations, to move to Korriban." A faint smile was visible as she looked up at him… "Good." Pallas said satisfied. She had come to him heavily under the influence and wanting to go and revisit her child. Now she was stopping taking drugs to the same degree, had accepted not going after the boy, and Pallas had someone to raise his sister now.

"Ammit. I have been quite understanding, laying out clear instructions and such." He started mildly. "If you disobey me, you will come to learn why people fear the Dread House." The Sorcerer told her, eyes narrowing as he allowed his Force Drain to embrace her, sapping her of strength and letting her feel how easy it would be for him to drain her dry. It rescinded less than a moment later. "Go." Pallas told her simply. His eyes burning like they did after he used the Force. The voices of his clan had been calling out to him in that moment. Calling to him tear out what made Ammit Ammit, and feed himself with her essence.

"Yes Master, I will send word when everything is ready" she said and made a deep bow. She looked into the cradle one last time and then turned away to leave.  She had no intention to disobey her Master, she was loyal and devoted to him. But as she left him behind she felt confused. She was happy to be given this opportunity to take care of this girl. A child that obviously was important to the Knight. But she had not forgotten the sharp and hurtful words he said to her. She still hated him for not allowing her to find her son. When she came before him she wanted the pain to end, she was lost, broken and felt she had no purpose. She had no intention to go look for her son, not untill he had told her children could be raised within the Empire. It was him who gave her hope, and then kicked her down again by telling her she would never be his mother. It hurt and she hated him for that..

~ present day ~

The trip to Korriban didn’t feel very long, her mind was preoccupied with the conversation she had with her Master. She still has many questions concerning Khara. Who was she? How did she end up with him? Why was she so important to the Dread Knight?

The transport ship slowly lowers into the academy hanger. She had purpose now, a child that needed someone to raise her. A way to prove her Master she could change and one day she would find her son..

**~End~**