Lessons in Pazaak - Chapter 4
White light screamed electric murder through the exile's brain. She arched and twisted away from it, but could not escape the cruel tendrils that tunnelled under her skin and ruptured her veins. She could no longer separate her own body and mind from the pain.
She had no name.
She was only blood and bone and laceration.
Thought and memory and mutilation.
Suffering was eternity, beyond the confines of time.
She heard a low, pitiable whimper and understood that the sound came from her own throat, even as a fresh barrage of screams came tearing through it.
She had been screaming forever.
Through the miasma of her fear, a new touch penetrated. A hand, fingertips cool and dry, softly stroked her forehead. She turned her face toward the caress, blue eyes long since gone, searching. 'Atton?'
No sound escaped her lips, through the blood and bile, dust and grit. But she was heard.
'Ah, Cora. You are a marvel. After so much injury, still you hope.' The voice, like the hand, was soft and cool -- low feminine tones, so familiar. 'I had high expectations of you when you arrived, old friend. You never disappoint me.'
Four, six, three, six, stand. Five, nine, four, four, flip the +/- 4 for 18. Stand. Lose to 19.
Dry lips pressed a kiss to her cheek, smearing blood and tears. 'I knew you would return to me, my general. You always followed me.'
Revan's voice. Revan's call. Revan's confidence and clarity of purpose. Yes, she had followed. She had dreamed of the salvation of the galaxy. She had followed her to the darkest of places. Again.
Seven, one, one, four, three, five for 21.
'I'm so glad you're here, Cora. All this power, can you feel it? The Star Forge pales in comparison ... ah, but, you never felt the Forge, did you? You left us. You ran.'
Soft fingers stroked her hair, healing her, chasing away the white-hot pain. Those lips whispered into her ear. 'But I forgive you, Cora. I do. It's not your fault. They used you as a tool, as they used me. As Kreia used us both.'
The hands disappeared. But the voice remained like a healing balm -- soothing, coaxing. Revan's voice. And they had all followed.
'Ah, Cora -- 'the exile' -- they have left you to your fate, haven't they? Let you wander the galaxy until you meet your doom. But I found you first. I have saved you.'
Her mouth -- cracked and brittle -- worked through the pain to deny, to beg. She didn't know. She didn't care.
Two, six, three, four, eight for 23, 2/4 switch card for 11, eight for 19. Stand.
'Shhh...come, little exile. I know how to make the pain stop. You have always trusted me, Cora. Were we not the best of friends?'
Her mind filled with images of the dark-haired girl who had danced in the grass fields of Dantooine -- the lithe figure who had embraced passion and embraced them all. Laughing brown eyes, mischievous freckles -- Revan had called on them to save innocent lives. She reached for the memory, reached for the girl. Mika?
The image rotted away.
Mika? I wanted to save you. I wanted to ...
'Let me take your pain away. Please, Cora. I'm so alone here. The power here, it can make you whole again.'
Revan's voice could not be denied.
Eight and eight for 16. Plus four could give me the 20. Draw for three. Stand at 19.
She reached, and reached again, the grasping fingers of her soul scrabbling for purchase in the girl she had loved. Mika! Where are you?
'I am here, little exile. I'm waiting for you to come to me.'
Six and nine is 15. Plus four, stand at 19. Nine and two, plus six, flip the +/- 3 for 20.
'You must hurry, Cora. Your friends -- they can feel you. They're coming for you. We don't want to kill them, do we? We want to save them. We want them to come with us.'
Yes, Mika. Save them. Save me! She reached again, down through the darkness, the foul, the putrid. She reached for the taint and embraced it ... Save yourself!
... and was thrown back, through the worlds, through the stink, back into pain.
'Damn you for a fool, Cora Saris!' That voice, it shook. 'You cannot even fathom what you're up against, what you're giving up!'
Her muscles stretched and snapped against the solid force of the dark power that surrounded them. Her limbs twitched and jerked. Her bones shattered. She screamed again ... and forever...
It's not fair to lose is it?? You play well, you play smart, and still you can lose.
'We were both fools, Cora, but I learned. This power, this malice, it turns the universe! You are too weak to see it. A pity. Your friends will see it, however. When they see what I've done to you, they will feel this current of fury, of hatred and know how to use it. They will not turn away. It has already begun.'
Tiny tendrils, too fragile to survive in this lightless place -- Mical, Bao-Dur, Mira -- straining for her. They would die. They would fall. Her missing eyes could not weep.
But you can't be angry at the cards, you know. We're all dealt from the same deck. If you start being angry at the cards -- or the other players -- you'll lose for sure.
She had come here for love. She would die here for love.
I have a message for you, Mika.
There was something. A glimmer in the shadow. Shade in the unrelenting white.
Carth Onasi is waiting for you
A shudder, too small to feel, shook the galaxy.
Something small and pure flared and struggled.
Remember to look at your side deck. The cards you bring to the table and the choices you make, that's where you're different. That's where you can make a difference.
She reached out through the Force, blind in the murk. She touched them all, as she always had. She said farewell and left them, ties snapping through the cosmos like whiplash.
The flash of silver, a star plummeting, she dove through the bond that had linked her with Revan for decades. She brought her pain, she brought her love. She wrapped herself around that tiny spark and gave her everything to it.
So defiant. So small in this darkness. She heard Mika weeping and knew they would drown together in this place. Their fear would feed this place.
Revan's laughter blistered her skin.
Her hand was actually pretty helpful -- three +/- cards of various denominations, a -2 and a 2/4 switch -- an interesting arsenal. 'All right, flyboy. You asked for it.'
She tore herself in two.
Still holding on to the glimmer that was Mika Revan, she ripped through the universe, shredding the fabric of reality. The Force -- all of it -- trembled before the wound that was Cora Saris.
And she drank it in.
The hole in her being, the nothing that had lurked within her since Malachor V turned itself inside out -- and took her with it. Even the darkness of that place was no match. From a very long way away, she heard Revan's outraged howls as all the anger, all the despair and hatred -- all the power -- leeched into the exile's self ... and was met with the strength of five billion screams.
She said farewell to the light and she inhaled it all.
That's it, gorgeous. Pure pazaak.
1 Your writing style reminds me of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things with those seemingly off-tangent, oddly mellifluous statements
that imbue the piece with a surreal, psychological quality and prevents it from degenerating into a dry narrative.2 The imagery conjured is !#(*&!!@# insane.
(PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TEACH ME HOW TO WRITE JUST LIKE YOU)3 The dialogue scares me; reading it at 1 in the morning I get this really uncomfortable sensation.
*Re-reads it with the lights on*4 I think I found an easter egg:
You write good poetry. :)
I'm going to be late for school, and it's all your fault. :)
Ha ha ha! ROTGUTT! You DO write just like this!! Why do you think I hero-worship you so?
My comments, as posted on deviantART, slightly altered:
I think this is the first fic that's brought tears in a while. Not at the Atton-y squishiness...but the sheer pain of it. Don't laugh, I know what was happening wasn't all that horrible (and unlike my dear Zana, I don't cry a lot). But to believe, to be so happy...Oh. Force. It tears at something inside. Your writing style is excellent, very detailed and - obviously - moving. Great lead up and placement of those important parts that mark the shift. Great dialog, Atton is spot-on. I thought it a little odd that he just showed up...And it did remind me of the famous "you'll be right here with me, playing pazaak" lines, which I finally found a few weeks ago.
I'd like to add that I agree with EVERYTHING rotgutt said above. And the tears want to come again having re-read it...grr.
Please don't ever doubt yourself. ^_^'
You have a rare and unique gift. They way you capture scenes, giving them life, amazes me. I can't even begin to explain it. Only that while I read I am there. It's not often I can say this about the things I read. Thank you for writing. It gives all who read a great pleasure.
I enjoyed the first chapter, the second a bit less. The next two I found a bit obscure, with too many unexplained ideas. I wasn't really sure what was going on there half the time.
The two assassins in chapter 1 reminded me a bit of the Gholam is Wheel of time (was that your intention?) You can see the similarities: Made to kill Jedi/Made to kill Aes Sedi. Made by the sith/Made by the Forsaken. Immune to the Force/Immune to the One power. The Gholam is a lot more deadly though.
Since you released all four chapters at the same time, I kind of wonder why you didn't just make them all one, cos they are kinda short. Anyways, each to her own.
I really enjoyed this. It was beautifully written and emotional. I love the spectrum of emotions covered from part to part, from desperation to hope to pain, exhaustion with a flicker on the horizon.
Wow...thank you everyone. This one was kinda pulled out of my brain with forceps - an I know it kind of makes no sense, but it is what it is, I think.
Knight - I've never read the Wheel of Time series, I'm afraid. (I hate to pick up a series when it's still only half-done...and I'm not sure that series will ever be done..LOL) So, I'm not sure about your comparison. The bottom line, I suppose, is that they're not assassins. They're figments of her imagination as she dies. They don't really exist.
You certainly have some nice phrases and descriptions throughout the 4 chapters. Poetry seems to lurk behind your words at times. I think someone else already pinpointed this set of lines, for example:
You do a great job of bringing out emotions in very strong ways at different points of the story too. The device in this last chapter of repeating some of the pazaak thoughts in the previous chapter is a nice touch too, and I like how you slowly drag her out of the vision in Ch. 3. I think more might have been done in that previous chapter, though, to emphasize the transition. Perhaps to have some details change or fade or something besides the pain. But this point is just about making it stronger.
And that one detail above would also be main critique overall. Poetry says much with few words, captures an image and stirs our imagination to fill in the missing pieces. Prose, I think, needs more of the details because it leads us through a story.
Well, I'm not entirely sure of my division between poetry and prose, but what I feel is lacking in the last two chapters are a few more details that fill in missing pieces. This whole thing feels like part of a larger story that I haven't read. Without that additional detail, I can't get as sucked into the wonderful emotions and imagery you evoke here. In part, that's because I'm not an automatic AttonXExile gusher and so you need to make me believe in them as a couple by adding more. Ditto with Revan, and the world that Exile is wrenched back into...
Does that make sense? I think it's one of the lines that separates fanfic (some background/context/biases assumed) from ficfic.
Critiques always take longer for me because I want to explain them clearly. The length does not imply that they are more important. Overall, I very much like the evocative way that you write and I look forward to seeing more! :D
Ciao, BaM
I wish I could guess all writer's gender from their nicknames, to see similarities and differences in their self expression and appreciation.
My super macho brother would laugh at you, and he would laugh at me for enjoying this fine literature.
:) LOVE YOU ALL, MARVELOUS "KOTOR" POETS...
you must write more. anything, really.
Brilliant!
I've been a fan of your writing since you put your HotU stories up on ff.net, and I think this is my very favourite so far! Control was excellent, though I got a little lost in its obscurity near the end, but the way this one unfolded made it very easy to follow, without you spelling everything out. I feel like you give your readers credit for being intelligent enough to follow along, which I think can be a fine line sometimes. (Don't know what that says about me getting a little lost in Control. ;-) ) I'm still trying to figure out how to effectively walk that line myself.
You really have a flair for making tragedy beautiful rather than just depressing, and I can never pull my eyes away from one of your stories once I've started reading (which is why it took me so long to take the time to read this one). I loved the blending of the mental and the physical, and you did it seamlessly. I agree with everyone else who has said your writing is very poetic. I hope I can one day even come close to matching your talent! =)
This story brought tears to my eyes, first when I realized for certain that Atton wasn't there with her (physically anyway). And her saying "Carth Onasi is waiting for you" was a complete shock, though maybe it shouldn't have been. Overall, a very moving story.
Is it just my interpretation, or was Atton (dead, I'm assuming) actually there with her through the Force?
To provide some constructive criticism, here's a teeny tiny little nitpicky thing... Near the end of chapter 3, there is this line:
It looks like "here eyes" should be "her eyes." See? I told you it was a teeny tiny little nitpicky thing. ;-) That's all I could come up with to complain about.
Excellent work!