Log:Tamsin Cas: Dreams of a Distant Shore
Tamsin meets a familiar face in the dreaming.
OOC Date: August 12, 2021
Location: Spearhead Base
Participants: Malik Ren, Tamsin Cas
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
There were not many days when Tamsin did not go to bed exhausted. It was as though the woman was bound and determined to cram as much activity into each hour as it was humanly, or, in her case, near-humanly possible. Idle hands do the devil's work, was clearly her motto. But, after a full day, even the usually indefatigable doctor made her way from the garden, where she had spent a short while meditating in the company of that tiny tree and its little cactus companion, and retreated to her room. The usual ablutions tended to, she'd slipped into bed, turning away from the door, as if that might somehow shield her from the world outside, drifting off nearly as soon as her head hit the pillow. Sleeping, much like waking, had never been Tamsin's problem. It was only everything in the middle.
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
"You've clearly kept busy."
How long has it been since she heard that voice? It's still so familiar, so exactly what it was before the reactor explosion on Coruscant. Precise and deliberate, confident, the tone of a man with expectations it would be unthinkable not to meet. She is -- where are they? Carkanis? Stark, bare, jagged gray rocks and a slate-dark sea with nothing else around, and looking out at the water, Malik Ren, exactly as he was. Long hair tied back, characteristic dark robes in place, posture perfect, arms folded, and watching her with that intensity that always makes one feel that an assessment might be taking place.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
What did one say to a dream? Did it matter? Would it hold any meaning to the dreamer upon waking? Yes, Tamsin thought, in that odd way one had in dreams, of course it mattered. "I've missed you." Likely, not at all the sort of thing one said to the Master of the Knights of Ren. Perhaps it would have been better to vent her anger and frustration. Her uncertainty and hopelessness. Here in this place that was not a place except in her mind. But, Tamsin had felt none then, nor felt any now. Not towards the man who stood before her. Only sadness. And so, those words came first. Because they were true and honest, and real. "You told us to carry on. I've done my best to see the work fulfilled." The rocks were sharp beneath her feet, cold, as though coated in hoarfrost from the sea spray, but Tamsin paid it no mind, as she stepped forward to close the distance between herself and the familiar figure waiting for her on the shore.
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
Malik Ren seems if anything, amused at her comment. Not overly so, not in a large way -- big displays of emotion are off-brand for him. But one corner of his mouth crooks up in a smile nonetheless. "Of course you have." The tone is not unkind, but neither is he attempting to be comforting.
His arms are still folded, some wisps of hair freed by the wind that tugs at both their clothing, but somehow - dreamlike - does not impair their speech. One brow lofts upwards, and unwilling to lead her into conclusions, he merely prompts, "And?"
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"And we have carried on." If this was indeed the Malik she remembered, conjured from her memories of him, he would expect a report of their activities. "We continue to hunt Nightfall, and we are drawing closer, I think, to their base of operations. I have seeded informants across the systems, and we are receiving regular actionable reports. Sebek has been out hunting the Church of the Force and its adherents, and dealing with them on his own, or with our assistance, as he chooses." Tamsin had always trusted Sebek to know his mind and to fulfill his duties. That had not changed. "The hunt for artifacts continues." Tamsin frowned, as a thought occurred to her, "We located an odd thing, a sample of an ore we have not yet identified, which has some connection to the dark side of the force." Hrm, what else, "I have restarted the training school on Carkanis." Here? Was it here? A question for another time, "We already have two new students. We are growing the ranks of the Knights, so that there will always be someone to carry on." And then, as if it had only just occurred to her, "I crafted my lightsaber." There was just an edge of a smile on her lips. She had struggled for so long with it. She had none of Malik's natural love of or skill with the weapon. Tamsin held out a hand, the saber appearing there. Not so plain as Malik's, but, perhaps, made in the spirit of it. As perhaps she and Tarq, and all who had come to the Knights by Malik's hand and will had been made in his image.
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
"I know you did." Well of course he did. He's her. Her dream, her subconscious. Or he isn't? It can be hard to tell; the Force moves in strange ways and sometimes provides inscrutable insights. Asleep, especially, the line between dream and vision, self and other, can be quite indistinct and difficult to determine. "I'm disinclined to praise you for the completely-expected construction of what is a fundamental tool of this vocation, though I'm rather glad to see it appears to have been conducted properly and has not, any point between construction and now, shattered into pieces and taken your hand off."
Well, that's Malik for you.
But after a moment, the hint of a smile returns, this time with something else mixed in. Regret? It's so hard to tell. Regret is not his thing. "I do wish I had been there for it, though."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"I think you would have been proud of me. It is nearly perfect." For nothing was perfect, no matter how much Muun's Daughter might wish for it to be. Will and logic could only bring you so far. And yes, perhaps this was only some aspect of Tamsin given a form that was as familiar to her as she was to herself, manifesting her own mirrored regret. "I wish you had been too." Even dream Tamsin did not continue on with that thought. 'It should have been you.' Of course it should have been. But of course, Malik would have known that too. "But, I am glad it was Sebek, in your stead. Although," here, Tamsin's tone took on a hint of her usual dry humour, "I half thought he might simply lop my arm off, in the end. My blood did not wish to flow." Such was the bane of the Firrerreo, whose healing made such minor injuries close too quickly for the blood required for the ritual. "I feel...you might have told him to do it, in the end, if only to escape the heat of the forge."
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
"You think I would have told him to lop your arm off? Really." It's such a Malik thing to say, the 'really,' always his word, always in tones of amused cynicism or supercilious disbelief, his just-so way of drawing out the syllables. It seems amused in this case. "You know better than that. When have I ever been an advocate for dramatic harm against something or someone that I find objectively more useful intact?" He does not praise her for her interactions with Sebek or for completing the saber or for doing it perfectly. But he isn't criticizing it, which with him, tends to be implied approval. "No one deserves to escape the heat of the forge, at any rate. It was my role to be there for you. And if it was painful, it was my role not to let you see that."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
Again, there was that hint of amusement, "We were in there a terribly long time, and Sebek was getting peckish. You should have seen the look in his eyes." Well, to be fair, it was a look Malik would have been more than familiar with. Such was life with a cannibal. "But you're right. I think you would have simply dug a bit deeper, until you got what was needed." Which was utterly and entirely Malik's way. "I know." Because she did know, "You were always both our sword and our shield. Never asking us to do what you would not do yourself. Always fighting to bring us back, no matter the cost." And then, because, perhaps, it needed to be said, "I would have stayed with you to the end, Malik, no matter the cost." If only he had not charged her with a different duty. Not to die with him, but to live for him, and for the cause.
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
"You know as well as I do that you did stay with me to the end, and you did so, continue to do so, at great cost," Malik points out. "Had you been able to do what I did, you would have, I've no doubt of this. Had there been another way, you would have found it, I've no doubt of that either. But we are not the architect of our destinies in exactly the way we would have hoped or envisioned, I suppose. I paid the price of what I had to do. And now you do the same, no matter the cost." He looks over at her, without contempt and also without comfort. It is what it is. A quiet question follows. "You are not what you were and you are not what you will be. Who are you now, Tamsin Cas?"
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"To one end, perhaps, yes. But not all ends. I did what I promised to do." Tamsin looked down at her hand, and the slim, darkly silver hilt of her own lightsaber was replaced with the flat black of Malik's. "You have never really left. Part of you is here, with us. Will always be, if I have any say in the matter." Did she offer the spirit vision his blade back? Perhaps, or perhaps she simply held it, feeling its weight, light in her hand. For it was light, in this dreaming, in a way that it never was in waking. Then, it felt overburdened with purpose. "I am Tamsin Cas. Knight of Ren." Long gone were the days when she had questioned her purpose. Those questions had died on the pyre of Coruscant. "And now, I am the sword and shield. No matter the cost."
[ Malik Ren (Mr)]
Malik, or the dream wearing his likeness, listens intently to her answer. As he always did; not really a comfortable person to speak to sometimes, but always an attentive one. If you have have his attention at all, you usually have all of it, for better or for worse. What she is, who she is, her definition of herself and how it may have changed in the intervening months since his death -- he has no comment on this, no questions or disagreements or rebukes, no praise or confirmations. Neither does he reach to take his saber from her.
"Don't look back, Tamsin Cas, Knight of Ren," Malik advises, quietly. "The attachment will not serve you in anything but distraction and misery. All that remains to you is now, and the girl you were is lost to you." Is his smile a bit -- sad, or is that her imagination? He doesn't do SAD. "As am I. Letting go is part of the cost."
He looks back out at the water of this unknown sea and muses, "For now."
Without fanfare, she is alone, and in the timelessness of dreams it seems like seconds and years alone with the sea on not-Carkanis, before wakefulness abruptly finds her again.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
Tamsin, who did not wake, not immediately, remained on that distant shore, eyes still focused on that place where Malik had stood, dream, or vision, or only a wish made manifest. And into the silence where he had been, only Tamsin's words, echoing on that dead shore, carrying across that wine-dark sea. "Goodbye, Malik. For now."
