Erith - Feeling Lost

She'd aimed her rifle back at the arrived party of Chiss twice. Once at Ohkirr - whom she'd shot, a clean and frightfully accurate wound that would have killed someone without the protective armor she knew he was wearing. Once at Sinclair, picking his voice out of the din in the middle of the attack. She'd picked out others in the party that had come at their back - Ark, the once head of the Dark Blade Cartel. Jack, who'd taken a shot at her. Lykaios, sabers dodged. The party the had been attacking had been largely unknown but their backup arrivals had been...

Known.

Kerith lifted the glass of dark liquid, considering it with narrowed eyes.

Come home. She'd shot Specialist as he was called, aimed clean and true for a kill in a blinded moment of - what? Cold and calculating fury. Because he'd told her to wake up. That he wanted her to. And it had simmered in her mind with every other little fracture, every other near-order. Every chaotic voice clamoring in her thoughts when she tried to still them.

He was worried for you. It sounded too unrealistic. She had shot him and aimed to kill in that moment, knowing the exact point of weakness to exploit, to take out one of Sinclair's best men. Delicately she lifted the glass, sniffing it.

Drinking was, according to what she had seen, a common way to drown sorrows. She had no hobbies to sink herself in to for distraction, no way to explain to Kobus that she could put into rational words, nothing she could confide that wouldn't risk getting back to one of the Sith she swore to.

Part of her still saw the Aristocra as a threat though the voice was wavering in its convictions. But her loyalty to the House had not diminished and she could, when examined clinically, see why the voice at the back of her thoughts cried out against obeying his orders. And yet she knew Sinclair's authority superseded any other except another Arisocra's especially in Imperial space. Now she knew, at least. The short study-guide of the Ascendancy had given her more insight than her own memories had. She had wanted to keep her neck unbent....

But she also knew she should obey. Ker lifted the glass, taking a sip and coughing as the burn slicked the back of her throat, glass hitting the table with a loud thud while she drew in breath. The smoky flavor was a stark contrast to any other drink she had indulged in before, the times she had drunk being occasions she could count on a single hand.

This certainly warranted adding another notch to her indulgences post.

"The Aristocra wants you to wake up. I want you ... to wake up. And I know that it is terrifying. It is painful. Confusing. But it is worth it." The Specialist's voice had been full of ... something. A shared pain, a level of understanding that Kerith had been unprepared for. Sinclair - Raes? - had confirmed the his comment about Ohkirr's similar past had not been in error.

She set the now-empty glass down, reaching for the bottle and filling it again. A Cipher should never let her senses become dulled by drink or drugs, never let herself be distracted from her work. She had... she had nothing. She had been demoted, relieved of her duties when remanded to Darth N'Zzod's mercies. She still awaited the outcome of their 'discussion', keeping her comms unit off while she stayed put.

Raes. She didn't know whether to continue to address him by title, by diminutive for a shot at keeping distance, or if the explicitly given permission meant he expected her to call him by name. As he called her by her name, and had with impunity. Ker wondered if he'd stop if she asked. But if home was with her people then Sinclair was the driving voice behind her admitted desire to go home, something she'd voice to the lady Darth, and that migh tmake him part of that home.

In her confusion Ker drank. She drank to hide and forget the blackness and the thud of her heart, she drank to forget the way Ohkirr had bled from her rifle's unerringly accurate shot. She drank because she wanted and yet dreaded the concept of home. She drank until the bottle was empty and the Cipher was curled up on herself, a little blue shivering speck on the red and black and durasteel of the Estate.