A Fractured Mind ((Lethri Driiquar))

((This is a short story I had written for Lethri's guild, whenever I talk of her... Problems, you can understand just exactly how bad she is, and why Vilinde finds it painful to talk about her children.))

Lethri sits upon her bed, crosslegged and staring off to space with her hand over her stomach, blood seeping around it. Only her mouth moves as she stays otherwise perfectly still. The room is reminiscent of a battleground, blaster marks scour the walls, another protocol droid was blown to bits. On the walls were arcane looking symbols and letters, all drawn in a velvet red, all still dripping after being smeared from the Echani's blood soaked hand.

"No! I told you no more damn it! These writings mean nothing! NOTHING!" the words echo throughout the empty ship, the angry tone evident. Yet, after a pause Lethri's voice can be heard again, only now calm and controled, "You know they do. They mean everything, you know, you know. You can see them, so they must be so, hmm?" cackling, the voice continues to taunt some unseen person, "Oh but can you see hmm? I see, she see's, and her, and her, and her, and her, her, her!. Maybe out of all of us, you are the blind one, hmm?" Lethri cackles again, but pauses halfway. She suddenly breaks the silence by shouting angrily, "Shut up! Just go away! I don't need you! I don't... No, no..." the denials dies down into a quiet mumbling.

Suddenly the white haired woman bursts to her feet and walks out of her bedroom, into a scene of chaos. Bodies cover the floor, some carefully taken apart bit by bit, others torn to shreds, gory, puply carcases. As she looks up she see's a body nailed to the ceiling by countless knives, the face unrecognizable. She speaks to the room, in another strange voice, quiet and slow, "All of this beautiful carnage... Which one did this I wonder... Certainly not I, but Simera mayhaps? Vilinde? Yes... You see the patterns, the blood on the walls, and the ceiling, it must have been Vilinde... Such a naughty girl, she always leaves such a mess... Do you see?" Lethri smirks, but pauses her movement and words, and again her voice changes, now quick and sly, an obvious conwoman, "Yeah, yeah, you've seen this shit fore' ain't ya? Heh... One hell of a party, ain't seen none of em echani again, did we eh?" the blank eyed, pale woman grins cruelly, "Talari, Cerri, Suri, Kitari... And oh, what was the last girls name? Heh... Heh heh... Hahaha.." the voice laughs madly, "Lethri! Lethri, Lethri, Lethri! You died that night didn't you! You saw what we did, but oh no, you couldn't stop it eh? Wouldn't stop it... You could have eh? You know it, you know i-" the slicers voice is interrupted by another quiet, strong voice, one that has not come from the echani's mouth since her last lesson, her last mission before graduating... "Quiet... Not my fault... No choice..." despite the pauses and the lesser number of words, this voice seems to cow the others down, as if it was ment to be, "Had to die, had to live. You helped, not now..."

The angry voice returns, it's rage now directed at the one before it instead of the waste of blood, "You need us! We keep you safe, we keep you alive! You'd be *nothing* without us! NOTHING!" screaming, the echani starts throwing body parts around the blood stained room, landing with a meaty, solid thump on the walls and ceiling, "NOTHING! YOU ARE NOTHING!" At this last word a odd mixture of voices screams out with the enraged, countless and yet one, all forcing the rare control from her mind. Lethri collapses to the ground, among the blood, wearing it as if it was her own. She lies there, quiet, seeing yet unseeing as she stares at the ceiling. Hours pass, and she does not as much as twitch, and the only sound is the dripping of her victims blood.

When she moves and speaks again it is with a proud, sure, commanding voice. A military voice, the voice of a leader, "Ahh, there we are... Back to work you all, we have much to do. She cannot escape, we cannot go back into the back of her mind as a nagging presense. We are free when she is imprisioned." smiling she walks through the quiet, lifeless ship to the cockpit and punches in co-ordinates. "Yes... We have much to do..."