Korsha's old room was a ten by ten square. Gray upon gray. Featureless walls beneath a blank lifeless ceiling where no child's imagination could conjure faces or places they wished to disappear to. Two beds. One desk. Forged in industrial straight lines and ninety degree angles. Devoid of any artistic creativity. They, like those that used them, were only tools. Their purpose: function until they were no longer useful.

Now the room was nearly unrecognizable beneath a sheen of ice. A soft blue canvas that coated everything. Its icy touch wrapped around her, trying desperately to get inside her armor and caress her skin. Its chilled and crisp breath filled her lungs. It was far more comforting this way than it had been before. The frost and chill did little to hold back the decades of accumulated emotions that the concrete had soaked up and were now oozing out from the cracks like an unseen miasma which she imbibed generously.

Korsha trudged across the room. Hollow steps that led her to her old bed. She dropped, shoulders slumping forward as she rested her arms on her knees. For a long moment she willed her head to lift. To stare at the bed across from her but it had turned to unwilling stone. Once more she breathed in the heady emotions, letting them swirl inside her, blanketing her mind in a thick haze as they crept through her veins like tendrils of fog through broken ruins. Her throat was thick, constricting with their passing as she tried to swallow but her mouth was far too dry.

She shut her eyes and let the world spin around her. Her fingers clunge to the plates of her thigh armor like anchored ships during a storm. Come on. It's time to face this. If we don't and we find Deidra she’ll be able to use it against us. We have to be clear headed if we have any chance of saving her. Korsha blinked. When had she determined that Deidra was behind this? Or that she was even alive?

It was this place, the Grimnar Academy. Her mother. Ever since she entered she could feel its influence pressing against her mind. A mold against unruly clay. It was a monument to everything that had been and what never could be. This place was rooted in the past and somehow those roots had wormed their way past her armor, slithered under her skin and pierced her heart.

Could this have gone any other way?

Could that moment have gone any other way?

Korsha drew from the well a power inside her, it ascended from the pit of her stomach, up into her throat and then she breathed it out. The emotions latched onto it, draining the life from it. Seconds later she saw two feet kicking the air across from her. She lifted her head and saw Deidra sitting there. She was leaned back, her head tilted up as she smacked on the contraband gum she'd somehow gotten hold of. She blew a large bubble in a way only she could be defiant. It popped.

Korsha watched her own imprint walk past her carrying a stack of books and plopping them down upon the desk. She organized them by priority and set to work studying. She would be there for hours. They’re so young. So naive. Korsha thought as she poured more power and watched as time sped up. I didn’t appreciate this enough. Within heartbeats her younger self had devoured countless passages of knowledge but time was catching up with her and her head bobbed up and down as she struggled to keep herself up until finally her forehead had touched the book. Deidra appeared, blanket in hand, and wrapped it around Korsha’s younger self. She shook her head and left for her own bed.

Time passed.

They grew.

Korsha closed her eyes and sensed the hollowness inside her. It came from a deep abiding ache that knew of time’s endless progression. She knew how this would end. How it had to end. The inevitability of that terrible moment drew nearer. It was like an endless cycle. Once that she’d been trapped in her entire life. Bound to fail, try, succeed but ultimately come up short.

"Korsha, I need to tell you something." Deidra said, causing Korsha's head to snap up and stare at the imprint.

Deidra was older now, in her midteens. Her hair was long and drawn across her shoulders in thick brambly curls. This was it. This was the moment. All the other imprints had disappeared. Korsha had chosen this moment, or at least her subconscious did while she was distracted. She took a deep breath. She was going to face this moment. Face Deidra. Her head dropped as she mouthed the words she knew her own imprint was about to say.

"Can it wait? I'm still studying for the graduation exam."

"Korsha…"

Just as it had back then, Korsha was overcome by the hesitation in Deidra's voice. That was unlike her, and in fact Korsha couldn't think of a time where Deidra had ever hesitated. Korsha's imprint, laying on the bed, her body partially obscured by Korsha's own physical body, snapped her head up.

"What's wrong?"

Deidra was quiet for a moment, the answer pressed against her open mouth but she snapped it shut. The action had made Korsha's heart hammer in her chest. What could possibly be going on?

"I'm leaving."

Fear descended like a fog. Thick and twisting. It obscured the future. Smudging any certainty Korsha had had moments before. Ice spikes had driven themselves down her spine as her stomach knotted up at her core. How it had slithered through her veins. The solid ground that she'd come to take for granted was crumbling beneath her. Falling into a deep pit.

Her brow furrowed as the confusion set in. She knew that this day was always a possibility. It was time to serve. Time to fulfill their purpose. She'd only hoped that her master's strategy would see more value with them together. she'd hoped all the countless hours that they had practiced together, trained to function as a team, would mean that they would never be separated. They were valuable together. They needed each other.

Korsha shook her head, knowing the thoughts now running through her younger self. That wasn't true. Deidra didn’t need her. It was Korsha who was the parasite in what should have been a symbiotic relationship. A fact pointed out by her master many times as he encouraged her to strengthen herself because in the end she needed Deidra's protection, not the other way around. It had been a hard truth to swallow but he'd been right. In the end Deidra was far more useful to her master than Korsha ever could be.

"Where's our master sending you?"

Deidra closed her eyes, cinching them up tight as she struggled to contain the emotions within her. Eyes cracked as her hands squeezed the edge of the bed. For all her effort a tear still slid down her cheek.

"Please don't say it." Korsha whispered, her voice hoarse and flushed with emotion.

She could make that happen. Never allow Deidra to continue. All she had to do was stop feeding the emotions. Stop feeding the imprints. Without her they had no power, no form, no meaning. They were just left over residue. They were impressions, atmospheric sensations that hung in the air awaiting anyone sensitive enough to pick up on it.

She didn't stop.

Looking through her bleary eyes, Korsha watched as Deidra leaned forward and whispered.

"I made contact with a rebel sympathizer. He said my parents have been looking for me and they paid him to help me escape."

Korsha's younger self jolted up, back now rigid as she stared at Deidra. She shook her head. Why would any goddess fearing parents want a corrupted child? The only way to earn their redemption was to serve their purpose for the goddess so they could be allowed into her embrace upon death. If her parents loved her, they'd let her serve her purpose and not damn herself. That was, after all, if her parents actually had set up the meeting.

Korsha had known Deidra hadn’t thought it through. She could see it in the ravenous desire that glowed in her eyes. Like an ember clinging to its own fading light. She wasn’t being rational. Her desires have blinded her to all the angles, all the ways this could go wrong. Did it really take so little effort for someone to steal away the strategic training their master had personally taught them? She had to stop Deidra from making a terrible mistake.

"It's a trap. They're going to kidnap you and brainwash you. They’ll use you against the Dominion."

Deidra's eyes narrowed.

"As if this isn't brainwashing?" She said, throwing up her arms to encompass the room around her, "You really are blind aren't you. I used to think it was just naivety but this is willful. You really want to believe the shite they feed you?"

Korsha turned away, her eyes cast down towards the bed.

"You don't know what we're capable of."

Instead of turning away as she had done in the past, Korsha kept her eyes focused on Deidra. Her sister scowled, clenching her fists. She opened her mouth to say something and then quickly pressed her lips together, merging them into a thin line. There was a heavy moment of silence between them. A wall was already dividing them.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your brother but I have a family. I wasn't whisked away. I was taken. Ripped out of my mother's own arms."

The younger Korsha shook her head, the tears streaming down her cheeks. That old familiar loneliness, her companion during the long winter nights, had returned. How could Deidra do this to her?

"You’d abandon me after everything!"

"Keep your voice down." Deidra snapped glaring at Korsha. Several breaths later the anger melted off her face. Her eyes softened as a hushed breath whispered out of her. There was such pity in that expression. It would have been the last time Korsha saw that emotion had her younger self been watching. "I wouldn't leave you. We're sisters. I convinced them to let me take another person with me. But only one. And I chose you."

Younger Korsha blinked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, "What about Tal?"

Deidra sighed.

"He's a good man but he's a technomancer."

"He's our technomancer. He's always had our back."

"That's because it's his job."

Korsha shook her head. Was it really so easy for Deidra to just turn her back on someone she'd known for most of her life? Weren't they her family? She'd known her and Tal far longer than she'd known her own birth parents. Did blood really matter that much to her?

"Please don't do this."

"Please come with me."

"I – I – I can't go. I'll hurt someone."

Korsha tried to pull herself away from the memories. Tried to shut the images of her brother laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood out. His glassy eyes stared out into nothingness but stared at her all the same. Accusing her. She was numb. Weightless. She blinked rapidly as the world trembled. She needed to find her anchor, a way to keep yourself from being torn apart. From losing yourself to the memories.

That day had been the worst day of her life but it also had been one of the best things that ever happened to her. She focused on the warm embrace of the man who’d found her and had sheltered her from her wickedness. Not wanting to let the image of her brother’s lifeless gaze etch itself into the bedrock of her soul. He’d failed but the attempt was heroic. He’d stroked her hair and hushed her. His words were soft and velvety as they blanketed her addled mind. Wrapping her up in a cocoon that kept her secure.

"That wasn't your fault. You have control now."

Deidra's voice snapped Korsha out of the memory. Her hands trembled. She sent a command to her armor to release a sedative. There was the potential that it would keep her from using her powers but it wasn't like she needed them anyways.

Younger Korsha shook her head. The terror clung heavy in the air like a pungent ashen incense. Before she could say anything else, both turned their heads. Though there had been no sound, Korsha remembered the chime that had announced afternoon classes. A simple thing that kept the endless cycle of the academy moving forward. Yet in this moment it had acted like a spike being driven through rock. It had left cracks, a divide that neither of them had the time to fill.

Deidra got up and headed towards the door. She glanced over her shoulder but her eyes didn't meet Korsha's.

"You have two days to decide. Extraction point is in the utility junction at pipeline three. They're going to be doing maintenance so it will be clear. This is a one time only offer. After this you're on your own."

A violent tremor shot through Korsha's body. Deidra left. Korsha’s younger self curled up on the bed and sobbed, overcome by the deep sorrow that had crushed her soul so many years ago. The emotion had been a fallow field, leaving her empty and desolate. Yet that day something else had been planted within her. It'd taken years to grow and develop but now she knew what it was. Instead of joining her younger self she stood up.

"Damn you, Deidra!"

Korsha stumbled out of the room and left. She wasn't done here. No matter how much she wanted to be.