An Aur Diamond in the Rough [Kinsey]

[Rune Shamalain]

He felt the weight of his concern settle onto his shoulders and sink into his skin where it festered and coiled in the heat of his contained anger at the center of his chest. The man's hands carefully squeezed her shoulders, sliding down her upper arms as she procured her comm from his pocket to meekly call for backup. The quake of her voice made his very blood boil.

Rune was about to pull off his coat and offer it to her when the doors opened and introduce them both to the business ends of several blasters. Eyes widening, he smashed his fist into the close-doors button, issuing a Force push at the Guards stationed immediately beyond the threshold to keep them from forcing their way in.

Back in the quiet with the muffled sounds of their anger beyond, he turned back to Kinsey.

The steel of his gaze was churning like molten slag, the furious saffron beginning to meld through.

"Give me permission," he said, the edge of pleading in his tone, "give me permission to kill and I promise you we will make it out of here. I can't spare them all."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Stomach churned within the relative silence of the lift. She couldn't stop...trembling. Fingers tightened around the comm in her hand.

She wanted to be strong. She wanted to shrug off the shroud over her force signature. She wanted to reach out and assure Run she could help him. But she couldn't face what might happen. Maybe if it hadn't reminded her so much of Sage Bane. Maybe if she hadn't been reminded so much of the girl she'd been.

She could've been stronger in that moment.

Instead of saying, "Okay. But try," voice trailed off. She didn't need to say anymore. He knew what she was asking.

Pale, bruised, and tired cheeks flared in shame as the lift doors opened again. Maybe if she watched she would have the bravery to step in. To do something. But she couldn't shake the feeling of numbness. Being trapped. And lost.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

He had the chance once more to doff his coat and he did so in one fluid motion, shoulders rolling the hem from his neck. It slipped down his arms and softly swung behind her where he draped it over her own quaking figure. It sank down around her like a warm hug, leaving him clad in a beautifully embroidered vest cinched over his white shirt.

"Stay safe," his voice now a low rumble verging in to something far less kind and gentle, the hand remaining on her shoulder pressed her back into the forward corner of the lift where she would be afforded some cover. Rune turned from her as the last swirls of blue disappeared from his eyes, facing the men and armament standing just beyond the doors as they parted.

They fired first without warning and they hit nothing but a latent image of the man where he stood.

His first target did not even see him coming, nor the hand that took the barrel of his blaster and turned it on his comrade nearby. Three shots fire, two Guards down. The man tracked a path between another pair, issuing to the Guard on his left skillfully placed hits to the Chakra that controlled movement. He crumpled to the ground, blaster leaving his fingers in Rune's grasp to sail butt-first into the temple for the man on his right.

Progressing further down the hall that would eventually take them to the executive suite, another two Guards succumbed to friendly fire as the white-haired man ghosted from one group to the next. He took two bolts to the back as his fingers closed around the neck of another Guard, causing him to fumble, but not drop. Curious.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

The girl wanted to protest as she was pushed back. She liked to think she didn't need protection. She liked to think she was brave, strong, and independent. And she was.

On most days.

Today wasn't one of them, though.

A hand tightened around the edges of his coat as Rune disappeared - in more than one sense. Was her Rune gone? Would the beast with the yellow eyes even recognize her if she stepped out? Would he hesitate to...

Head shook as blaster fire singed the inside of the lift. Screams, grunts, and the sound of breaking bodies followed. Taking a deep breath and then another, she finally gathered enough courage to peek out. Movement was further down the corridor.

Shouts of terror were further down while silence enveloped her area.

Weak hands grabbed hold of a downed-soldier. Hard to say if he was dead or just unconscious. With a grunt, she tugged his body into the door of the lift, stopping it from going back down or closing. Bending down, she snatched off the man's infrared goggles and tucked them over her eyes. Then the cold steel of a blaster found its way into her trembling palms.

Glancing down the hall, she caught Rune's form stumbling from blaster fire.

"Rune," she breathed.

Something heavy hit into Rune's coat on her back from behind. It felt hot. A fallen guard on the floor's blaster was pointed at her back. She fired back, her frayed nerves making the shot sloppy but hitting the man's hand all the same. Rune's eyes reminded her of Sage's. The girl found herself sinking to the floor of bodies.

She was unharmed but she needed a moment.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Those two shots to his back had ignited a renewed effort to end this ordeal quickly and efficiently. He forgot himself for several heat-filled moments as he pulled a combat knife from the holster of a downed Guard and set upon the other offending party. Fingers curled around the handle with much the same familiarity as they might a lover, Rune twisted and coiled away from two further blaster bolts, engaging the Guard face to face and sliding the blade up beneath the bottom of his torso armor.

The edge sheared through fabric and flesh with ease, sliding upwards beneath the man's back lower rib and into his kidney. He dropped, slowly, letting loose a howl of fearful pain.

Rune shifted his attention then to the very last of them left: one Guard standing at the doorway leading into what he believed to be the Exec. Suite. He dropped his gun, having witness the whirlwind of devastation brought upon the long hall of his comrades, and raised his hands into the air.

"Mercy, mercy please."

The pale intruder's lips twitched, yellow eyes blazing with mirth as he approached and came to a stand before the doors, "Open it." The commanding voice seared through the quietude with the same hiss of energy as a plasma blade.

Quivering, a nod was given in return as the Guard placed his passkey into the reader and listened as the doors hissed open. He closed his eyes, withering away from Rune's gaze as the man stepped forward, praying to whatever crude God they revered here for safety. Rune lifted a hand and grasped him by the nape, pulling him along inside.

"Mercy, mercy I beg of you-"

"Does Lord Umber maintain a private landing pad at his office."

"Yes, just there. Take his ship, take whatever you want, but spare me please."

"Override the Security," Rune released him with an encouraging shove towards the aforementioned doors.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Back of her hand wiped against her bleeding lip. The salty-tang in her mouth brought her back to the present. That and a voice she hadn't heard from Rune before. Weary-head snapped up as her comm went off in her other hand.

Pibs booped and beeped on the other end.

The droid was here with their ship. Kinsey couldn't see it yet but the droid was giving her a play-by-play of the hangar doors opening. Something about a lock being overridden.

"Yes, we're coming," she whispered, though, there was no need to. "Dock where your sensors pick up any canisters of fuel."

There was an affirmative beep. The girl managed to push herself to her feet. Limbs felt as rubbery as her stomach and conscience. She picked her way through the carnage of the storm known as Rune. She finally caught up to him. The air outside was chill against skin that wasn't usually exposed - even with Rune's coat still on her shoulders. Maybe it was the sharpness of the cold air that made her senses level a bit, able to make her step further from the edge of losing herself to the pit of dark.

The roar of her ship coming into land filled the otherwise quiet night. A blast of heat buffered against the cold. Goggled-eyes leveled on the terrified and cowering guard. Kinsey was at Rune's side in an instant and fingers reached to wrap lightly around Rune's wrist - the one that wasn't holding a weapon without really thinking about the danger in doing so. Like startling a wild animal.

"Rune," voice rose to be heard over the roar of her ship's engines. Pibs was already rolling down the ramp, toward the fuel cells. "It's time to go."

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Said wild animal's attention shifted down to her with a glare of molten steel, and for one very short moment Kinsey looked into the face of the man who had spent several years lost in his own darkness. A man who had been broken and shattered and pieced back together by malice and rage. One who looked upon the lifeforms of the galaxy with impunity.

It's only slaughter. We're only liars. It's only blood.

His gaze slid across her face, down her neck, landing at her chest, a trawling and detached survey of the creature that dared touch him or speak his name or deign to give him orders. The ritualistic scars now visible across his face gleamed a heady black under the lights of her ship but his eyes remained fixed at her bosom and the ring that hung there.

A tense moment passed as he lifted his other hand, very slowly, to brush his fingertips across the ring, skimming her exposed flesh with no hint of salacious intent.

"So it is," the man responded finally, his typical quiet tone now a rough tamber, "lead on."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

The guard no longer having the beast's attention sagged to the floor, a crumpling and weeping mess. Pibs warbled as the droid lined up fuel tank after fuel tank, the ship greedily drinking its fill, likely to leave the canisters sucked dry. Relief splashed across her features as she caught a glimpse of her Rune. Just a glimpse.

She had a feeling it was the very ring he stared at that saved her.

And saved him.

A subtle tilt of her wrist pointed the tip of the blaster she held away from his kneecap. He'd feel it again - a wavering in her force signature. Or perhaps he wouldn't. It was smaller than before and this time it didn't edge in fear or anger. It was something light and bright like the last name she held. Hard to say if his touch had set it off or if it had been her own sense of self-preservation.

Gently, she let her fingers move from his wrist to entwine with his own digits - if he let her.

And her boot-wearing, tattered dress-self walked on with Rune. Hair usually up, lay in a tangled mess across her shoulders, shifting further into chaos by the ship's exhaust of new fuel. A bit of tension lifted from her shoulders as they entered the u-wing.

Her home. Blaster was set down and her goggles peeled off.

She lead Rune to the back of the ship - where the small hammock was strung up above and released his hand slowly, motioning to the tea kettle. Maybe that would ground him more. Or maybe....she'd be buying a new one soon.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

For the distance it took to cross the expansive chamber of the office suite out through the doorway to the landing pad and to the ship, Rune walked not on the hand of Kinsey Starchaser, but a woman he remembered with agonizing clarity. The glimmer of her vibrant hair, the pale glow of her skin, the strength of her grip interwoven through his fingers. She was there for those moments, helping Kinsey guide him back from the shadows much in the way she had helped his brother do the same all those years ago.

He stepped onto the ship in silence, ducking through the hatchway to follow her to the back.

Kinsey motioned to the tea kettle and he looked upon it with a sense of lost detachment. His gaze, still void of blue but now calmed to a soft saffron, shifted back to her. Rune looked her over again, seeing her there dwarfed by his jacket in naught but that skimpy dress and her boots, hair wild like a twist of hyperlanes, and recognized her as being safe. The line of his jaw tightened, feet shifting to turn him away from the tea and back to the woman to whom they traveled to close the distance. With slow, calm movements he lifted his hand again, aiming this time for the wisps of unruly brown hair on her head.

He meant to smooth them down with a gentle stroke, his hand shifting to gently take her shoulder and pull her to him in a hug. Whether or not she allowed it, the next words escaped him with a measure of shame.

"Forgive me. I should have never agreed to let him take you out of my sight."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

There he was.

Her Rune.

The rest of the tension her body had been holding eased out. Arm looped around him, this time a tremble of relief and fatigue. Face pressed against him for a moment. The pilot was getting used to his scent. How could this man make her go from feeling strong to weak at the knees in one breath?

Maybe that was the most terrifying realization of the day.

Face finally turned toward his. Head shook. “I told you I could handle it. And I,” she took a breath as her shoulders slumped. “Failed. Miserably. But not just myself. You.”

She wanted to tell him so much more. About using the force. About now much of a coward she’d been. Instead she found her hand moving along his back, searching his clothing for signs of interruption that would indicate an injury.

“Are you okay?” It was more than his physical body that she was asking about.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Both arms coiled around her, a subconscious thought marveling at how petite she really was for how strong she always appeared to be. Rune hugged her tightly for a breath, and in that moment he was holding her again. A flash of brilliant green beneath his chin, his arms loosening as she looked up - Emmerald's face playing in the peripherals of his eyes. When he looked down it was to see Kinsey instead and he was not saddened by it, though he did frown at her admission.

They had both failed. Each other and, apparently, themselves.

What a pair they made.

Pulling in a deep breath, including the scent of the fearless spacer in his arms, Rune heaved a weary sigh and closed his eyes for a moment to take a mental stock of himself.

"Yes," he replied, "I am now."

A beat, his hands smoothed over the material of his jacket hung from her shoulders, "May I ask a favor?"

"Can we leave this place now."

He hadn't wanted to come here to begin with, but desperate times and empty fuel cells...

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

There was a grim smile on her lips.

“You’ve got it.”

She slipped free from his grasp and called out the door. “Pibs. Almost done?” There were a series of short beeps ending with one long one, then the roll of the bb-unit as it came onboard.

“Of course, your timing was perfect.”

The droid asked if Rune was safe now. Kinsey nodded silently trying to spare Rune’s feelings and her own. Shedding Rune’s coat and handing it back to him, she pulled on a long-sleeved cotton gray-blue shirt over the skimpy dress.

She’d change fully once they were safely in hyperspace. And give that ring back, too.

“Strap in,” settling into the cockpit her hands moved in a blur as engines warmed up, doors closed, and coordinates entered. With a gentle tug with her hands on the controls, they were airborne. They met no air resistance or foes. The dark skies opened up to a deeper black and with no embellishments, she took them into the hyperspace jump.

With auto-pilot firmly engaged, she eased back from the controls, letting her palms drag over her face. Looking down, she noticed the necklace and ring. Fingers gently lifted the loop from her head and neck as she made her way to Rune in the cabin.

“I believe this belongs back with you. Did you need to use the sanisteam before I hop in?”

 

[Rune Shamalain]

He took his seat as ordered, pulling the restraints over his shoulders and locking in for their departure. Jaw locked, the hammering of his heart renewed, he closed his eyes and attempted to center himself for what was the second-worst part of flying for him.

The first-worst was the landing.

When Kinsey finally reappeared he was still shuttered in mentally and nearly startled as she spoke. Yellow eyes opened to track the gleam of the chain and ring in her hand, a discomforted grimace etched into the lines of his face. He still had not yet fully reverted, the simmer of his blood still ran the length of his veins. The bracing of his muscles still defined by the cut of his jaw and the tenseness of his hands. It worried him. Rune was accustomed to these episodes and had developed a systematic response to bringing himself back to center, but it didn't seem to be working like it once did before.

Before...

"Hold on to it for now," he replied, pressing it back towards her, "please."

It had played a role in keeping her safe from him and somehow, he thought, seemed to be channeling the essence of Emmerald to her. Part of him wanted her to keep it a little longer just to see if he might catch another vision. The other part of him wanted her to have it to ensure she would remain safe.

"And no, I just need to rest."

Rune felt as though he'd run a charge through a battlefield and back again, though the greatest challenge had been fighting with himself and not the Guards.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Perhaps she'd given Pibs an answer too soon.

Jaw tensed as he pressed it back in her hand. She knew it meant a great deal to him and she imagined it had to do with his deceased wife. She was worried that he...

It didn't matter.

Moving around him to the refresher, the hand not gripping the ring and chain squeezed the top of his shoulder gently. The girl disappeared into the refresher. The sanisteam and cleaning off went quick. The dress found itself at the bottom of the rubbish bin. Leggings were pulled on, then a tunic that was a similar color to the shirt she'd had on. Chain with ring looped around her damp-haired head.

Fluffy dark-grey socks with little hydrospanners patterned on them donned her feet as she came back out of the refresher.

She needed sleep as much as Rune.

The sanisteam hadn't taken long but she still didn't risk disturbing her passenger. Taking a few fluffy-steps, she pulled herself up and into the hammock, settling on her back, head cradled by the crook of her elbow as her eyes closed.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

It wasn't often his body craved sleep or a bed. Because of what he was, most of his rejuvination was done beneath the light of a moon, through meditation, or in feeding on blood from another. Sleep was a novelty that he had partaken in far more in his previous life, his previous body. Not anymore.

When moonlight was lost and blood in short order (naturally or otherwise), when meditation could not be properly managed sleep was their last resort. He craved it like a body craved water when stuck in a desert. Much as he would have liked to go through the motions of disrobing and setting up the stow-away cot, he couldn't convince himself to leave the seat he'd strapped into.

He felt like a man made of lead, and before Kinsey had even stepped back out of the fresher his eyes had closed and head had tipped off to the side, cradled by the headrest of the chair. Strangely enough the restraints served as a comfort - securing him in place where he wasn't certain that his mind was yet fully his own again.

Rune slept soundly.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

His voice was in her ear. It switched between Sage's and Lord Umber's. Just when she thought the nightmares would leave her alone, they came back in a vengeance.

A monster's face took on many forms.

And this monster refused to quit.

Luckily for Rune, the whimpering would start six hours after Rune had fallen asleep like defunct AT-AT caught in an ewok's rope. Face twitched, head thrashed from side-to-side. Then a limb would fly out. She couldn't win. She was being devoured by her demons, pulled into the deep. The darkside poison whispered against her ear.

The girl cried out within the cockpit, though unable to wake herself.

Come on in, the waters are fine and deep and dark.

This time, her voice growled, "NO!" There was a hitch in her tone - a tremble just beneath the force of strength and the cockpit would suddenly fill with a blinding force light. Any control of her hidden signature snapped free like an exploding nova.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

He didn't recall unlatching the straps over his shoulders or even standing from his seat. Could not remember silently walking the confines of the ship as if it were the first time he was seeing it. Fingers traipsed along surfaces, seeking out tactile sensations that might bring back a memory attachment to no avail, and so he sought out the only thing familiar for thousands of parsecs; the presence of darkness.

Eyes of blazing hellspire seared through the shadows, honing in on the seed so secretly planted within the body of a woman nestled inside the hammock.

He remembered standing there, watching her sleep, listening to the call of corruption within her and doing nothing to stop it.

Then he remembered light, pain, a distant wailing, a flash of green.

Rune awoke with his chest pressing into the straps of his chair, a cold sweat saturating his skin and clothing, feeling the radiating energy burn the images of his sleep from his mind. For a moment he forgot himself and struggled against the restraints, before finally finding the latch with his hands and releasing the lock. Stumbling from the seat he moved with a drunken numbness and the weight of deep sleep still holding his subconscious hostage. An unsteady hand reached for the chair back while blue eyes fretfully searched for the source that had awoken him so suddenly and with such force.

It radiated from Kinsey, a power he recognized as Force Light, and stung against the remnants of his dark self still seeped within his soul.

"Kinsey!" cringing, Rune pushed off from the chair, his mind fighting against the presence within himself that wanted to get as far away from her as possible. Wanted to stop that power. Wanted to kill her.

"Kinsey wake up!" he reached her with a staggering stride and took hold of the hand that thrashed about by the wrist while his other moved to the side of her head.

Snap her neck.

"Kinsey please!" agony, it was agony to stand there next to her and his face grit into a grimace against the monster inside that demanded he bring it to an end.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

There was danger.

Not the muted kind she typically sensed when her force signature was well under-wraps.

SCREAMING DANGER.

Rune?

The light pulsed one more time from her body - a dying star. A familiar voice and very real-touch broke through her nightmare. Rune's ring seemed to sear her skin through the top layer of cloth it sat on. An extra weight of reality that was urging her to wake up.

Snap out of it.

Eyes that radiated light snapped open. A million pricks of white light buried within different layers of gradient blue blinked back sleep and confusion as they focused on a familiar hue of icy pairs. Chest rose and fell in rapid breaths. The force light began to dim.

There was still that tickle of danger. A warning in the force and it came from, "Rune," there was a warning in her tone. And maybe a hint of a plea. The spacer tried to shake it off. Shake off the nightmare. Because that must be where the feeling of unease was radiating from.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Where there should have been relief as Kinsey finally woke from her nightmare, instead there was continued pain. Rune let out a strained gasp as what felt like the coiling of a infernal serpent writhed through his veins. Withdrawing from the hammock and the woman occupying it, the man that had just a few hours ago stormed through a Guard-infested manor with barely a blink now crumpled to the floor struggling to breathe.

Everything hurt. Skin to bones and everything in between. White hot slag burned through him, turning a fever in just minutes.

He coughed, heaved, felt his stomach turn in knots, and proceeded to vomit up the contents of the paltry meal he'd taken at Lord Umber's table - but it was coated in black vile that stank of corruption. The very same dark ochre dripped from his nose, pooled from his ears into his hair, coated the blue and whites of his eyes until it bled like tears.

Breath rattling through his lungs, he struggled to speak but could not manage a single syllable before blacking out.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Realization and alarm eclipsed her features as Rune fell. Like a light switch, her force signature erased - buried deep back where it was meant to be. Feet were over the hammocks edge and she was out in an instant. Pib’s head swiveled from the cockpit, red infrared sensor flashing in their direction. Strained beeps left it’s core.

“Rune!” Kinsey yelled as he stopped moving. As if the yell could take away his pain. Rouse him back to consciousness. The liquid bleeding out was thick, dark and tar like. The girl kneeled next to him, checking for a pulse. Other hand smoothing his stained and matted hair away from his face.

“Stay with me, Rune.” Kinsey pleaded moreso to herself. Pibs rolled down, offering the medkit. She didn’t know what to do, she’d never seen anything like this. Tukata wound? Easy. Spacepox? Cake. This? Terrifying.

Hands moved to his core as she gently rolled him on his side, cradling him with her body as she sat on the floor and mess right there with him. She needed to make sure his airways remained clear and the dark liquid...blood?....had a place to go that wasn’t pooling at the back of his throat.

“Hang on, Rune,” she repeated, keeping a sharp eye on his breath to make sure he was breathing and his heart kept beating. There were other tools that would come into play if they didn’t.