Private Elevated Episodes: How I Met Your Mother - Jungle Rehash

[Quietus]

Hmmm. What would she want?

Quietus was not a greedy or envious person. Nor was she materialistic. What she needed she made, and what she couldn't make she found a way to purchase or acquire. She liked her peace and quiet, she wasn't subject to the wants of the modern woman, and she had two mates who could and did readily lavish her in luxuries without even a word.

Really, she was want for nothing.

She smiled. She shrugged.

To go somewhere I've never been before.

One of the few desires that had never been fully sated; wanderlust.

 

[Aver Brand]

The answer she received was both unexpected and yet completely… Des.

Aver smiled into the curtain of blonde hair hiding her from the world, nuzzling into the warm skin and the scent of her mate. Her whole body was alight with the simple pleasure of her presence, and the ever-present roar in her blood fell quiet.

Must not be a lot of places left, then.

She pressed a light kiss just at the edge of a sharp jaw, mouth curling in a soft smile.

Netherworld?

For good or bad, she’d been there when the shet went down, and she remembered well where the tears in reality remained even after the Force had stabilized again. It was a journey she wasn’t entirely opposed to, either.

 

[Quietus]

Must not be a lot of places left, then.

Des gave an easy laugh, smile broadening as she let her gaze shift off to the open siding of the makeshift home on the side of the giant tree. For once it felt like her life was slowly coming together, shifting into something she wanted for herself. Something she deserved. It amazed her to think it had only taken several hundred years to get there.

"There's a few..." she remarked verbally, voice low and faintly coarse as she glanced down at the woman buried in her hair. She'd not visited every planet in the galaxy - why even Thral had been an unknown to her before her son discovered it back when he was playing God.

Netherworld?

A blink.

...can one simply just ... go there?

She had not been one of the unfortunate half that had been plunged unwittingly into the Netherrealm. She'd made no effort to partake in the galactic event. No, as a matter of fact, she wasn't even sure she remembered very much of her life during those troubling times.

 

[Aver Brand]

Deft, killing hands stilled in their traipsing across a fine back, soothing small circles at the base of her spine. She laughed into Qui’s neck, pulling back to meet those wild green eyes. Force, but her muscles ached from the length of her smile.

One does not simply go to Netherworld.

Not as much as her heart, though.

“But… I know a few places we could slip in, take a look around,” Aver rolled a shoulder into a shrug, “if you want.”

 

[Quietus]

She liked that laugh and she liked that smile even more. Quietus looked upon it warmly, though not without her glinting eyes. A joke to bring out those things she so liked? Maybe. Maybe not. Just as Aver Brand knew how to wind up the Queen of the Jungles, so too did it go the other way round. A little game they liked to play for different means of amusement.

It's not an option I had ever considered.

To speak so casually of the Netherworld didn't sit quite well with her. Even arriving within the Dreamscape one had to take care; it was so easy to cause irreparable damage without meaning to if one didn't know what they were doing.

I'll think about it.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The faint smell of rain drifted in on a growing breeze. The night creatures were out, stirring their sounds as they were want to do.

Are you tired?

The hours in the dark were the ones she felt most awake - a time to explore and do what needed to be done where she need not worry about shielding herself from sunlight. Under the moon her energy seemed infinite. Her kind were creatures of the night, anyway. Allegedly.

 

[Aver Brand]

She dipped her chin once to acknowledge the prudence of her mate.

As ever they differed in their beliefs. Though Ygdris had mellowed in many ways over the years, her penchant for pragmatism surpassed even Qui’s self-sufficient bent. That one would view a Netherworld trip a vacation and the other a spiritual journey was now a matter of course.

The wind picked up, and brought with it the electric smell of a brewing tempest in its wings. Aver filled her lungs with the sharp breeze, her blood stirring as if tugged forward by the invisible strings woven through the marks on her chest.

“With you?” she murmured, for the simple enjoyment of the sound as it slipped past her lips, hidden in the rolling peal of thunder, warm and low like her questing fingers.

Aver smiled once more, with teeth.

Never.

 

[Quietus]

Rough hands caught those questing fingers, a smile broadening over glinting, sharpened pearls. Quietus leaned in to plant a strong kiss on her mate's lips before slipping from her lap.

I want to show you something, smile softened to smirk, a flick of her head indicating for the Mercenary to follow. Bare feet padded across rough wood, promising the wear and smoothing of the years to come, and cut through the air until they met soft earth. A loud, trilling whistle cut through the heady night air, beckoning an alert and very awake Shai from the underbrush at the edge of the forest.

The beast leapt across the trickling of a small stream, scooping up Quietus onto her back in a single, fluid motion.

Where? Shai inquired in her simple vocabulary.

Qui, grinning, leaned down to whisper the answer, causing the tuk'ata hound to bristle with excitement.

 

[Aver Brand]

The teasing gesture pulled a low growl from her throat, eyes as blue as a live wire as they tracked the sinuous retreat of her mate across the floor.

A chase? So be it.

Long years with Quietus had taught her a thing or two about patience and delayed gratification. (Even if she’d fought the lessons every step of the way.)

The cool night air met her head on as she leapt to the ground on the heels of the blonde, stopping only to pick up a weapon or three. Even in its quiet hours, Thral was a beast that wouldn’t be tamed; Aver wasn’t looking forward to a shallow grave born of complacency.

Her mouth twisted sideways into a smile as she paused next to the Queen of the Jungles astride a vibrating Shai. Excitement awaited on the horizon, then. She brushed her hand along a bare, pale flank, then mounted the hound flush against her mate.

Lead the way, your Majesty.

 

[Quietus]

A leather harness, polished and worn, now adorned the scaly hide of Shai. Though she'd protested at first, it had proven as useful for her as it did for her bipedal companions. More than once Quietus had used it to air-lift the hound out of less-than-enviable situations. It also made attaching kills to the beast much easier. She'd become a bonafide pack-iderm.

Qui gripped a rolled handle of leather at Shai's withers as the beast loped off into the trees along the shallow waters of the stream. They followed its winding path for some time, watching as the nightlife of the jungle awakened around them. Familiar creatures traversed the myriad levels of the forest, glowing nightbugs lit the way. At some point Shai was forced off the trail as the scent of Thral's larger predators caught her attention. The group of them found a thick copse of giant, odiferous flowers to hide within and watched as it stalked by, as tall as as the mid-canopy. It paused to hoist itself upon its hind legs, snatching up arboreal primates as it went.

Sharing a half-smirk with Aver, Quietus carefully picked her way out of the flowers as the beast took its leave of the area. Shai snorted, watching its silhouette, and pressed on through the trees.

They eventually came a area of the jungle that seemed to have grown out of a field of boulders. Shai climbed down into a ravine area that looked as though it carried water during the monsoon season and came to a stop over a large opening in the ground. Inside it was pitch black. The tuk'ata hound leaned in and loosed a high-pitched roar.

An explosion of large bats shot upwards like water from a whale's spout.

 

[Aver Brand]

The jungle was a different place by dusk. The coming night emboldened some beasts and cowed others, thus changing the tapestry of sounds and smells that weaved between the trunks and vines. Her long, lone vacation in its deep green embrace had taught Ygdris several things about Thral that would’ve taken years of evening jaunts with Qui.

And to think she’d robbed the blonde of so many eyerolls at her stupid questions.

Aver laughed quietly to herself as they stalked towards their mystery destination, content with the whatever surprise her mate had in store for her.

Finally, at the lip of a gaping black chasm, Aver furrowed her brow. She leaned forward in the saddle, peeking past Qui to peer deeper into the maw of the earth.

“I’m… enthralled.” Her blue gaze flickered upwards, meeting jade green. “Now what?”

 

[Quietus]

Desdemona Shamalain offered Aver Brand a knowing smirk and nodded toward the chasm.

It was a silent, hop in and find out.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver Brand, mercenary extraordinaire and kingpin of the greatest criminal organization to ever grace the seedy underbelly of the galaxy, offered her mate a sour smile, a pout, and...

eyerolled straight out of the saddle and into the deep.

 

[Quietus]

It was a moment that felt fondly nostalgic. How far they had come from the moment she'd pushed Aver off the top of Halcyon Citadel in the Dreamsphere.

Shai shifted beneath her, looking up at her curiously and watching as she joined the redhead in freefall into a deep, dark abyss. It was a long descent into the underrealm of Thrall that ended in a deep lake of bitter cold water. Quietus plunged into the depths a few short feet away from Aver, the chill sending a shocking jolt through her blood.

She emerged with a gasp and an audible laugh, green eyes flashing in the dark and shivered gripping her figure.

The cavern's vast darkness was a hindrance to neither woman, but even with their specialized visions there was something strangely absolute about the black surrounding them.

Do you feel it? she asked Aver.

Aver had specialized in a variety of things during her life, but she hadn't been particularly proficient in the more esoteric and nuanced nature of the Force.

 

[Aver Brand]

Lazing about in the treehome could only hold the interest of two warriors for so long before they started itching for adventure again.

As ever, Thral provides.

“Yeah, I fucking noticed the fucking cold.”

 

[Quietus]

Fanged teeth split open into a broad grin, an impolite laugh.

The more she changed, the more she stayed the same; Aver Brand as predictable as she was unpredictable.

Fogged breath billowed from her smile, You're not even trying.

 

[Aver Brand]

The unspoken fine of her moue would be stark for Qui to see, but Aver obligingly canted her head to the side anyways. Let it never be said she didn’t do anything for love.

She closed her eyes and let her presence spill outward across the vast cavern, slithering over the walls and creeping across the glacial stillness of the underground lake.

But as her darling mate had… correctly surmised – Aver made a face – she wasn’t exactly gifted in this sort of thing.

Bring down the stone ceiling above them, though? That, she could do.

So, there.

“No.”

 

[Quietus]

Amusement twisted her grin into a smirk. Well, at least she tried.

Come, she forced away her shivers and drove forward through the water. There was no discernible current, but the cavern did seem to teem with the noise of fauna. Winged creatures hanging from the ceilings, aquatic beings in the water, movement along the distant shores of the lake. Quietus did not seem particularly alarmed at any of it. She lead the way until their toes touched cold stone and carefully walked her way up along a bed that felt worn from intermittent currents. Likely during the monsoon season the lake flooded and spilled over, forming a river that flowed freely down through the crags.

Shai got caught in a flooded river and it dumped her out in here, she explained, took some doing to get her out. Now she wears that harness willingly.

 

[Aver Brand]

“Taught her a lesson, did it?” Her tone was the only dry thing about Aver in that moment. She scowled down at her clothes as they emerged from the freezing lake, shaking off the raindrops with more force than strictly necessary.

“Still don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling, though,” the mercenary continued as she craned her neck to survey the distant ceiling. Her silver skin broke out in goosebumps as she met Qui’s eyes again with a shiver and a crooked smile.

Love don’t keep you warm, turns out.

 

[Quietus]

Of course she didn't. An audible chuckle surfaced from the silver-haired woman who threaded an arm around her mate's waste and provided her with an ambient flow of warmth.

Maybe it can for the asking.

A pinch to her hip to keep her from whatever retort bubbled up, Quietus guided her along the smooth stone worn away by an infathomable amount of years spent forming these caverns from the tiniest of cracks. Funny how it sort of went hand in hand with this thing of theirs.

They walked for some time through the darkness followed by the echoes of their steps and the sounds of hidden flora and fauna. The sound of flowing water rejoined them, a low hum of energy became more prevalent. Coming to a stop, Qui raised a hand and reached out into the Force, issuing forth a pulse of her own energy. As the ripples shifted outwards the cavern slowly became illuminated by glowing crystals singing back through the Force.

 

[Aver Brand]

Pinched lips for a pinch – Aver suppressed a smile, poorly, and let herself be led deeper into the mountain. Her thoughts were loud enough for her mate to hear in either case, whether she made them known or not. All these years and she’d never quite got the hang of those mental barriers Forcers were so wont to put up.

And these days she had little use for them anyway.

But she wasn’t blind neither, and it didn’t take Qui lighting them up for Aver to pick up on the energy oozing from the walls of the cavern.

It definitely helped, though.

Took her a few seconds to catch herself and snap her mouth shut. She’d lived a long and eventful life – so far, fingers crossed – and seen her share of weird, stunning, or straight-fucked-up shet.

A crystal cave was not, in fact, on that list. At least not until that moment.

She brought her gaze over to Qui with some difficulty. And her mate, bless her, was lit up like a tree on Life day, those patterns under her skin resonating in iridescence along with the rest of the ageless, beautiful, and fascinating creatures of the Force in there.

And then (because you could only delay, never prevent an Aver comment) “Am I gonna build my last lightsaber?”