Private Eulogic Episodes: The Unchanging Ache of Things

[Aver Brand]

Not only was Rune perfectly safe and sound, he was smiling – and in the way that Aver could only describe as Kaine Zambrano watching his newest pet getting tortured. She didn’t quite know how to feel about it, so… she didn’t.

With an odd look spared for the black taint on his eyes, the merc stepped past the younger Shamalain and got down to business with a pair of pincers and a rag.

Ten minutes later, Aver rolled back on her haunches and chucked the bloodied tools of the trade back into the box. She let out a low groan in tandem with the newly sutured Shai, both of them stretching out the staid ache of a pose held for too long.

She unfolded back to her full height, joints popping with the slow movement. Her blue gaze found the brother again as she scratched absently at the encrusted layer of red on her hands. “Seemed like you two got along just then?”

A question phrased with an easy out, just in case. In her experience, the Shamalains weren’t particularly generous with their ageless secrets, and from what little she knew of Rune, he had every reason in the world to be reticent.

A past so chock-full of bodies you hardly knew where to start. Aver could relate.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

"Turns out my Ancient Sith is as rusty as I thought it was," Rune offered lightly, having moved to keep his distance while Aver worked her magic, "but I don't think that means she likes me. According to her, I'm the new Puppy of the pack and you should stop calling her that."

He watched with faintly raised eyebrows as Shai stood, grabbed ahold of the dead raptor and began to yank it free of its rope tethers with a fervent growl, then pulled it out over the edge and off into the cover of the foliage of the branches beyond the sunning area.

"She also said she's not sharing," Rune managed something of a grin that gave a flash of his own fangs as he watched after her. Now that the immediate area was cleared of dead raptor, he offered a hand to help Aver up, "and welcomed me to Thral."

 

[Aver Brand]

“Not much use for it these days, is there?”

Except maybe if you were into holocrons and Sith sorcery and all that good stuff that Aver hired other people to do in her stead. Ain’t nobody got time to learn a dead language.

The merc grasped Rune’s hand and pulled herself to her feet with a grin. “I’d be surprised if she did,” she nodded at the shadow of Shai tearing into her meal. “Girl needs her protein. Speaking of which!” Aver shot a sly, conspiratorial smile at the man. “Qui’s still an hour out, I reckon, but since we got the power going we could also…”

Cue smirk. “...set up the grill?”

If you’ve an extra Shamalain on your hands, you might as well put him to good use.

Aver had plans for the kitchen here – had reserved a whole chunk of treehome just for that purpose, and had taken care to run the electricity there first and foremost. Cooking stations, three different types of stove, a walk-in freezer big enough to put a whole enemy family on ice (or the results of one successful hunt on Thral), and a grill so vast you’d never run out of space for more steak.

Considering the diet of literally everyone on the planet, an investment in carnivore paraphernalia seemed only wise.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

That ... was not at all what he was expecting. Actually, Rune wasn't sure just what he was expecting from the woman given their only interaction before this was for a hit out on an errant Sith Lord Playboy and his star destroyer. A topic of discussion he really had no intention of bringing up for all the things attached to it.

"Alright," he couldn't help but chuckle at her excitement, "where do we start?"

IN THE KITCHEN

Didn't take long for him to dive into the wiring and circuitry of the kitchen area where he found some problems early on. Good thing of this entire place could have cause a fire.

A fire. In a treehome.

With those things taken care of it was time to hep Aver move the larger pieces into place. He'd taken a moment to pull those long platinum locks up into a sloppy man-bun to keep them out of the way and halfway into moving the range into place his already torn shirt caught and tore some more. Off went the shirt - pity, it was fairly new - and out came the full view of the ink spread across the entire expanse of his back.

The thought that this was all a bit ...excessive crossed his mind, but it wasn't a thought he was going to air. Instead, he took up his spot on the opposite end of the range from Aver and nodded as they lifted in tandem to fit it ever so carefully into place, "Who does the cooking?"

Something had to be asked.

 

[Aver Brand]

If she didn’t know better – if she didn’t know Rune knew better – she’d’ve thought the man was making some kind of long-game play here. The hairflips, the sweat-slick muscles, the savage disrobing of a tattered shirt. Textbook slow burn moves over here.

Aver chose (or, rather, forced herself) not to read any deeper into it. There was enough work with setting up the kitchen that it was a simple thing to keep her thoughts occupied. Her hands too, in case her body and her mind differed on opinion and chose to express it. Wouldn’t be the first time.

"Who does the cooking?"

Aver looked at the man as if had grown another head and started talking in Ancient Sith.

“Me.”

It was true enough. While Qui certainly made the occasional meal, it was the mercenary who cooked. Spice, careful preparation, inventive recipes, extravagant ingredients, mouth-watering presentation.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

He suspected as much. Rune gave Aver a sideways glance of consideration, of thought. The range slid into place with a few more nudges. Next up were the ovens.

"For yourself?" he inquired as he stooped to pick up the first oven and set it on the rolling stand to bring it over to its inlet. Had to get the power hookup right - these things probably didn't like coming back out once they were in place.

"I ask because ... if Des is anything like myself, we prefer the taste of raw meat," careful to attach the cables securely, wrapping them in insulating tape for added measure, "cooked meat never quite satisfies the same. That's nothing to mention of blood above all things."

It was weird admitting to himself that he really didn't know his sister very well. That this woman standing before him, watching him like he was a piece of meat, probably knew Desdemona Shamalain better than he ever could hope to. And he was her blood.

 

[Aver Brand]

“I know, Rune,” she said, her expression perfectly deadpan. As she leaned past him to check the plans, her voice dropped a register and turned to whisky and gravel, to silk and red.

“I’m the meat.”

It didn’t last long. Aver grinned, then cut loose a peal of laughter and left the kitchen to bring in the second oven.

They were massive, industrial models – normally not even available for the end-consumer market. When you happened to own one of the biggest haute cuisine franchises in the galaxy, though, that wasn’t quite the hurdle it seemed on paper. Stainless durasteel construction, agrinium grid fittings, and a decade-long warranty to outlast the abuse by cooks, elements, and animals.

It was also real fucking heavy.

Lucky, then, that between the two of them, they could probably lift a whole-ass skreev.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Difficult for a man as pale as himself to go even paler, but it happened. Not at the suggestive nature of the response (though that elicited something else entirely within him) but at the response itself.

Des ... fed from her mate?

"Wh-" but Aver was laughing. Wait ... was she being serious? Couldn't be. They all grew up learning the same thing on how to deal with their bloodlust. You didn't feed from your own bed. It could and often did lead to very terrible results. It mixed instincts and desires that were often difficult enough to deal with on their own, especially when courting anything that could be considered food. Ereza had made that point perfectly clear to him when he introduced her to Kinsey and his struggle with Kinsey had been quite the challenge.

She was back with the other oven and he was standing there stupefied.

"You're ... not being serious ... are you?"

 

[Aver Brand]

Upon reentering the kitchen, Aver didn’t immediately grasp the gravity of the situation she’d created because there was a gigantic stove occupying her view. After a few seconds of maneuvering the thing through the door, the merc finally set it down, dusted off, and looked up.

Oh, hell. She’d meant to tease the man, not give him a heart attack. Both brows lofted – this was, apparently, serious.

“Your… issue,” she gestured with her hand for want of a better word, “is it ethical? Moral?” Not that she’d know the difference. “A matter of… taste?”

 

[Rune Shamalain]

"I -" he blinked, brow knitting in thought.

What was his issue?

"It's ... biological," he replied after a moment, "and moral, I suppose. Those desires, those instincts, are exceptionally strong. Separating them is the best way to ensure you don't bring harm to your mate. Especially since the blood of a Force sensitive is highly addictive."

Kinsey had refused to be a meal for him which had made separating feeding from fucking all that much more defined. He'd never drawn blood from her with his fangs ... not on purpose anyway, though it happened on accident from time to time. Ensuring he'd fed from a willing donor on the regular was the only way to keep his bloodlust in check when lost to the throes of the other kind of lust.

"Has she never lost control with you? Hurt you?"

How was she keeping that addiction in check? By sating it? It was almost as bad as spice.

 

[Aver Brand]

Just because the younger Shamalain was going through some kind of crisis didn’t mean that Aver had to stand still and watch it happen. Consulting the plans on the table again, the woman moved the oven into position and began connecting the various outlets that would eventually make the magic happen.

As she knelt, Aver mulled over the question. There was nuance there she once wouldn’t have been capable of recognizing. The realization – knowing – felt good.

With a sigh, she sat back on her heels and glanced up at Rune, who seemed all kinds of torn over an innocent innuendo.

“She’s done both,” Aver stood, wiping her greasy hands into a rag slung over her shoulder. “So have I. But they’re not the same thing. One doesn’t come with the other.”

 

[Rune Shamalain]

If he knew what to say next, the inclination was cleanly swept from his mind as he felt the inkling of his sister's presence closing in from the south. Frowning in thought, he nodded to Aver. Though in the moment he wasn't sure he understood their ... unusual courtship, it gave him plenty to consider for himself. What that meant to him.

If Aver was capable of withstanding his sister's instincts, perhaps the issue was not his inability to keep his own in check but his decision to choose a mate that couldn't protect itself or fight back when needs be. But that felt like a very predatory line of thinking. Felt wrong. Maybe there was something to Desdemona's high standards that she kept for her mates. Or maybe he was just a bleeding heart still dealing with the remnants of his former life in a body he had little control over.

"Thank you for your candor, Aver."

He lifted the oven, now fully hooked up, and slid it carefully into place. The second was soon to follow below after Aver had it ready.

A distant screech sounded that caused him to look to Aver for an indication of reaction. Intrusive jungle beast or welcome arrival?

Hungry? the voice drifted to Aver's thoughts.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver watched the conflict of emotion play across his face, subtle though they were. Not unlike herself, the younger Shamalain wasn’t the most forthcoming when it came to expression.

And to think she used to be worse.

“Sure. You’re probably better off asking her, though,” she gestured at the ceiling with a wry smile. “I’m on the wrong side of that equation.”

A beat. A wink. “Usually.”

Her smile broadened as Sziva’s familiar call echoed through treehome, announcing the arrival of the quondam Queen with as much fanfare as the feisty bastard could muster. She wasn’t nearly as adept at recognizing various beasts as her mate, but the persuasive argument for survival had seen the urban mercenary expand the limits of her knowledge in rather impressive ways. Thirty-odd years chasing a blonde through jungles will do that.

Fucking starving, she replied, the simple pleasure of the connection softening her smile. Turning to Rune, Aver grinned wider and bounced her brows. “Come on, we’ve got dinner to unload.”

 

[Rune Shamalain]

"Maybe..." he said quietly after her suggestion. Truthfully, though, he rather valued the input from the donor and not the feaster. Rune suspected he would receive the same chastising remarks from his sister as he did from Ereza where courting humans were concerned. Aver he at least knew to not be human. He wasn't certain what she was, but that hardly seemed relevant now that he knew she was apparently an equal to Des.

The man motioned for Aver to lead the way and followed her out, deciding to give the interactions between his sister and her mate a much closer look.

 

[Quietus]

Sziva swooped in through the open canopy above the moonlighting veranda from which Quietus dropped down upon her feet. She was covered in sweat, dirt, blood, and what appeared to be fresh scars from newly healed wounds. Her green eyes seemed alight with something electric - a look Aver knew well enough to mean that she'd discovered something of note in her scouting.

Qui's leather and bone armor was as much a mess as she was, but she looked to be in good spirits ... until she took a moment to glance around at the platform area.

What happened here?

Sziva screeched in irritation, still hovering above, and at a gesture from Qui dropped her kill on the platform before taking off to sate her thirst in the waterfall. Qui was about to mentally jab Aver for potentially ravaging or otherwise greeting her brother with her usual zeal when she saw the pair of them emerge from the stairwell at the far end. Her brother was shirtless and sweaty but in one piece. She eyed the pair with a questioning look while offloading several rucksacks filled with foraged supplies from her shoulders.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver grinned wild and wide at Qui's approach. She took in her mate with all her senses, basking in the riot of scents and colours and the sheer weight of her presence. After two hours with the understated Shamalain, Aver was struck by the contrast all the more.

"One of those toothy birds thought your brother was a snack," a sentiment Aver could appreciate. "Shai's probably finished most of it by now." Truly the tuk'ata was the only beast that could hope to match the mercenary in speed and voracity when it came to feeding.

When she reached the woman at last, Aver struggled for a moment. In the state she'd arrived in – sweat and blood and flame – Qui would get nothing short of ravaged. With a sigh and a compromise in favor of family relations, the merc settled on a swift consuming kiss, imparting with her touch and tongue her promise of later.

"What's for dinner?"

 

[Quietus]

"One of those toothy birds thought your brother was a snack."

Toothy bird. Say no more. Qui raised her brows at the answer, sliding her gaze past Aver toward her brother in the background and noting the dried blood on his shoulder. Couldn't see any wounds.

"Shai's probably finished most of it by now."

I hope she left me feathers. I need more for fletching... the thought, however, was quickly swallowed by the greeting kiss of her mate. For a moment the entire jungle paused as a shiver of want ran the length of her spine. She'd been so lost in herself lately that, truly, she felt she'd been neglecting Aver. It was difficult to interact with all the currents of thoughts and emotions presently surging through her head the way a hurricane's tide took over a landscape. Usually the tide flowed and then ebbed, but it hadn't ebbed lately.

Someone had been haunting her dreams, and Quietus still wasn't used to dreaming outside of the Dreamsphere.

"What's for dinner?"

A sigh, desire waning for situational needs. Responsibilities.

Rensbok. Nearly lost the entire herd to a pack of stalkers. I've never seen them this far into the plains.

She moved to large woven bundle dropped on the flat and began to unbuckle the straps that held it together. Two adult rensbok cleaned carcasses were tied and packed neatly inside with their hides folded at the top. Qui dug out the hides and flipped them open to prepare for the next step of tanning, Have to find something nice to make from these.

A glance was given to her brother, Other than your harrowing welcome by toothy-bird, how do you like Thral?

Rune took up a spot leaning against the railing off to the side and out of the way, watching and listening, "I hate it, thanks," he offered with a faint smirk.

City boy. Next time I'll send you to Nadir.

 

[Aver Brand]

Rensbok?

Nostrils flared, the warmth in her belly expelled with a hot breath against a pale shoulder. One hunger traded for another. Her hand lingered at Qui’s hip for a moment before they fell into step towards the dressed game wrapped in hide just off to the side. The pelts she had no use for – working with leather would remain her mate’s domain even as Aver made strides towards weapon and toolcraft – but the carcasses… those she could work with.

Gleefully.

With a puff of air, the merc hefted their future dinner over her shoulders and stood again, knees popping. She listened in on the light banter between the two Shamalain siblings, mouth curled into a lopsided smirk as she made for the stairs.

“She says that like it’s a threat.” Aver arched a brow at her mate, then flicked her gaze over at Rune. “But we have a spaceport, plumbing, and hot water, so…” cue smug shrug. “Feel free to visit sometime. Can’t exactly take you out for steak, but we’ve got… other sights you might enjoy.”

A parting eyebrow and she was gone, off to the kitchen and her many, many butcher knives.

 

[Quietus]

Rune could have won an award for how well schooled his neutral expression remained on his face. The human lingered still as he enjoyed watching the interaction between Aver and his sister. It was easy to tell that they were close. Very close. The nuanced affection might've been easy to miss for someone else, but he had a keen eye for it if only because it was the very thing he missed the most with the woman that had been taken from him in his previous life. He could almost feel her presence there with him, watching with her own lopsided smirk and her brilliant seafoam colored hair.

Could almost feel her weight against his side.

These things he couldn't be sure were simply a manifestation of his aching mind and heart, or something else entirely. Before he'd been able to pass those fond memories on as they were, but now ... now they were haunting him. He was seeing her everywhere in his mind, feeling her presence, dreaming about her.

Rune.

The voice in his head was stern and so was the look on his sister's face when he finally blinked free of his silent wanderings.

Rune gently cleared his throat, catching the last part of Aver's words as she walked away with two dead animals slung over her shoulder and a skip in her step. "Why can't she take me out for steak?" His attempt at keeping the mood light. For him, not for anyone else.

You're too pretty to be seen with her in public, his sister answered back in a way he couldn't be sure was a joke, come with me.

They made their way down from the moonbathing deck and into one of the other many dwellings built on the side of the massive treehome trunk. This appeared to be a workshop of sorts, given the amount of tools and leather scraps and projects in development sitting around.

"How long have you been together?" he asked curiously, moving forward to take one end of the first pelt as she indicated and holding it up while she fasted it to an empty stretcher.

Quietus blew her cheeks out and itched at her forehead, brows rising in thought, Thirty years ... longer, I think. She would know better. The years for me pass ... well.

"Just a heartbeat," he replied quietly in a knowing sort of way. It was something Lorelei would say from time to time when questioned on the years of her life.

Right. Quietus was busying herself with stitching in the pelt, clearly unwilling to dredge up that subject of discussion.

"You look good," Rune said after a time of silence, nodding as he gave her a glance over, "different than what I remember."

A brow lofted at that, the thin-lipped look of Quietus keeping her side-opinions to herself implanting itself in the lines of her cheeks and brow, A lot has happened since you died. I became Lanurein on Garhall and was gifted with Purification by Chesza. I'm not the same person you knew before.

"So I can see," Rune frowned, looking away briefly, "neither am I."

Quietus paused in her work over a deeply disquieted sigh, her brow furrowing in measured distaste, She tampered with your body, didn't she.

Rune didn't answer verbally, but he nodded.

How much?

"Enough to be a problem for me."

 

[Aver Brand]

While the two siblings struggled with the kind of drama bred by ancient and noble families, their propensity for leadership and longevity, and a general selfish and powerful bent, Aver struggled with… well, several things. Currently the chief among them was getting to the sweetest cuts of the rensbok.

Not that they were in the habit of throwing the rest out. Gotta leave a good impression with the guest., you know? Wasn’t like they got so many of them they’d get to have a go at a do-over any time soon.

chop chop chop sang her cleaver (brought by yours truly rather than Qui, for once.)

The thick bones of the animal on the counter forfeited their bounty of marrow under her assault; the meat parted like butter under her skill and precision; the organs deftly extracted from the embrace of tissues and fat and set aside as delicacies.

Ygdris’ days of wildly hacking into wilder animals were long gone – her dissection of the carcass would’ve made any butcher proud. It certainly worked for her mate.

With a satisfied nod at her handiwork, Aver began seasoning the meat and preparing their platters. Raw, raw, and blue were the orders of the day, with a heart sat in the center of the arrangement that was practically still beating.

And didn’t that tickle some very fond memories indeed.

Aver smirked as she reached out to give the woman in question a mental nudge. Dinner in five.