Hardly Your World Anymore

[Matsu Xiangu]

Cato Neimoidia​

Early Afternoon​

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Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could hear them calling.

They shivered, even when it wasn’t cold - some reflexive remembering. Huddled together in the red, hot sands under a sky black without stars they pressed too-long fingers against pale skin. Without eyes they couldn’t know what their neighbors looked like, but they knew whatever it might be, it was not for the faint of heart. It was their lot in life. And they accepted it because beneath larval skin they were more powerful than anything Matsu had encountered in her home galaxy. Next to them she felt a child again.

They did not know fear, despite that shivering. It was simply some side effect of their constant search for the next agony - she’d never truly understood it. But they’d taught her things, watching her without eyes.

She opened hers as she banished the memories.

Reaching a hand up, she dragged her fingers along the mostly-healed scar tissue along where her mouth used to be. Jagged and hideous, she followed its lines slowly as she sat on top of one of the great arches hanging over the built-in structures of Neimoidian cities far below. It was surprisingly windless save for a gentle breeze, the clouds this high up nearly obscuring her view of the mountains she’d come to see. But the light snow on their peaks were still visible, gray and craggy faces occasionally looking out from beneath the wispy blanket of atmosphere.

It was quiet, and save for the company of a select few, she preferred to be alone. If she did not have work to do she might have sat there forever.

[member="Darth Helios"]​

 

[Helios]

Strolling across the long archways of Neimoidia, Rhuza's narrowed eyes drew in the scenery before him, his gaze moving from the cities below, to the creatures in the sky and to the mountains in the distance. He'd walked these ancient arches for hours now, unable to resist the allure of taking the 'long way' around. There were no shortcuts up here, but he had to blame these detours on something. Especially on planets such as these, with sceneries that were so absorbing. He couldn't help it- the beauty of mother nature rarely failed to draw Rhuza's attention and sometimes with little effort.

The business he'd come to this planet for would undoubtedly be handled, and with great fervor, but it would be on his terms. A line had been cast and it's caster beckoned that he bite- Which, for the sake of his inquisitiveness he would. But he would not allow himself to be caught upon the hook. Instead he would tease the wire until taut, then decide whether or not he bite or flee. After all, this particular Neimoidian knew better than any that every interaction with Rhuza bore a heavy tithe and he was not a man who offered wisdom nor service for free. It would have to be an abounding burden for Rhuza to be invited to a doorstep, after all.

But as he walked he couldn't help but feel something in the air. Something that continued to linger, something that tainted the air without fragrance that hung as close around his shoulders as his tunic. Although Rhuza found many words among the sensation he felt, there were no whispers of warning. Instead, his fire was stoked with familiarity. Striding forth, he eventually made out the figure of someone he'd worked with in the past. It was a rare occasion when Rhuza invited others to frolic upon the grounds of dismay and destruction with him but Matsu Xiangu was one of his favorite playmates. When their plans were premeditated the aftermath was- breathtaking. But a meeting of happenstance could perhaps bode ill for all, especially with no specific end-goal.

Approaching her, a slender brow worked it's way upward as his ochre eyes shifted to the scar tissue between her nose and chin. Pocketing the fruit he'd purchased from the market in the city, he licked his berry stained lips before he returned his gaze to her. He wanted to know the story behind the injury, but such things had to be explained on their own, if they ever were. As long as her heart and attitude hadn't been altered for the worst, he could care less about the flesh. He followed her eyes out to the clouds in the distance, admiring her still passion for the mountains. It was a shame they could only partially be seen on this side of the archways.

Nearing her his silver hair blew in the wind above him as he leaned over, gallantly offering her his hand, all courtly courtesy and the pinnacle of decorum as he waited for acceptance.

"As before, it is a pleasure to see you again, Matsu Xiangu." He said revealing a set of ivory teeth under what appeared to be an honest smile.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She felt him before she saw him, a welcome addition to her contemplation. Others were categorized by the images they conjured when she thought of them or felt them - a neat categorization within a mind buzzing with too much at once, a defense mechanism as to not forget. Rhuza was something not found commonly in nature, which was perhaps all too appropriate a mental marker. Volcanoes left behind dark, black oceans of tar long after they’d destroyed everything in their wake. Once she’d seen such an ocean under a sky nearly as dark, as if the whole world had been swallowed, the sky reflecting back the bleak countenance of the land staring up at it seeking solace. On that particular mountainside she’d seen red, thousands of scarlet Nickel flowers crawling from the cracks between plates of tar to stain all that black with brilliant red. It had been hellish, and she could still see the blood-glow against her palms as she reached down to touch.

She saw that place now as she took his hand.

Had she a mouth left to do so, she would have smiled. But where the minds of others had been her playground for, it was all she had left now. She emoted without thinking - her pleasure at his company would be felt as surely as a smile might have indicated. She could smell the scent of the berries he’d been carrying and for the briefest moment pined for that particular pleasure. Food was something she had not anticipated ever having to part with. Nutrient packs simply weren’t the same.

“Rhuza Kingpriest. I hadn’t thought to have the pleasure again so soon,” she spoke telepathically as she rose to her feet, slipping an arm in the crook of his as they walked. There were many things she enjoyed about her fellow Sith, and his culture was among them. She came from good stock, but nothing noble. All her aires were learned, and in his company she felt at home.

“I would ask what you’re doing among the unpleasant natives of this place, but I suppose it’s just as strange finding me here,” she quipped, something like the ghost of a laughter trailing over her mental link. “But really it’s just the mountains. My kingdom for a mountain.” A part of her knew he was most likely curious about her face, but he hadn’t asked and she didn’t like to force her life stories on others. She was curiously polite that way.

[member="Rhuza Kingpriest"]​

 

[Helios]

Matsu hooked her arm under Rhuza's own and there was a shifting of air, like a slant of fractured light swept by a shadow- a mixing of energy and aura that caused the particles and motes of dust of the archways under their feet to shudder gently. As if the area around them attempted to readjust to the the pronounced presence of the two. Rhuza turned his gaze, looking down at Matsu. Her telepathy gave Rhuza a mental bridge to cross, to peer along the outer edges of her mind to see her formless contours. As he gazed upon her, in a manner such as this, where there was no rush, no mission to readily finish and execute, he found himself studying her. There was no sense of safety or security, no limit to her darkness. This aspect- just one of many broken pieces of a mirror, was something that drew him to her. It engulfed his own seething void, two shades of darkness mixing to create a stygian pool of aphotic nectar.

He forced out an unnaturally painful breath under his still chest. Rhuza's body wanted him to believe that his health was failing, but the Dark Side and his commitment to the Dark Arts would hold him together. Or so he believed.

"I assure you, the pleasure is surely mine alone," He paused. A curious silence that gaped to yawning quietude, as their booted feet crunched across the moist arches. "And I find very few things strange these days, my friend."

Then his smile faded from his pallid features, a brow raising as he looked away from her, aureate orbs looking into the distance from abysmal sockets, glistening optics in the hollows of a skull. Silence carried them, even as he spoke again, deciding to do so telepathically. There was no need for an audible language when the nature of the Force offered an alternate method. This would allow Rhuza and Matsu to remain on somewhat equal footing. Although there could never truly be anything equal among Sith, there was nothing to compete for between the two either- Another sentiment that disallowed them to unnecessarily express superiority over each other. Such trivial things were what the mongrels below them were for. The minds of the Omegas had to not only remain gelid, but tactful. Lest they fall into heathenism themselves.

Time carried them a few dozen meters further, until he finally asked about her scars.

"I can't possibly go on without asking, Matsu. And for the sake of my own inquisitiveness...how did you attain- that." He said moving his ochre eyes to her lower face.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She liked his eyes. (eyes i dare not meet in dreams, in death’s dream kingdom these do not appear; there the eyes are sunlight on a broken column. there is a tree swinging and the voices are in the wind’s singing, more distant and more solemn than a fading star) They reminded her of a thousand other things and perhaps that was his appeal. In an effort to stay connected, to not float away as her intellect would endeavour, she connected things to other things to other things - her mind as much the web in the metaphor of her shade: arachnid. Some people were two or three flavors, two or three scents or sights or sounds. Rhuza felt old and reminiscent of a thousand things. But she really liked his eyes.

(Something leathery, sinking downwards to some unknown blackness, sliding against his skin, gliding past him. Matsu meant goddess of the sea in her mothertongue, and there were thousands and thousands of creatures occupying the dark ocean of her power. On and on and on it went, great musculature curling around his own. Just as the sun ceased to reach him he saw it – one red eye large enough to blot out everything but fear, watching him as he sank. Minutes passed by. Hours. The hum of pressure against his eardrums steadily gave way to n o t h i n g at all. He couldn’t even hear his heartbeat. Hours. Colder. Weightless. When he hit the sand at the bottom he knew silence. It would never end. Here at the bottom he would dissolve – slowly, disintegrating in exactly as much time as it took for her to process him for fuel – and join all the others that made up this sea floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Little grains looking up and waiting for another pale silhouette to join them.)

Though tempted, he was too good to devour.

“The price of knowledge,” she answered, rolling over an explanation in her mind. “I went Out There - farther than the Unknown Regions, through a hole my old Master Ovmar found in his travels. The things I found there...we think we understand agony Rhuza, but I knew nothing. I was shown a truth I must show the rest of the galaxy: suffering is the key to power, and the weak aren’t meant for its gift. I went to Dromund Kaas. I showed the Jedi there. One of them rejected my truth and left me with this,” she said, gesturing to the ruin of her flesh. “A gift in kind.”

When she looked up at him again from the border of the mountains, her eyes were amber to match his. Not natural as hers were but a product of unmistakable excitement, something like arousal. “I can show you what I saw.”

Even when she could talk aloud, nothing had been more powerful than a simple replaying of her memories.

[member="Rhuza Kingpriest"]​

 

[Helios]

A life altering scar, all for the price of knowledge? To the uninitiated such comments could be cast to the side, or worst laughed at- the latter scenario belonging to those whom didn't value or understand the Dark Side at all, but Rhuza could find the relation, even if he'd yet to see what the molten canary pupils of Matsu had. This was yet another agonizing example of 60 degrees of separation, experiences he'd wished to witness but time and circumstance had distanced him from such events. He resigned such an inconvenience to fate. He would have it no other way.

He had allowed his disconnection from the known galaxy to still his passion and fester hate instead, allowing his drive to become little more than searing odium. He whom loved the darkness with all the fervency that one could possess, whom had allowed it to possess him, to twist and coil within him. It provided serpentine feelings, writing with putrid malefaction as he dealt each blow in the Dark Side's service. A service he could never escape- and like the Dark Side's most trusted servants, he did as he was bid. In his seclusion his fiery soul became gelid. Passion coiling back to a barren expanse as his emotions twisted and curled, rotted and necrose. A change that he could not quite control, and yet fully rejected. In that time Rhuza grew sick, his hair grew past his ankles, and his connection to the Force grew weak.

Although these are moments of years passed, such developments were what drove him back to the public eye, back into the very heart of the Dark Side to return to actively carrying out its will. Vigorously pushing negative emotion into the galaxy to feed it. Yet, to know that within that same window Matsu's flame only grew in intensity- it drove a vicious, singular shard of jealousy throughout Rhuza's chest. It pained him even now. Whether this sensation was attributed to such a revelation or the reignition of his own flame could not be determined, however.

I am dusk, come to ravish the light..

Rhuza utilized this simple yet commandeering mantra to calm himself in certain situations, although outwardly nothing would appear to trouble him. The depth of his and Matsu's relationship would relay whether she noticed any differences in his stride when he finished asking of her another task, his voice lowered into a raspy, shaky whisper as he halted their steps. His gaze inadvertently wavered into the beautiful scene of the distant mountains before returning to her own equally immoral orbs.

"Show me."

A request from one dark soul to another, seeking illumination provided by events of a once in a lifetime experience.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]