High Cost of Living

[Cassandra Paige]

For a moment the smile froze on her face.

Cass rarely made a mistake- and certainly not one so catastrophic as allowing her actual thoughts to come out of her mouth. She had learned, dramatically, to keep those parts of herself deep within. Had she done that, just now? Had she said that out loud?

He could feel the understanding dawn.

No.

She had not.

Not a single word of those thoughts had been offered aloud.

If it had been someone else, someone with less pride- or if the rebuke had been offered by a human- Cassandra Paige might have apologized then and there. If she had the Force, and could feel the danger lurking- the Force that she was so dismissive of, because she was bitter at her lack. But here, staring at this ridiculous excuse for a sentient creature? (Cass he can hear you- As but I do not care)

"Clearly, you do not," she said coldly, all affability wiped from her face in the single blink of an eye.

"I was perfectly polite to you. It is rude of you to dig around in a person's private thoughts without permission, so you have no right to lecture me on propriety. I will not sit here and be chastised like a child by something that likely eats its own young. Our business is concluded. Good day sir."

The payment had been made. The animal delivered. She didn't need his business. It was time to go.

The problem was that when she went to stand....

She found that she simply could not.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

"Mm. Private, you say? You really should have learned to keep your thoughts in check, human. I could hear you coming from a mile away." Untrue, but as the horror dawned within her that she was incapable of moving and every thought she had was being read? The truth was far less delicious than the soft bubbling panic starting to form.

"I truly *am* sorry. I hoped to share you with my love, but she was detained elsewhere." No need to give her more than that. Ao's business was her own and the fact that this one had insulted a Lord of the Sith with her stray thoughts.

Hmm.

Well, she wouldn't be able to make up for her mistakes now anyway. "Now, why don't you show me those graceful fingers of yours?"

The Raykkan flopped closer.

She was not even capable of leaning back against the scent of deep, filthy smoke and firey mud. "As I said, I'd pay the *premium* for you, miss Paige." Truly gorgeous fingers, she would not be able to resist raising her hand for him.

It might be slow as she fought it.

But it would move towards him eventually.

 

[Cassandra Paige]

It started as a small ball of coldness in the pit of her stomach. She tried again to stand, but remained exactly where she was. It was as if the command from her mind never even reached her legs. Perfectly still, perfectly placid, as if they were sitting and having the loveliest chat in the world.

The cold expanded as he got closer-

As she realized that, no, the words she had dismissed before as a mistake had been precisely what he had meant.

She swallowed hard, trying to lean back and again, being unable to.

"People know I am here," she hissed, but he would feel the fear growing beneath the cold. But she wasn't here alone, and the one thing she could easily do still was talk.

"Talik!" She yelled. "TALIK!"

Nothing but silence greeted her.

There was a part of her that still didn't really believe this was happening. Things like this didn't happen to a Paige- not to her, certainly. As he got closer, lips peeling back from row after row of pointed teeth, that voice got louder and louder. It was a power play- one she knew only too well herself. Even as she could feel the way her hand started to rise (fighting it as much as she could but Cass didn't know how in a way that would ultimately mean anything to a Raykkan), she didn't really think he would hurt her.

That voice was loud. But it was wrong.

She gritted her teeth. Not because she was preparing for pain, not physical, but for something else. A power play. Fine. He had shown that he had that here and she did not.

"I am sorry for insulting you, Mister Kalak," she said tightly. She meant it, in her way. She was sorry she had insulted him because it had led them here.

If it was a power play, as the voice insisted (in every growing fervor), well, he needed to know that he had won.

None of this was a series of conscious thoughts, but subconscious shifts and leaps, trying to adjust the reality into something familiar.

"You are most correct, and I apologize for my lack of control and decorum."

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

"Mm, they do, yes." Kalak agreed gently with a nod, while patiently watching the finger grow closer by the moment. This one was a fiery one and the amount of resistance she was giving was impressive. It ultimately didn't matter, of course, but if Kal was capable of giving this one any respect.... he would have. "But sadly I do not particularly care about that, Miss Paige. I am an alien, after all." Sharp teeth showed pleasantly. They flickered white and bright against the flames behind him. "Uneducated, uncivilized, I devour my own spawn, no?"

A sad shrug- in truth the Raykkans were known to sometimes do that.

The Queens of Raykka could be quite cruel in that regard, but such were their ways. "This is in my nature and who am I to fight against it." It amused him. Using her own thoughts, words and beliefs against her. It truly did make this that much more enjoyable. Whoever thought that feasting on something that could sing and talk wasn't pleasant was fooling themselves.

They simply had to watch this moment.

First came the shouting for protection, which never came. By now Matthis would have knocked the poor guard out. Poor. The Dalan were quite... cruel in their own way, it was truly for the best that the Raykkans had enslaved them all those centuries ago.

They clearly needed some measure of guidance and civility.

"Oh, miss Paige, thank you." But the hand kept approaching, until Kalak leaned in slightly and gave the tip of of index finger a tentative lick. His saliva would give off a soft burning sensation. Acidic. "How I wish I had the time to teach you how to listen though. It was not your insults on my persona that made today inevitable." Another soft wiggle of the shoulders followed.

"It might not have helped regardless." Kalak followed up consolingly. "I am quite hungry."

Before more words could be said the Raykkan suddenly leaned in quick and mouth lashed open, revealing even more rows of teeth. There was practiced grace in the way that the alien wrapped his mouth around her index finger and chomped down with sharpened teeth. There was no need to work at it, his teeth bit through her skin, flesh and bone with pathetic ease. Within a single blink it was over, Kalak already swallowing, blood seeping first and then the burn as acid sheared the wound shut with no regard to her feelings.

"Mm, tasty."

 

[Cassandra Paige]

When he licked her, she would have recoiled if she could. Disgust would have shuddered through her. Her eyes would have closed and her fingers would have curled into the protective command of her fist. But instead all that happened was her fingers twitched. Not much, barely a milimeter. Her eyes remained open, the rest of her body perfectly still- perched there with straight back, perfect posture on the very edge of that chair.

"P-please, you've made your point."

Her tone was severe, but there was an edge to it. That small failure at the start. That cold bubbling up. The voice shouted louder as the cold waters of panic rose, denying, no this is all a show.

A tiny voice, well beneath the rising waters, whispered Did Ana feel this as you held her eyelids open and shined the light, so bright, into her blue blue eyes? Did she not believe you meant it? That you wouldn't blind her?

Would you have, if your parents hadn't stopped you?

Yes.

Clarity of moment met with teeth and Cass screamed.

That much he allowed her.

She watched it all. She had to. She couldn't move, couldn't close her eyes. Couldn't look away. The scream turned into a moan, then a whimper. The pain lanced all the way up her arm (or was that an illusion? She didn't know), and she could feel the burning on the very edge of it. He swallowed but her mind recoiled, rebelled, not entirely believe that he had just swallowed-

No.

"N-no," her voice shuddered, even if her body could not. "P-please st-stop. I'll do anything, p-please."

Cass was a fighter, but not like this. She had no experience to fall back on, no familiar pain to learn how to grin and bear it.

"I'm s-sorry."

This time, she meant it.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

Oh, bother.

She was far more smokey than Kalak had anticipated at first. Ugh. He didn't have the proper ingredients to deal with that here, Kal had assumed she'd be more on the fatty salt scale of the food palate. Oh well. Here they were, part of the Raykkan was happy that Ao couldn't have made it to the dinner party. It meant that any loss of his face was only his to bear and maybe Cassandra's.

But... she might be otherwise occupied to notice his shame, he supposed.

"I believe you, miss Paige." Kalak retorted affably with a serious nod. "I really do. I believe you are sorry now." He knew she meant it now, it was all over her mind after all, already going into the self-protecting shock of denial.

"But-"

The Raykkan leaned in and chomped down her middle finger without warning. "Like I said, I am very hungry and regardless of your rude tongue-" Mm, if they went to his factory a few levels up, he could make a proper dish out of that too.

Hm.

"You are quite a tasty dish."

 

[Cassandra Paige]

She sobbed, relief a small welling. If he believed her (and she did mean it, more than she had ever meant any apology in her life- perhaps for the first time in her life) then that meant it could be over. Anything beyond getting away from this, out of here was drown out by the pain, by the fear. There were no thoughts of revenge, or payback. Not now, not yet. They weren't possible over the agony.

Of course, the relief was short lived.

Again, Cassandra screamed, trailing off into helpless sobbing.

Her stomach roiled. There was no denying now that he had indeed eaten her fingers. Sitting perfectly straight and prim she couldn't even collapse, whimpering and shuddering. Tears streamed down her face and she tried to shake her head, but she couldn't even to that.

"Gods," she whimpered, "Please, p-please stop."

She would have closed her eyes and moaned when he continued- the comment about her tongue- there was no doubt in her mind now that he meant it. Every word. She had been called that before.... a tasty dish.

But never in a thousand years had she ever thought someone would mean it literally.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

Mm Mm Mm.

The singing was joy.

"Did you know there are predators that stop when they are shown the bare of the belly?" Kalak informed her with something that had always amazed him. "Apparently it is hard-coded into them. They simply can't help themselves." Horror, as far as Kalak was concerned. Wasn't the belly one of the best parts? The thought to have it almost in reach, but not quite there?

Kal couldn't imagine that without shedding at least a tear.

If he had the physical ability to cry anyway.

Chomp and now the ring finger was gone. He chewed carefully on that one though, making sure to work around the foreign metal, before spitting it out on the floor with no regard for now. Theatrics, but that was half the game as far as Kalak was concerned. "Mm. My spit didn't even burn the ring, good quality." Oh well, maybe he'd about hanging it around his neck or something. A reminder to a dinner, a feast that was already being drawn up in his mind to account for the sobering shift in taste. Ah, it would be extravagant and maybe the Raykkan would even keep some in the freezer for later.

No singing, but to preserve some of it for Ao.

"But as you can see the bare belly only makes me more hungry, miss Paige. Have you ever considered you might deserve this, hm?" Not that Kalak was truly worried about that one way or the other.

He was just one hungry boy.

 

[Cassandra Paige]

His words bled into the pain. They moved together, merging at the edges and making them difficult to fully separate. She didn't scream when he took the third one, but she sobbed, each injury starting to build on the others- a stage he knew all too well.

Part of her swam back out of it there, at the end, however. Those words, asking her if she deserved it, bringing out a part of her more familiar. Each breath shuddered even if her body could not, and the direction of her eyes flicked from her ruined hand to him. There was a part of Cass that she buried deep. A part of her that she had learned to keep contained. The part that she had taught to show mercy when the belly was revealed. Something flashed in those grey eyes.

"No," she said, voice shaking but hard.

It took everything that she had, but she pursed her lips and spit on him.

"I don't deserve this," she breathed in deeply, but it was hard. She wanted to break down into nothing more than sobbing, whimpering, mewling, begging him to stop. But her teeth set.

He was going to kill her.

In a way, that knowledge was freeing.

"You are a vile, wretched little creature," she hissed, the pain making her voice catch but she pushed through it. "You deserve far worse than I."

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

At first Kalak did not react to the spit splattered against the edge of his mouth.

Until a tongue flickered out and took a sample for a taste. "I am glad you found some spirit, miss Paige. The angry meat is the tastier treat, as my mother used to say. Hmm. Tasteless spit though, how disappointing." The Raykkan informed her politely while sighing deeply. "Did you know that the northern swamps of Raykka are famous for their... you'd call it a snake, I think. Its saliva is absolutely heavenly when you add it to certain recipes. Oh!" Now Kalak was shining bright with joy at the idea that had just entered his mind. It would be fabulous and she would absolutely hate it.

Yes.

"I know what to do, yes. This is not completely an equal measure, I believe. And I am someone who truly believes that equality is important." That sounded pretty. Hm. "For every part of you that I taste, I will feed you one of my personal recipes."

A nod followed there after.

"Now, as for equality-" All of a sudden Kalak spitted back, wherever it would hit -- he had not been aiming too carefully, because it was more about the action and reaction, than to cause true damage -- there would be a different type of sensation than her saliva inspired in the Raykkan. It burned and it scratched against the skin. "Spit for spit!" Once more Kal wheezed, the joy of laughter followed. It subsided quick however. Instead Kal sighed sadly once more.

Because they had to move.

"Yes, that is okay, Matthis. No need to be gentle, but no permanent damage." The sound of heavy feet behind Cass. A soft, loooong voice saying, yessir, then searing pain across the back of her head.

Presumably darkness thereafter.

 

[Cassandra Paige]

Conscious crept in slowly, like a migraine. Inexorable and inevitable, the nausea the precursor to the pain.

She didn't open her eyes right away. She was sitting upright in a high backed chair. Straps kept her upright (likely the only thing doing so), across the top of her shoulders, around her waist, around her knees. Oddly her arms were not strapped down. Something felt wrong with her hand- not that it could get much wronger she'd thought. Too light, that entire arm. She couldn't feel anything in her hand- not the pain from the missing fingers, not the burn from the acidic nature of his saliva. There was still pain but it was wrong.

Cassandra Paige opened her eyes and immediately wished that she had not.

She was seated at a table across from Kalak- the alien watching her. Her left hand-

Cassandra whimpered, a choked sob in her throat when she realized it was gone.

The skin sutured over her wrist, not particularly neat but certainly professional enough to keep her from bleeding to death.

Of course, the hand wasn't truly gone.

Across the table it floated in a jar of brine at Kalak's 'elbow'.

Her eyes closed, a moment allowed at least for now and she thought for a moment she was going to pass out again.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

"No, no, miss Paige. You have had quite enough sleep already." Kalak's voice rang clear and indignant. Almost as if the Raykkan had been waiting for quite a long time already and wasn't very keen on waiting any longer. Of course, if Kal had actually wanted to start earlier, then it would have been as easy as waking her, but that hadn't occurred.

The procurement of the particular ingredients had gone on longer than Kalak wanted to admit.

It wasn't often that he managed to get a taste of something like Cassandra. It wasn't new, but it was exotic enough that he didn't actually have anything in house for her immediately and had to import. Ugh. The Raykkan disliked importing things, if he was completely honest. He didn't trust it. Didn't like it either, but at a certain point there simply wasn't any option left to him.

"I have prepared a wonderful dish for you. Look down, please?" That last please had a certain mental pull to it. It wasn't quite the enforcement that had occurred back at his own place, but it was.. similar enough.

She simply needed to look at the dish.

"How is your head?" Curious tone as he shifted his focus from her to her hand drifting slowly in the jar.

 

[Cassandra Paige]

Her eyes cast down, stomach roiled, and cast immediately back up.

"You're crazy," she muttered, still feeling woozy and distance from the blow to the head, truth be told. "If you think I'm eating that."

The whole body of a small amphibian floated in a.... soup? She didn't inspect it too closely to be honest.

"That seems like a particularly odd question, considering," she added a moment later.

It couldn't be said that Cass was in charge of this situation. No one, anywhere, would say that. But her voice beneath the distance of shock and injury had a hard edge to it. There had been begging before, but that was gone now. Would it return? Possible. Very possible. But for the moment at least she just stared at him, wary and pained but not cowed or quaking.

She was going to die, probably. In truth, she was a little surprised she'd woken up again at all. It was.... oddly freeing.

At least for the moment.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

"Oh, the brain is delicious, if you are capable of preparing it right, you can't blame me for being concerned for my next meal."

Well, maybe she could, considering he would be extracting it from her head, but....

That seemed like a Cassandra problem, if Kalak was being honest. A Dalan stepped in and unscrewed the jar holding her floating hand, it was carefully plucked out and put in front of Kal. He eyed it briefly, before seemingly coming to a decision. Two moments later the suit came undone and his malformed body found its way into the eye of one Cassandra Paige.

Shriveled arms curled tight against his chest and 'legs' rising up to pick up the fork next to the plate.

Either he was eating with his feet or he was walking on his hands. No matter what it was, it was presumably not very comforting to Paige as she watched him slowly carve a finger off with practiced ease.

"Oh, you will, miss Paige. I am teaching you not to be rude." Kalak retorted in between chews. "One... finger at a time." Then his mental compulsion shoved into her head again, pushing her to take a fork and start at the... tasty dish he had made for her. "I made it myself, you know. I am sure you will enjoy it once you get over your dainty human ways."

 

[Cassandra Paige]

She did not miss the implication.

Nor the deeply disturbing view of what a Raykkan actually looked like beneath their suits.

But it was all too much. Those, the sight of him casually carving up the hand that had been, until recently, attached to her. The pressure in her mind to take a bite. The fact that there was no question he would not be stopping there.

Numbness took over for the start and Cass retreated into her own mind as her right hand brought the fork up to her lips.

Of course, that numbness wouldn't..... couldn't..... last.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]

 

[Kalak the Raykkan]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

But escape would not come easy to the vulgar human.

Every time that a path of survival was opened for her by her mind, it was a smiling Kalak that closed the door and patiently pulled her right back into the... meat of things so she would enjoy herself. Well, Kal wasn't crazy, she wasn't enjoying herself. But there was a lesson to be learned here and Cassandra wouldn't learn it by slowly going crazy in the far edges of her mind.

Even when catatonic she was rude.

Unbelievable.

It went on like this and not in one day either. Oh, Kal could probably eat her up in just one sitting, but there was only one Cassandra Paige in this Galaxy for the moment and it was important to savor such an... endangered species.

That joke had been so good that the Raykkan had shared it with her. She had been less appreciative of it.

Taungday was a sabbatical for Kalak sadly.

When the explosions started the Raykkan was off-world.

 

[Cassandra Paige]

Every time she thought it was finally going to be finished, he brought her back- not physically, though it was only a matter of time before sheer bloodloss and physical shock overtook any mental manipulations the Raykkan made. Her took her apart, piece by piece, careful in his choices to keep her alive.

At least for now.

He kept her present, at the forefront of the experience. From the removal of her arm, the flaying of the flesh of her thigh and calf, followed by the removal of that. Active tissue, the fat marbled, he had commented, and she had in her turn whimpered. After that, largely sated in hunger but still hours left in the day had seen a cut from this place or that, a taste, a comment on just how he intended to prepare it when he returned. Questions, occasionally, answers required- just what, did she think, would be the best flavor combination for this, as he explained in detail, just what she tasted like. The only small blessing in all of it was that, of the things he made her taste, of the dishes he prepared for her to 'balance' the scales, he never offered her a piece of herself.

It was very, very small consolation, and one that in truth, Cass could not appreciate in the moment.

It wasn't until he left, his grip on her mind gone, that she sunk, finally, into her own mind. Deeply disassociated, nearly catatonic, she lay in a small medical bay- not to heal, but merely to keep her alive and stable. Until Kalak returned.

Cass was unaware of when the noise started, far outside. Her eyes were half open, and part of her registered the change in the quality of light from the pale, sickly yellow to the rotating flash of red warning lights.

[member="Kalak the Raykkan"]'s processing plant was under the intent attention of Didact security. Raykkan employees and Dalan slaves alike responded to the threat- the Raykkan's falling back- no profit in dying if it could be avoided. The Dalan's fought.... because here was a chance at freedom, even if it meant death.

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

Fire burned around them.

Tash looked on impassively as another one of those tree-people screeched while fire licked against its... bark. "Casualties on our side?" He asked while observing the fire, the destruction, they had hit the facility hard and taken a lot of fire in return. Too much- today they had paid for the lack of air support, for his insistence on focusing on ground superiority.

Their ranks had been shredded by the anti-air emplacements.

"Forty percent, Tash."

Mecetti scowled at that. "Have we found Talik yet?" Not because he was more concerned about him than Cassandra (the entire reason why they were there), but because his suffering was filtering through the bond that connected all of them at once.

"Not yet. We think he's deeper in the facility... behind those thick-plated doors." From bad to worse. Forty percent lost and they'd be forced to retrain new people, that would take time and money. Not even Paige was worth this and Tash would probably have left her here had he realized just how heavily secured the airspace would be against intrusion.

"Bring 'em down. No excursions. We break out Talik and Paige, then we leave."

 

[Cassandra Paige]

The facility wasn't built to withstand an assault by a professional army- but they were prepared to repel the depredations of the way Raykkans did business. And it became abundantly clear, very quickly, that the business measure of a Raykkan was ruthless.

Once they hit the ground it became easier, but even then there was little incentive for the Dalan's facing the Didact forces to retreat. Why would they? Failure would be far worse than death, and death itself was a release. There was no benefit to folding over and stepping aside. They weren't minimum wage employees, perfectly happy to say 'not my section' and fade away to a break room.

The door before them was heavy and double plated. Kalak valued his privacy. And keeping sentients that perhaps were not, strictly speaking, his to keep, well, it was simply no one else's business.

Of course, he hadn't counted on Didact's particular intensity either.

It would be clear that there were two choices- blow the door without knowing what was on the other side, or open the wall and slice into the controls. The first would be faster, but risky. The second had it's own set of risks- if they knew what Didact was there for, they might deliberately deprive them of that prize if they took too long.

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Cassandra Paige"]

Any other day they might have taken the smart approach and picked the cautious route.

But Talik's fate only ushered them on, all of them, because the pain Tash felt was spread through all of them. The closer they came, the deeper it grew and they could only do so much to blunt that connection. They immediately went for the charges. The cameras that looked over them, the ruined internal security, the burning husks of the Dalan and the dying wails of the other sentient enforcers that the Raykkans kept, would note one thing exactly.

The coordination between this particular army was unsettling.

Precise.

They moved as one and if one paid very close attention? They might notice even their breathing patterns had synced the larger their death toll became. The more of them were killed, the more effective they became.

Charges set- wait settled in and a few assaults on their positions were repelled by mobile security emplacements. They had picked up some gear on their way here after all and it wouldn't be long before a loud roar of fire engulfed the immediate surroundings of the large bulk-doors. They bend inwards and were ripped from its hinges, probably catching a few of the defenders with them.

The battle spun out of control there.