Muddy Waters

[Kuzo]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6SprGmHTy4[/media]​

Sou Emergency Medical Center​

Agua District ​

Coruscant​

She didn't bother to turn on the lights.

It was late, long past midnight. While the clinic downstairs was closed, the emergency services cast a warm, golden glow into the squalor of the district outside. A beacon of hope, in a place that, until recently, had nothing like it to grasp before.

It was late, but Doctor Irajah Ven was here, heels tak taking down the silent hallways of the upper stories of the building. She hadn't been able to sleep- Jairus away, and a vague restlessness working in tandem to send her back out into the night. She had no patients currently in the upstairs lab, but data in abundance from the last. While she could have worked on it from home, for some reason the empty apartment had simply not suited tonight. It had been better, rather than lying awake tossing and turning, to get up and dress again.

The emergency strip lights along the floor lit her way. She knew her labs by heart- she had designed them, after all. State of the art, sterile and sleek as the clinic and emergency room beneath could never hope to be, catering at they did to the poor and desperate.

Stepping into the large office, the full wall window looking out over the lights of Coruscant, she froze.

Someone was waiting for her.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WNH4Ul8rik[/youtube]

Standing as a silhouette against the bright backdrop of the cities backdrop, there stood the enigmatic figure she had known in so many different ways only a year prior. He held in his hands a book, flipping through the pages of some hand written journal she had made prior to his departure. She could recognize it not by the handwriting, not at this distance, but the worn leather on the side, a faint gold inlay visible.

It was a book he had given her, the first sign of who it was.

The next, was the alabaster neatly cropped on his neckline facing away from her. He wore a hoodie, some modern stylings but not one he likely bought. Only after she entered the room completely did he look over his shoulder and offer the faintest familiar smile she had ever seen. Electrum like eyes lit up, reflecting the light around them with a faint coyness. The same teasing expression he almost always seemed to carry.

The book snapped shut, followed by him setting it on her desk. It was only then she heard his voice;

“Hi.”, he said through a smile.

 

[Kuzo]

Even without the worn, bound book, she would have recognized him after the initial unexpected jarring. A few scant months, really, but how many times had she watched him from the bed, his silhouette against the window of her room at Blackwater? She knew the line of his nose, the curve of his lips in that particular smile, the way his shoulders stood so still and long fingers flexed in an almost sardonic curve even on the rare occasions he attempted seriousness. She had, once, wondered if she was coming to love him.

Her death at the hands of [member="Samka Derith"] could have been said to have shattered that.

But then, he'd walked away before that cut had been made.

So it was difficult to blame that for their parting.

In truth, Raj blamed herself. It had been casual, if intense. Fun? Certainly. But she'd opened up about pain, about fear.... and he had left. It had been a mistake. Her mistake. One she did not expect to make again.

"Hi yourself," she murmured, eyes casting to the book as she walked forward- a hint of surprise echoing in the reflection of hazel eyes that, of any of the ones he might have had in his possession, it would be that one.

Despite the way they had parted, she was still glad to see him. But there was a distance in the smile she offered him. It lacked some of that warm, familiar knowing that they had shared by the end of their.... she didn't know what to call it, so she didn't bother trying to pick a word to describe it.

"You know I have office hours," she said with a smirk - if it was slightly hollow, well, it could be attributed to the hour, surely. "If I hadn't decided to come in on a whim, you would have been waiting a long time."

She paused within arms reach, but did not move to cross that divide.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Although she tried hiding it, perhaps from herself, he could sense the slight coldness she carried with her. If not one of his few great strengths, he was a renowned empath on the same level as many Zeltrons that wandered the galaxy. However, despite the obvious nature she carried with her there wasn’t a response to it from him.

It seemed he was here for something other than her affection.

“I’ve been waiting a very long time already. What was a few more hours?”, he grinned with a devious nature she’d seen a few careless times.

Instead of covering the distance between them like he would have done so many months before, he turned from her and walked towards the window with the same spring to his step and jubilance he often resounded with every flurry of motion he offered. Still, while warmth echoed from his footfalls, coldness contrasted it in a faint aura that couldn't’ be placed. The room grew colder as they stood there, for some unknown reason she could only guess as to what.

“I’ve only come to thank you, Irajah.”, he said, beginning to speak again.

“I finally want to be free, and you very well may be the cause.”

“That, and the torture.”, with that, he glanced back over his shoulder to her. There was a danger in his eyes.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah watched him. She didn't pretend not to. Her gaze frank and appraising. They had both changed- she knew how and why on her own side of the strange balance of the scales, but what had unfolded for him-

Ah. That explained it.

She understood, intimately, how transformative the powers of pain were. She did not know the details- he had not offered them and she would not ask. That had been how they had always been, and the one time either of them had chosen to veer off of that path, well.....

"I'm sorry," she said simply. But the sincerity there was clear.

She stayed beside her desk, leaning against it as she watched him. She had always enjoyed that before, but this was different. It had to be.

"That it took that. I'm glad that it's where it brought you, though. Rather than the alternatives."

There was no effusive gushing, words stated simply. She knew very well that somethings required the pain, the experience of having ones life shattered utterly in order to put it back together. She could never be happy that it brought what, in her mind, was the potential for betterment. But if it was a choice between growth or having it break him utterly?

There was no contest.

The expression in those hazel eyes was speculative, assessing rather than the sybaritic appreciation of times past, but it was understandable.

"I assume someone..... assessed any.... damage? Because if not, well.... I can't say that I would be happy to."

Very serious.

"I would have..... much rather seen you again.... under different circumstances. But if you are here because you have need of a doctor, my doors are always open to you."

She did not comment on his thanks. In truth, she didn't understand why he would attribute her actions in anyway to his decision. No, she focused on the second part, because it made sense to her.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

A slight smirk crossed his jagged lips, a good sign he was a few steps from the person she perhaps knew. There was something jaded about him, the familiar softness that pandered behind the rock hard exterior was even less noticeable than before; a faint memory to the would be lover. It seemed that whatever empathy he had faded more by the second; so much so even the force itself couldn’t find a glimpse of gentleness in his soul.

Not now.

“I didn’t come for your apologies, nor your medical expertise.”, he said as he looked back to the city's skyline.

With a quick hop, he moved to sit on her desk, scooting some day old important documents aside with his rear in an awfully rude display of carelessness. His legs crossed and he leaned back, letting half his attention lay on some distant lights while the other half seemed to watch her. Only the half that seemed intent on her wasn’t one she had seen before.

It was something he had told her of once, how many commented on his presence in the force. How odd he seemed to carry himself, and how it was even more odd his aura carried itself; not like the many who were seen from day to day; even amongst the powerful. His was something capable of its own thought, and what she witnessed now was not mere thought; but emotion.

The emotion? Hunger. It wanted her skin, and the cruel way it dragged itself mucus like permeance across her only added to the disgusting factor that it held.

The Slave however, offered little more than a sigh.

“Honestly? I came to kill you.”, he said, not offering her the glance she might have hoped for.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah wrinkled her nose slightly when he scooted his rear end across her desk.

This was... strange. The longer he talked, the longer he stayed, the less like the young man she (thought) she'd come to know over those months he seemed. She stepped up to the desk, not bothering to hide the askance expression on her face as she plucked a particularly important file from beneath the edge of his butt. She pinched it between thumb and forefinger before depositing it in the box at the corner of the desk meant for incoming projects.

It was only when she looked back up that she saw the gleam in his eyes.

She'd known hunger from him before. But this was different.

And in no fashion pleasing.

Of course, it did not compare even in the slightest to the words that fell from his lips a moment later.

Irajah blinked. Slowly. Her head tilting slightly as she looked..... truly looked.... at him for the first time.

As if a stranger had suddenly appeared in her office.

"Well."

Something had hardened at the corners of her mouth.

"That's a very funny way of saying thank you. Don't think I speak that language. Why?"

Then she smiled at him. A grin that was more teeth than joy. An expression he'd never seen from her before- something just a touch feral, a promise that didn't reach her eyes, but not of soft moments and gentle words.

"You can try."

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

He offered her little more than a cock of his brow; the slightest expression to create distance between the anger she felt and the unsettling calmness he himself held. There was a rather placid expression on his face, even the slightest frown should she look close enough. Although his aura held a violent hunger, and sickening touch; he himself never seemed to be as ferally drawn to her as the air around him.

“I certainly could, I suppose.”, he said looking away from her once more.

His violent comment contrasted the coolness that emanated from his tongue. Even now, there was a sharp difference between how he acted, and how he spoke.

“It wouldn’t be much of an effort, in truth; not physically. Emotionally?”, he said with a shake of his head.

After a moment of hesitation, a lull in the conversation;

“Maybe I’m not as strong as I thought.”, he uttered with a slight mumble.

His fingers moved deftly, dexterous dances only to reach in his coat and pull from it a small cigarette. Without a lighter, it ignited as soon as it touched his lips; the heat of his breathe seemingly the catalyst for its smolder. Although not literal, the slight maturity of the matter came to light; since she had never actually seen him utilize The Force prior.

Smoke filled the air in a grey haze before he spoke again, letting the tension mix with the clouds that swayed with the breezes around them.

“What kind of person have you become, Irajah?”, he said once more; never giving her the joy of his gaze.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

"The kind of person who would make it, physically, very, very hard for you."

She crossed her arms over her chest, expression chilly except for a certain fire in those hazel eyes.

She didn't get him. In truth, she never really had, but for a little while maybe, they had both pretended. They had played at something. Companionship. A forgetting of the problems that existed outside of Blackwater Reach. She had grown genuinely fond of him, and for a little while, she had thought that perhaps he had felt the same.

She wasn't weak any longer. Wasn't fragile, sick and exhausted. She wasn't lonely as she had been when they had first met.

Watching him, she wondered how much of this was how he had always been, and she had simply not seen it either because he kept it to the side, or because she simply hadn't wished to. How much was actual change?

And how much was simply unveiled?

She wasn't certain there was any real way to tell.

"You're a mess," she said bluntly, and she didn't mean physically. The sensation of him within the Force, as she reached out, rather than allowing the passive sensations to overwhelm, was fractured, conflicting as surely as his visage and words were.

"Thank me. Kill me. I wonder if you even know why you're actually here."

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The Slave broke a grin for the first time in a few minutes, glancing back to her with a faint twinkle in those molten golden eyes he held so sharply. Perhaps his most iconic feature, the ivory smile that reflected everything she, and most people, hoped for; something that if even for a second seemed to make them forget where they were, forget the issues at hand. Though, this wasn’t exactly a time to forget where she was, only the memories of the sensation pestered.

“You know me too well.”, he said idly.

“The thing is Irajah, I know what you are to me; whether the reason I’m here is known or not.”

Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he let more smoke roll from his lips before putting it back in its place. The paleness of his skin seemed to blend into the greyness that surrounded the two of them, only accented by the city lights that flooded her office despite the light itself being off. A mixture of darkness and sensational color washed over the both of them, but it did little to ease the situation.

“You’re weakness. You’re my weakness, Irajah.”, he said as he finally moved to stand and face her; even from the distance.

“Whether you know it or not, you’re just another limb I shouldn’t have.”, he said as every syllable he uttered carried a bit more artificial hate, the slightest bit more poison. Even the volume at which he spoke lifted, and with it the tenacity of his aura seemed to seep further and further from his body.

“You don’t deserve to be my vulnerability! You will not be my weakness any longer Irajah!”, he said, his voice at full tempo and crescendo now.

It seemed with every word, he had begun to point at her with the cigarette that was once in his mouth; and a truly wild look in his eye began to fester. Then, the sensation she felt covering her skin seemed to pale in comparison to what was to come; the metaphysical faucet opening to full bore as a staff began to appear in his off hand. What was once a drizzle of energy, one that crept through the room like a rat, became a lion; nearly choking her just by existing. It was thick, toxic, violent and heavy; tugging on her lungs and heart with little reproach.

Perhaps what he said wasn’t too far from the truth.

“I̋̀̾̇͋̾ ͈̼̦̘ͪͥ͗̑͌̔̚w̱͕̭ͮ̏ͭon͎̯̠̦̖̯'̮̟̱͇̌̔̌͐t̻̘̬̯̦̜̓͂̎̅͒́ ̳̩̲̐̓ͭ͂̐ͅb̗̘̘̺̃ͬͭͧ̈̽͐ē̞͍̌͐ͤ̚ ͉̪͈̟̗͈̩͊́͑w̱̍̽̔̽̅ë́͆̓̾ͮͭḁ̰̩͉͍̣͂ḳ̼̪̭̫̓ ͛a͙͂n̜̳͍ͫ͗̃̅̽͗y͉̼̞̖̥͑̽ͦ̉̊̌̚m̖͙̙͕͆̽ô̦̮̭̆ṙ̼̩̹͇̬͉͇e̱͈̩̳̪̐!̦͎̻̝̓̔̓̈́”, he uttered, his voice littered with echoes from somewhere far from where they were now. The lights that flooded into the room seemed to shutter, darken and turn meek in his presence

as the already extraordinary eyes he held turned an even more fiery electrum shade.

A maelstrom of dark side energy filled the room as he stood there, his bone staff pulsing in whispers and echoes. She could feel the cries in her head, itching at the inside of her skull for release; every quiet word they whispered ranging from the old to the very young. They overlapped, and only complete focus gave a glimpse into what message they carried;

“I won’t be weak anymore.”, they repeated.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Her eyes had narrowed, watching him, a sense of unease, of danger flickering in a way it never had in his presence. But.... it wasn't him she was feeling, now was it?

It started low, the feeling of a volcanic storm, distant on the mountains of Maena. Heavy, intent. A promise on the air that had nothing to do with the clouds and everything to do with what they contained. Destructive potential. Billows of Sulphur, lightening and thunder, acidic rain that burned unprotected flesh and brought tears welling to the eyes. It could topple cities with a breath, and move on without a care. Someone who did not know what to expect, who did not know to take shelter and wait out the storm, would find themselves consumed by wind and burning rain, beaten into the pavement by the weight of the water and washed out into a black sea.

Irajah, however, was no stranger to storms such as this.

The voices scrabbled, seeking purchase- they itched, a sensation that blossomed to pain when ignored rather than fading as it ought. She could feel it, gripping in her head and the pain galvanized her, pushing her. It crashed over her without knowing, without hesitating....

And there it found an edifice of slick, black stone. Built up, trained by the likes of [member="Jairus Starvald"], [member="Reverance"], [member="Matsu Xiangu"], the mind it sought to grasp was slippery and lithe and offered little enough purchase. The heart and lungs it gripped at, holding tightly and hungrily- beat. Pulsed. It was slow, but inexorable. The beat of a heart that had once grappled with Gideon, lungs that had known what it was to be eaten from within.

It did not find an ego, bold and bright and challenging. It found shadows and hollows and the flow eddied in strange directions. It didn't find light, anathema and baffling, but a type of darkness lit instead with a purpose and intent. It found a soul that had clawed its way out of the Netherworld through sheer stubbornness.

It found Irajah.

It found the Shrike.

"You are weak."

There was no malice in her voice, but it did snap with a certain constrained energy.

"You are right," she murmured as pure gold bled into those hazel eyes. "But it has nothing to do with me. You aren't weak because of whatever you think I mean to you. If I did, you would find strength in it. The fact that it does not offer that tells me everything I need to know about it. I do not make you weak, slave."

She had never called him that before this moment.

The initial onslaught of the staff had bowed her back, hand braced on her desk against the initial maelstrom. But now she straighten. And she smiled. Too much teeth, too feral, for anything resembling the familiar soft joy they had once shared.

"Look at yourself. No one MADE you weak," she said with disgust. "Just as no one else.... not even that thing, can make you strong. We all take responsibility for those things ourselves."

​She had learned that lesson the hard way. Through red sands and black glass. In the moment where she had crushed her son's heart, rather than leave him behind her to suffer.

"You want something that is making you weak? Look no farther than that thing in your hand. It owns you. As surely as Imperia did. Just as Cerbera did. It snaps and you obey like a whipped puppy." Her voice was hard and unforgiving.

"I am not your weakness, slave. You are."

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

In truth, she had a point. When the matter came down to it, there was nothing, nobody that kept The Slave low and meek than he himself. He could rise, he had the audacity, the power, even the intelligence despite a low upbringing. At his disposal was almost everything that could make him as strong as the likes of which made legends; but he missed something they all had, every single one of them.

The ability to understand themselves.

The Slave knew not why he did what he did, be it topple a government or kill an innocent for the sake of doing it. Every action, every reaction he offered even, all came from a hole he’d been avoiding in his heart; something so ingrained into his existence that nobody, not even Irajah, could fill it so simply with words.

His face fell cold for a second, perhaps the unexpected docile nature his ‘name’ ushered. She’d never called him Slave before, not in any moment they knew each other. Not in the moments when he left, nor the moments he even met her; no matter the situation. Something so simple stopped him in his tracks, at least mentally, for those golden eyes to fade ever so slightly in her presence.

She didn’t know it then, but the months of conversing with her alternate persona within The Netherworld seemed to pale to the emotion he felt now. Not from himself, but from her. That was, until the creeping voices she felt inside her own skull found their way into his; only stronger, a singular monotone voice that rang louder than her words, carried more gusto than anything she could hope to muster.

“Kill her! Kill her now!”, it demanded.

The voice acted just as she thought it did; forcing the ‘whipped puppy’ to fall docile to its words, no matter the mental struggle he put up. Being epicanthix may have given him a chance at resisting it, but the insufferable power it held over him physically made his will fall just short. His teeth clenched as he spat out a few words back;

“Shut up!”, but the words didn’t have a target. They were meant for them both.

The aura, the maelstrom of energy, ignited in a black hued flame. It spun and sputtered, sending lashes outwards in various surges that shattered the thick windows and crushing walls in their wake. Unadulterated, pure, corrupted energy leaked from every orifice in the building now, and the room was no different. His hand tightened around the staff as his eyes fell quiet behind a dark shroud; blackened by the evil in his heart and the influence of the staff.

A cold wind entered as all noise ceased, replaced by nothing more than the dark flames soft shutters. It was only in this unnatural, creeping silence that she first heard it; the dead it had already consumed crying for something she couldn’t make out. Their faces were in each of the sparks, words in every pop and crackle this crude abomination offered; but it was only the beginning.

After the sound ceased, so too did the light. Her once elegant laboratory office fell to the abyss, a place where the only figures to be seen were the two of them; and the flames that seemed to always persist. In the corner of her eye, she’d witness what it was they were offering their show to. A figure outside their imagination, that direct eye contact couldn’t seem to understand. The mere attempt at understanding whatever it was pulled at her sanity, at the fabric of her memory; forcing it to forget just enough to lose all sight of what it truly looked like with every glance.

This void, this empty existence is where it was deemed they’d stay; and the coldness that surrounded them both felt too much like the place between the Nether and reality. A sickening ichor like sensation that pulled at her hair, lapped at her skin, and tugged on her weight.

The Slave however seemed anyone but himself at this moment, letting the faint heat from his heart fall quiet and quiver at overbearing presence of both The Darkstaff and whatever it was that watched them from the fringes of reality. The white of his eyes fell to black, his hair turned wild and whimsical in the artificial winds that surrounded him; but something never changed in his voice, something she felt only as he spoke.

“I’m sorry-”, it said in a hushed tone; just barely audible over the crackling fire.

The staff came first, swinging wide as it sent from him an unruly, violent wave of pure energy. Pulsing, hot, and violently powerful, the once solid mass fell victim to its own power and chaotic nature, turning into nothing more than a formless gas like plasma that cut the distance between them in a moment.

At the same time, the distance they sat at altered in a way she’d never seen. It increased, yet the energy covered the once short distance in the same timeframe; only for the sensation to fall quiet as they were brought together in the same instance, a disorienting maneuver that ended with her directly next to him, his overpowering stare watching her whether she failed to stop the strike or not.

The hard features on his face spoke leagues of his predatory nature, how ready he was to kill; but when brought so close, the faint coldness came of his soul came to light. He hadn’t shown it yet, but she could feel it now; the familiar tenderness he once carried with her.

Perhaps the reason he brought her close, but his voice; whatever’s voice this actual was, said otherwise;

“I’m sorry you’ll die alone.”

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

What was meant to disorient was instead oddly familiar. She had experienced something so much like it in the Netherworld. A thousand miles to move a single step. Or a stride that covered continents. The unreality of it was not distressing to her as it could have been. She had wandered the breadth of the Nether- the distance across her office was no chore at all for her mind to parse. It left her nauseous, head pulsing with the pull of it, but it was recognizable and she did not stumble.

After so long struggling with Gideon, fighting to draw every breath, the consent, ever present pulse of the virus requiring at least some of her attention and the lion's share of her strength, there was a strength and vitality here that he had never seen in her. Just as she was seeing an alien part of him- no.

That wasn't right.

And that, ultimately, gave her the key.

She didn't attempt to block or dodge the strike from the staff, the expanding pulse of aphotic energy that threatened to consume as surely as he threatened to kill. She stepped inside of the strike, the draw of the shattered landscape of the lab putting her not merely beside him now, but against him.

Some things so familiar and yet....

"Oh," she whispered softly, lips against the bottom curve of his chin. Her fingertips rested lightly on his chest. "Oh love. We all die alone."

Irajah did not reach for the Staff. Even as she felt it clawing at her mind, she knew that way was a black hole. There was something beyond strength there- perhaps bendable but not while threat of death hung between them.

No. Irajah reached for him.

All of that time, focused on Gideon, she knew the workings of a body with more intimacy than most people could trace their own features in a mirror. A dozen bodies, perfecting her exploration of the physical form within the Force, seeking how far she could reach before it simply stopped, one last shuddering breath and then..... well, death was boring and she had little interest in it, but it was necessary to find just how far she could push that line, how close she could bring them before they surrendered.

She did not touch his mind. She touched his heart.

His lungs.

The very blood in his veins. She pulled oxygen back out, fingertips tightening on his chest as she forcibly reversed the flow of crimson, pressure building. She sought to pull it out- but oxygen was not simple dissolved in the blood, it was bound to it, to every vermillion cell. So if she must draw the blood itself out of him? Through his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears? Through every pore in his skin?

So be it.

He was weak. The Staff was strong. So she did not attack the staff.

She had not yet decided if she would stop.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Blood etched and pulled, drawn tight to its duty by a foreign force. It was her tugging endurance, her righteous, festering anger that threatened to pull from him the very essence of life. Just as she hoped, blood pulled in his mouth and eyes; even his nose began to drip the unpleasant ichor of a man long lost to the constant strain of meekness.

Yet, as crimson tears formed in his eyes and a pained grin emerged; he showed no discourse from his actions. There was no fear, no careless anxiety in his features, only the corrupted features of a man she perhaps once loved. It was there she saw not the staff, nor the power it held, but a familiar sight; tenderness.

“I’m sure you know better than me.”, it whispered back, a hand running fingers through her hair as the energy around them continued to grow turbulent.

The creature that watched them surged, then ceased. The flames that threatened to consume them rose and fell; and as time moved eternal they were stuck in a moment of twisted bliss. It was afterall, the first time they’d been in eachothers arms in a very long time; and to at least The Slave, the warmth was something familiar.

Familiarness was something not often found in the life of an auspicious rogue, letting his enigmatic persona always take keen lead on every choice he seemed to make. From threesomes with twi’leks, to drugs he couldn’t remember the name of; and unfortunately, even leaving Irajah. It was a life of running, but the closest he ever came to true unbridled understanding of what he wanted, he became far too scared to act.

Afterall, he may not know what he wants in his life; but he knew he was a coward. A coward as a boy, a coward as a man, and one who’s destiny wasn’t that of happiness, but suffering. He deserved it, for every action, every reaction he ever took; and no matter the redemption nor retribution he attempt to commit, there would never be a time in his life where he would reach the happiness he certainly didn’t deserve. He was too far gone; at least in his eyes.

And that thought passed through his mind’s eye, if even for a second of ponderation.

Was this what he wanted? Was killing her to save her really going to be the right choice?

He never considered why he thought of it in the first place, only that the idea seemed to make sense. Never thought about the details of it; only that it would save everyone the trouble, save everyone from the torment. But how could it? To kill the one thing that nearly made him human?

But whatever train of thought he held was steamrolled; laid waste to by a foreign attention. A corrupt monologue of anger and spite; the kind some considered ill simply by presence. Disgusting, sickening, terrible imaginative ideas came to mind as he tried to focus on her touch; but it was a losing battle.

The second words he spoke were cruel and dissatisfied, tainted and broken. They were not his own words, not in mannerisms nor tone; but they carried his weight.

“Try harder.”, it spoke.

It said it as a mocking insult, to show her the blood she pulled from his body was meaningless. To never break face in her supposedly meek attempts to destroy him from the inside. Why would it need to defend itself? Afterall, man never bothered his attention to the ant; simply existing in their mundane reality never to understand the duality of godhood by comparison.

That was what she faced now, a man to an ant. A god to a woman; and a cruel overseer at best.

There it began, a slow tickle in her ankle. While her mind was berated by foreign voices and shouts, his nerves were molested by the cruel indignation that was The Darkstaff’s power. It seemed her skin was the victim, rolling and shuttering in unnatural cracks and spits. Although it didn’t hurt, blood seeped from the twisting wounds only to lay flat and gored.

Until of course, it took its second stroke. Wound turned to tentacle, of flesh and bone, twisting itself upwards in sentience. It tugged tight to break away from the standard state, now allowing the pain to reach her calf as skin tore; all the while this parasite like expression moved farther and farther up her leg.

It was slow, but the pain was excruciating; to have one's own skin turn against them in grappling annoyance was horrifying let alone scarring. Yet, it was there in this disturbing purgatory that she faced something she hadn’t seen before; not the trials of the Nether, nor facing another Sith Lord is violent combat, but to face absolutely broken odds. There was no respite, no quarter for the meek here; just as she intended.

Perhaps he was weak, but then so were they both in the eyes of the beholder.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

The embrace, in any other moment, might have been tender. A reunion, this was, wasn't it? Two lovers united after a long absense. After trial and tribulation. After torture.

After death itself.

None of those things had severed this. No.

Only he had.

Choice. Fate. It was difficult to tell which in the moment as she felt the next hands of the Darkstaff take hold. Again, it found a way to shadow things that had come before. Again, coincidence? Impossible to tell. This was not possible to brush off, however. Impossible to ignore. Even though she remembered the pure visceral sensation of sand scouring flesh down to the bone, this was just different enough to cause her hands to tighten on the fabric beneath them. She titled her head back, eyes closing, a soft hiss of pain escaping her lips. As familiar to him as other faces of purer joy, but not here now in the context of enjoyment, of play.

It sliced, spiraling flesh from muscle up into delicate patterns, the blood dripping down her legs and starting to pool beneath her heels.

For a moment, time stopped.

Or, it seemed to. She reached- and there it was.

Shatterpoint.

The fracturing of the moment into a thousand shards of mirrored glass.

There was not a single eventuality where she simply gave up. That was not now, nor would ever be, the woman in his arms. Each slice of reality, however, was just as real, as tangible as the rest, and she sifted through them, discarding each rapidly as they splintered further with dismissal. So many choices that ended in her death, she realized. Too many.

Almost as many as that day at Blackwater Reach.

Not every moment was one that offered this spider web of cracks, of potential realities. Most decisions, truly, offered little difference in a life on the day to day. There were not weaknesses in every moment, shifted and twisted so that a single tap could shatter it into a million pieces.

People however?

People did.

So many of the abeyant moments would die still born, all because of the presence of the Darkstaff. It was the thing that, again and again, brought her to her knees. Not because she was not up to the task, but because she was not willing to sacrifice enough. That flutter, not even named yet, within her. To grapple with the Staff meant that life would be snuffed out. That, she knew as she sifted, was her Shatterpoint. Once the decision was made to keep it, to love it, that was all there was to it, if there was another way.

And there was.

Him.

One moment, in particular. One memory. Irajah tugged. Choosing both that version of the next moment and the memory itself in the same pull of the Force. She saw the leylines, weak and fragile and she flooded them.

In that moment, reality reasserted. In truth, no time had passed. It had been the decision of an instant, a heartbeat.

She took that memory and twisted it into the forefront of his mind.

"Again," she gasped, not even bothering to try to hide the pain in her voice.

"You are doing it. Again. Fight," she snarled. "You fight or you die. You died that day. Don't do it again. Or at least do the last decent thing you will ever get a chance to do."

Pushing up on her toes, the pain lancing fire upward- the spiraling had reached her knees, she whispered against the curve of his cheek. She ignored the blood trickling down his face, her lips murmuring against him.

"If you can't fight- then at least stop dragging the rest of us down with you."

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“Are you… begging?”, the many voices asked, almost coyly.

The words that scratched at the inside of her brain began to laugh and snicker, whispering between themselves some unknown insults she couldn’t make out. Every breath she took was overtaken by the cruel harassment of the metaphysical, drowning her in a mixture of pain and passive indignation.

The hand that stroked through her hair took a tight grip and pulled her head back, forcing her neck to be taught by the torque. His breath dragged itself across her skin, a familiar sensation considering all the nights they spent together, but with its own disgusting sensation that left every time before in a thick sickness.

And then he spoke;

“Who do you think you’re facing?”, he offered in a cruel whisper. A taunt to her shatterpoint, to her righteous invasion of The Slave’s memories. The reason?

It was because she wasn’t fighting The Slave.

It was true that fight was two on one, but not in the sense she perhaps thought. The Slave fought tooth and nail in his mind to overcome The Darkstaff every second that passed. He had been on her side, finding the disconnect in the staff’s influence and his own mental fringes. There was a point where it could not pass any farther, a likely trait of his epicanthic nature, but something that didn’t save him regardless.

To him however, there was a strength she made without intending. Her words were meant to leverage an advantage, a power she had withheld from him, but it only furthered the disconnect in his mind. Perhaps a mental rejuvenation, but one made from guilt and hatred. He had no choice but to double down, press what reserves he had left lest he lose the last portion of his humanity.

In the calmness before the storm, a single memory passed through his mind. Not the lynching that killed him so long ago, but a memory of the two sleeping. Arms holding each other tight, the moonlight invigorating their slumber, and the soft tune of a piano playing over the holo recorder a few meters away from the bed. In the darkness, illuminated by a dull blue light, was a faint smile on both of their lips.

A moment forever frozen in time.

The Slave cringed before her, tossing her back with sheer willpower; easily throwing her towards the wall behind her. A hand moved to cradle his temple as his eyes closed, an obvious sign her attack had some effect; but to what degree couldn’t be known. He grunted and steamed as he attempted to regain his composure; but something else happened as she watched from a few meters away.

The room before her was the same once more, her leg in one piece and only a few things strewn away. Other than the broken windows and the mark in the far wall from the dissipated dark side energy, The Slave was hunched over dealing with whatever argument his mind was having, leaving the two of them stuck in another moment of silence, but one that may not last as long as she hoped.

If she intended to act, she only had this chance; lest it be lost to the Staff.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1qhk0W9_U0[/media]​

To drown Irajah in pain was no small feat. She rode it like a wave, head above the water because if there was something the dark haired woman knew more intimately than any lover, it was pain. No matter how much the Darkstaff siphoned in, spilling over her, she kept afloat- it pulled her, tugging her beneath a solitary wave, but each time, no matter how deep the waters offered, she broke the surface again. Determination and anger pushing her up again and again.

In truth, it was the comment about begging that tipped the scales. From anger to fury. From patience to hunger. To trying to find ways that preserved her erstwhile lover....

To something entirely different.

There were familiar pathways. They led to certain individuals. Doors that swung in both directions that connected her. But one in particular encompassed a tunnel through the Force with few defined limits. It yawned, familiar in its darkness, warm in its shadows. And it led to a particular beast. A dragon.

Her dragon.

Always before, they had tread respectfully in that passage way. But this time, Irajah swept through with a roar of wind and fire. In his mind, her eyes flamed golden, reflective in the conflagration. She did not come to him for help, to ask him for his aid. She came to him to take, because her need was a hollow belly, growling, gnawing. With a sharp tug, she took what she needed from him, a soft caress left behind. A thank you. A I will explain later.

And then she was gone again, dark wings and talons receding from Jairus Starvald's mind.

That stretch, reaching across the length of that connection, was distraction enough that when the Slave flung her, she went flying through the air with little enough resistance. She curled in, protecting her core- what poor thanks that would be to Jai, to take a piece of him and yet allow another part of him to die- before she hit the wall. With the Force, bolstered by borrowed power, she caught herself before she crashed to the ground. With a groan, she stood.

Eyes bled from hazel to gold, swirling metallic and aflame.

As the Slave cradled his temple, Irajah reached out.

If the shard, the part of her that she had left in the Nether, had still been part of her, she would have hesitated. Would have taken the time to realize the battle going on already there. That the tides and numbers were not purely as they appeared. She would have seen it.....

And she would have cared.

But as she raised her hand, it became clear in a heartbeat that Irajah Ven no longer gave consideration to those who came to murder her.

No matter what they had been to her before.

Eyes aflame, she lashed out with the Force. No careful scalpel, delicately working a single pathway to suffocate him of oxygen or slicing out that one strand of potential futures in order to gain advantage. No, now she wielded it as a hammer, smashing the force of telekinesis that had crumbled buildings beneath her hand. She did not, however, slam him against the wall, as he had done to her. Instead, it enveloped the side of him- the hand that held the Darkstaff, arm, shoulder, down through hip and leg.

And she crushed. It was not a slow action, meant to cause agony as bones slowly shattered under the added weight of piled stones. It was the force of the fall. The sudden stop at the end of a fall that had lasted an eternity. All of the Force needed to shatter half of the bones, the crush joints applied in one single moment.

Did she seek to cripple him? To crush the staff itself? It hardly mattered. The action encompassed that and more.

There was no pity in those golden eyes.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Bone snapped, popping cartilage free from its usually bound position with little resistance. Indeed, her strike was final and absolute, crushing everything from his wrist to his elbow in the truest form of a critical strike. The normal force shield the Darkstaff was weakened in those moments, and her power amplified by her lovers pushed through with completely no remorse for The Slave or his form.

It was her hunger that made her strong, the need to express her anger. To prove something, to defend herself, to protect the life she’d built, it couldn’t be known as to why she was who she was; only that it was a boon to her outright energy. Her pressure, her very nature, all magnified by ten fold before plateauing far above The Slave. She’d transcended his skill, his drive, and under a normal fight there would be no question as to who would win.

Yet, it was her hunger that led her astray. Her anger that broke the camel’s back, and whatever second wind The Slave had in holding back the staff fell silent in its monumental wake. As fast as the bones shattered, so too did they crack and shutter back into their original place. The skin was bleeding from the bruising and punctures, but the arm seemed as straight as it was before; only betrayed by the crooked grin this possessed monster held as he stood back up to full height.

There he watched her, a faint laughter filling the room just as it had prior. The chorus of voices, the chilled air, all crept to her spine in the same disgusting manner. The air held thick, filled only with their twisted song before he spoke;

“Nothing to say?”, it offered with a cock of its head, blood still trailing from his eyes and nose. Although the crimson tears showed she had done damage, there still seemed to be no hesitation in the stance or the presence he took.

Before an answer could be given, the floor both below and above her ruptured; cancerously forcing wide columns from both sections around her to meet in the middle with a sickening crack of power. Duracrete met duracrete, breaking from the force ushered upon them before retreating far slower than they appeared.

“You should beg again. At least I enjoyed that.”


[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah watched with some combination of disgust and fascination as the Darkstaff reformed the body it had claimed. Her teeth set in a line, a snarl curling her lip slightly as she shifted for a moment, wanting nothing more than to shake the feeling of its touch through the Force off of her. Thick and vile, it tripped up her spine like a lover's hand, but this offered no pleasure, only revulsion.

The Force.

She groaned internally. She was an idiot.

The plan formulated in an instant. But it was not, of course, as simple as that alone.

"You'll get nothing of the sort from me." She spoke tightly through her teeth, watching, waiting-

Only the barest trickle of danger warned her in time. She dove into a roll as the ceiling and floor met where she had been standing with a teeth jarring crash. Up in a flash, Irajah dashed out of her office, disappearing around the corner and into the hallway that led to the rest of the rooms in her labs.

There was something she needed.

And it wasn't going toe to toe with a stick with delusions of godhood.

One room in particular. Yes. This would do.

She made no attempt to stay quiet, to hide which room she had gone into. But where, exactly she was in it? It was dark, the room separated into two parts by a transparisteel wall, a door in the center. The lab and an observation room. Equipment, state of the art filled both rooms. There was some scent, musky, but difficult to pinpoint, that lingered on the air. Fur and static. There was a sound of something from the observation room. A shuffle.

Something she needed was in here. The question was only could she manage it.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The Slave, nor The Darkstaff did anything to stop her run from the room; instead bringing its attention to the damage sustained thus far. With arm broken, blood pooling in his internal cavities, and a number of ruptured blood vessels through much of his body there seemed to be little that could be done in the standard sense of things. Instead, The Darkstaff turned its attention inwards, not for the sake of The Slave, but for its ability to continue its journey.

Bones forced to reform, organs reestablished, and minor wounds bounded through pain; not an easy process considering the darker alignment of the artifact but one that could be done with enough focus. It’d been a few moments since she’d departed, and as the final cut was healed and he appeared at full strength again The Darkstaff did something Irajah didn’t likely expect-

It dissipated in The Slave’s hand and fell back into whatever abysmal corner of the galaxy it hoped to stay in. The Slave fell to his feet, coughing hard as he finally took control back over his body; holding his arms tight around himself as he finally felt all the pain roll through his system in a few careless pulses. With head pressed to the floor in a fetal position, he eventually came through to look around the ravaged office.

Had he caused this?

He definitely had, and it only took a second to realize what had happened. The room was destroyed from wall to wall, with much of it getting ready to crumble around them at any given moment; and while Irajah may have sought some hidden means to win against The Darkstaff, it seemed in the end she lost to its true goal.

Being its own entity, it could harbor its own motives and cruel dreams; The Slave was one of the first to catch on to this as it left the control it had over him. As he stood and reestablished himself, he couldn’t help but feel empty at what had been accomplished; separating the two further. He didn’t realize the whispers in his mind before this point were from the artifact itself, but as he walked towards the window with a slow ache across his body, it became clear that they wouldn’t speak under good conditions again.

In a sense, The Darkstaff sought to dehumanize him further. Honing a blade it intended to strike out into the world with; something he simply wasn’t experienced enough to neither understand or fight back against. The true weakness of being a novice in a world of masters, it’d seem.

The lights outside slowly began to flicker on, one by one, illuminating a horizon around him. A false dream made of wavelengths he’d never touch, a faint metaphor for where he was now. For he was exactly where he stood, and Irajah was the distance horizon he would forever be focused to watch.

Did he want to kill her? When he thought about it, no. He didn’t.

Did he kill what they had? He supposed he did.

A faint sigh left his breath as he took a last glance towards the door she ran from, letting his eyes stay there for a moment. Whether his golden eyes would meet her for a final time or not, he’d only stand there another moment before jumping from the window into the darkness below.


[member="Irajah Ven"]