Or Swallowed In The Sea [Kail]

[Matsu Xiangu]

There were three elements to mentalism, and those beings that could master all three were forces to fear. The first was a natural talent – this Matsu had in spades, and the passion of her craft to boot. The second was strength in the Force. This too could be natural, but Matsu had augmented it further by foregoing almost any weapons training. She’d honed her connection to her gift through hours of practice and trial by fire. And the third was timing. Moments of anger, terror, sadness – then it was easiest to slip in to the mind. Any mentalist worth their salt could simply break in, but it was better to slip in unnoticed. After all, the illusion created in secrecy was all the more powerful, all the more believable. But better yet: he was opening himself to her.

She kept two fingers pressed to his temple, her connection to him made easier by contact and especially through the fingers Krius had left her with. The other however, snaked up the front of his vest and over, the cool metal of her left hand curling around the side of his neck gently. “Relax,” she murmured, a tone entirely at odds with the yellow-orange of her eyes as she stared up at him.

When he closed his eyes she did the same, following him down. Entering his mind was easier than any being’s she’d attempted to infiltrate before, even when they’d opened themselves. There was nothing in the way and she found herself riding a current of memories almost immediately.

There was a poignancy to him that almost choked her. So sincere. Don’t you see who you could be?

Following him down deeper, past the memories of the Sith Lord he spoke of but also things more personal. The sands of home. His mother’s face. Numbing himself with alcohol. I need to stop. I need to get out. I can’t see any more. Who is he? She hadn’t anticipated walking his mind would make him more…human. Suddenly he wasn’t a man she needed to repay and forget. Get out – get out!

But what she would never have anticipated were what she could only call visions, glimpses of things it didn’t feel he recognized either, evidenced by his gasp somewhere outside the place they were walking inside his head.

I’m sorry!​

I’m so sorry!​

Kail…please…​

​

She could feel his fingers digging in to her arm hard enough to break the only one she had left, screams ringing in her ears – hers, his?​

​

And in the last, her, wind pulling her hair back off her face – and the briefest glimpse of a man so huge as to dwarf her, his face obscured by a mask as imposing as himself.​

​

I had to…I couldn’t without…please…I’m so sorry.​

She let go of him, eyes still burning and cheeks still high and hollow with the distortion of her power. She was no seer, no prophetess. She walked the minds of others but she’d never seen anything like that – nothing even came close. (I’m sorry…please.) It wouldn’t stop echoing and as she let go of his mind she traced the fingers on his temple down to his neck before letting go.

“You don’t need saving,” she said, certainty in her voice. She couldn’t explain what she had seen, and her own role in it disturbed her – she could almost feel the bruises on her arm where he might have clamped down. But she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man...could be extraordinary. “But I can give you purpose.”

[member="Kail Ragnar"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

The second her fingers graced his temple, dotted with ice-cold droplets of sweat, Kail immediately felt at ease and...safe? It was like he wasn't in control of his own mind anymore, but that wasn't a bad thing. He didn't want the task of containing all his thoughts and emotions that were as confusing and mixed-up as Toydarian's junk-yard.

Even though his eyes were closed, his grip convulsing now and then on Matsu's thin arm, Kail didn't fight her and at times it felt like he was outside of his own body looking on as the two stood before each other and she tapped into hir mind.

Sand...snow...blood....flesh...

Laughter...tears...pain...anger...

Kisses...passion...terror...destruction...

....his looming body dwarfing Matsu as he reached down for her....

WHY!?

Kail didn't know if was his breath escaping with a gasp, or hers, but as his eyes blinked open, her face was still that ultra-cool and collected vision of plain beauty and determination....wait, beauty? Getting ahead of himself with those thoughts, and dangerous too as she was practically walking freely around his own head.

He looked into those hypnotically mutated eyes, tinged with that sickly yellow that gave him some perverse thrill of being touched by someone evidently in so much power. His hand gently let go of her as her fingers traced down his warm skin, stubbly chin and soft neck.

Matsu spoke to him with poignancy and truth. If she could give him something more to strive for, something more to become, then he would be a fool not to accept her help to become something more than just a man washing up on planets looking for the next quick-kill that came his way. A mercenary, he was that. But he was feeling less of a real mercenary who struck fear into those he came across, and more like a basic gun-for-hire who was as forgettable as he was pathetic.

Kail chewed his bottom lip gently. "Give me a purpose then Miss Xiangu. You're all powerful, and not just a mortal. I am but a man; flesh, blood and nothing more."

His eyes danced up her robotic arm with a look of wonder.

"Tell me, what did you see in here." Two fingers tapped his temple. "Do I become a saviour of the galaxy or something? A hero adored by all?"


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

The pronunciation of her last name was almost always ungraceful without the subtle hiss of air that was more natural to an Atrisian. Their language was all tongues against teeth, strange and overly fluid to someone who had not grown up speaking it. The same could be said for Kail Ragnar (and in that, even a name so brutal and hard, vowels clashing against consonants), but his pronunciation was strangely spot on, though heavily accented.

Miss Xiangu.

It made her sound delicate. Laughable really – the girl had always been half a second from giving you a punch in the teeth or kicking you in to the mud. Short and short-tempered, Matsu had grown from the girl of fierce reflex to a woman of ambition and slow, simmering violence. She used to believe that there was no greater feeling than letting loose, than opening herself to the power that rested inside of her and watching it tear through everything in her path. And there was still that girl somewhere, buried deep, who stood with her hair wild in the wind created by the epicenter of her destruction, teeth bared in a scream of response to her adrenaline. She used to believe there was nothing more beautiful than the feeling of being drained when finally everything was in ruins around her. The girl was there, somewhere.

But Krius had made a mistake when he left her for dead on Skye. The girl he’d so hoped would die there in the snow lived, but worse – had given way to a woman infinitely more savage. The Matsu that existed now was near silent, perched at the head of her table, sheathed in black and metal – amber-eyed and deadly in her assurance. This was the Matsu that killed not with a storm and a massive show of force. This was the woman that bent her natural arm at the elbow, crooked two fingers, and sat with a face made of stone as someone who displeased her died writhing and begging. A woman sleek, lethal – and instead of exhausting herself in a flashbang of power she sipped, built herself until she built a nearly infinite store of power.

And yet for all of that she might have scoffed when he said he was but flesh and blood.
What did it matter? (A little caught on the way he was chewing his lip.)
He was more fascinating than the majority of those she knew with the Force.

Watching his eyes trail up her arm, she gave only the slightest shift of her features when he asked what she saw, her irises still roiling with her power, driven now by excitement instead of anger. What he would become would undoubtedly spread across the Galaxy, a name dripping with meaning. She’d seen that clear as day. But the truth – that would serve them best.

“No,” she said simply, watching his face. There was so much potential in him – so much talent waiting to find purpose, if he would embrace all that ugly he performed so wonderfully. “They won’t sing any hero’s songs about you Ragnar – but you’ll certainly be known by all.” She tilted her head then, angling her face in a way that showed every high, delicate feature as she smiled and extended the metal arm that seemed to draw his attention, palm up and claws glinting in the sun streaming through the windows. “Now or never handsome.”

Otherwise, she’d eat him alive.

[member="Kail Ragnar"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Secretly he was glad she didn't see him as a saviour or hero. Who was he kidding. He was no hero - he was a trained killer; a survivor.

Taking a life was as easy to him as breathing, but recently he had been slipping from the pinnacle of becoming something fearsome and instead wallowed in self-pity after a few dangerous brushes with death. He'd raided temples and seen ancient scripts and relics that had survived centuries of war and promised untold power to those who could harness it - those with the "Force" that is.

Not being a Force user never really bothered Kail, but there was only so much one could do with a blaster, some grenades and a high tolerance. But, maybe, he didn't need to control the Force if Matsu would BE his Force. He debt could be the extension of such power that Kail could wield, and with his strength, brutality and determination to be something people would remember, she was going to be his only option right now.

He scratched at the stubble in the nape of his neck, under his cheek and looked around the empty room to make sure - what, that he hadn't been followed? Who by? No-one cared that much about a washed-up merc. There were far greater, fearsome and deadlier mercenaries and bounty hunters out there who made Kail look like a kid dressed up playing super-soldiers.

That was frustrating, and annoying. He could be someone better. Something of worth. Matsu offered him that worth.

He had no choice.

No matter how much you fight this Kail, you're a failure to yourself and your own cell. She is your last stop before death my friend. Do it!

The wonderfully alien, monstrous cybernetic arm extended outwards, beckoning him. With the fury in her eyes, with the small gap between her red lips, with the promise of offering him purpose...Kail Ragnar submitted to her.

His sand stained arm, wrappd in Tatooine armour, reached forward and his hand cupped her cold claw with his warm flesh.

"Let's go show this galaxy who we really are, shall we beautiful?"

A wicked smirk broke out on his face.



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]