Private Silk Morning

[Adron Malvern]

L I V E​

Tags: Saraya Arenais ​

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Blood dripped onto the hardwood floor of Adron's office. An array of crystal bottles covered the table, some still containing their contents where most of them were completely emptied. Adron stood on the opposite side to his chair glaring down at his arm. It was dying. What was worse was that whatever plague had filled his arm also seemed to be slowly spreading. Where his arm had once been there was now merely an abomination. Black, dried, flesh covered the arm with sickening yellow-green patches appearing over the plagued skin. The only natural color was the crimson red liquid that flowed from the open wounds.

The King sighed out in pain. At first there had been some pain and then a cold numbness fell over the arm. Now, there was only excruciating pain in the depths of what left of his arm. At the top of his shoulder was an off-white bacta-bandage that had been fully drained of its supply. With the bandages it slowed the advancement of the rot but there was little else to be done. He'd spent countless hours with his doctors and even consulted his High Priestess Nimue . Even the Lady of the Silma could offer only some items to manage the growth of the sickness. Even those were beginning to lose their effectiveness.

Sweat filled his hair as a few stray locks fell down before his eyes. He could not allow something as trivial as a sickness destroy him.

After a moment the King breathed out in an attempt to gather his thoughts.

"I may have to cut it off." He all but whispered to himself. He spoke as if his own voice would reflect an answer back to him, yet he was met only with silence. The silence mocked him. He felt his ire rise, his hatred for this plague increase and little by little he could feel the subtle nourishment of the Dark Side. It did not spare him the pain but it did slow the disease. He turned to round the table, his eyes finding a black book with an odd mark upon its cover. The mark was an ancient rune of the time before times, of the time when only the Force held prominence. Adron flipped the book open, his eyes roaming through it's pages with an almost studious expression.

The text was in the ancient dialect of the Sith, however it was a tongue he knew well. There was an illustration that caught is eye. A picture in the ancient tome had caught Adron's eyes. It was of a machine like the one he'd used to resurrect Kay. However, beside it was a man, seemingly drained of all life and his form was nothing more than a blackened corpse.

He breathed out of his nose before speaking softly. "Damn you, Kruel."​

 

[Saraya Arenais]

W O R R Y​

T A G | Adron Malvern

Something uncomfortable sat in the centre of her Saraya’s chest. She had not been free of it since that fateful day in the depths of one of Illyria’s mountains. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear the explosion echoing off the black marble. She could hear Adron’s cry of surprise. The crunch as he hit a pillar. It made her feel sick. At the time he had hidden it well from prying eyes. Diverting her attention to the newly born, confused form of her aunt. Saraya had taken the bait, for his own peace of mind, but it did nothing for hers.

The pain he felt may have been easy to hide from others, but he could not hide it from her.

Unwilling to wait for the attendant to open the door for her, Saraya pushed it open with a wave of force. It had been a few days since the incident, and a few days since she had begun to work up the courage to confront him about it. So, as she walked into the office, she did so with an air of anxious confidence “Adron.” At the commanding tone in her voice, the door clicked shut behind her. Her lips parted as if to speak again, but instead, she drew in the office itself. It was in quite a state for a man she very often knew to be excessively neat when it came to his surroundings.

Bottles lay open in disarray across the room. Strange liquids in a variety of colours filled them, some empty, some half full, some untouched. Cracked, aged tomes dominated every flat surface available.

And the smell…

A smell that she had never come across before attacked her nose relentlessly. It was thick, sweet, sickly. Like rotting flesh. There was more than that. Though she could not necessarily see it. There was an exceedingly dark atmosphere overshadowing it all.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Saraya walked forward. “Something is wrong.” There was something about the way she spoke that made it clear she wasn’t asking. She knew. “I know it is…” Saraya's voice dropped a little as she approached him. Her lower lip disappeared behind her teeth as they began to nibble on the skin there nervously. The closer she got, the stronger the smell was. Much like that day in the heart of the mountain, she could feel his frustration. His anger. His pain. “Talk to me.” She asked as she reached out to place a hand on his arm.

 

[Adron Malvern]

S I L K​

Tags: Saraya Arenais ​

The door to Adron's study came open and his eyes rose to see the one thing he simply did not wish to see right now. His love, his wife to be, his Queen. Saraya was a powerful young woman with an incredibly strong instinct. He'd been hiding this disaster from her in the hopes he could have it repaired before it truly became a problem, it seems he had been wrong, She was tired of not knowing and the King did not need the Force to realize that. She approached him, causing him to keep his injured arm far from her eyes. He did not wish to worry her but even more than that he despised showing her his weakness.

"Saraya." As she approached him, his good arm came up to tell her not to come any closer. Slowly the hand fell. Deep within him he did not want her to be pushed away. He wanted her close and to find comfort in the woman who had taken his heart. When her hand fell to his arm he let out a sigh. It was a relief to have her close, even though he could not stand the thought of being so grotesque around her. He glanced down to his bad arm. It took a great deal of effort to lift the arm, revealing the sickly black flesh.

He groaned before letting it rest back against his side. He breathed out before chuckling dryly. "I...can't stop it." He breathed. "The Doctors don't know why but my body is experiencing some kind of necrosis. Bacta doesn't stop it, neither does burning, ice, kolto, and half a dozen other remedies. I've tried purging the corruption but it doesn't answer to my command in the Force." He said.

"I underestimated the cost for your Aunt's life. When the Jedi were not enough the ritual required more and so it drew from me...I thought I could stop something like that from happening." He said, his tone had been low and sad even though there was little light to his eyes she would know the pain he was feeling.

The next words to fall from Adron's lips were some he very rarely used.

"I don't know what to do."​

 

[Saraya Arenais]

C O N C E R N​

T A G | Adron Malvern

Though she appeared taken aback by the hand that raised to stop her in her tracks, she pushed on regardless. The warmth she found waiting for her there was somewhat of a relief. Or it was. Any sense of relief disappeared the moment she caught a glimpse of his other arm.

Pressing her lips together to prevent the sharp gasp of surprise and concern that threatened to burst from them, Saraya tore her gaze from the blackened flesh. When she felt safe enough to try to speak again, nothing came. She merely opened and closed her mouth, like a fish out of water. It shut once and for all when he dove into an explanation of what he had already attempted to remedy it with. Saraya had assumed that the knowledge of what was ailing him would have washed away her concern, and his too. The pain would have been shared, halved on his part, but as she glanced down at his arm once more…

How could she share this?

She was nubile in her study of the force, and even more so in medicine. Anything she could have thought to try, Adron would have thought to try already. “You didn’t say how dangerous it would be…” When she finally managed to speak up, there was a note of anger in her tone. True, it was buried in a mountain of worry and concern, but it was there. If he had asked her beforehand if her Aunt’s life was worth the danger, Saraya would have been honest when she answered with a firm no. Nothing in this entire galaxy was worth more to her than his life. How could he be so reckless with it?

“What were you thinking?” She asked. It was sorrow’s turn to leak through her melodic voice, to dominate the words by making them wobble softly as she spoke. With a firm but gentle grasp on his good arm, she guided them both over to the nearest chair. The tips of her fingers pushed his chest softly until he sat. When he was, she sat between his legs on the floor in front of him. “Let me see.” She asked softly, but it wasn’t really a question. She reached out to coax the affected arm forward.

It was sickening. Cracked ebony flesh where there should have been skin as pale as hers. Pockets of infection where it peeled away from the arm. She was breathless. Not because of the look of it, or the smell, but because of the one question that swirled around in her mind like a tornado. What did this mean for Adron? She finally caught her breath, in the form of a sigh that seemed to weigh her whole body down. When she looked back at Adron, there were obvious tears in her eyes. Every blink of her heavy eyelashes threatened to spill them over her cheeks.

She swallowed both the lump in her throat and the sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach. The words were stuck. Saying them would make a possibility turn into a reality, but she had to know. “Is this going to kill you?”

 

[Adron Malvern]

L I F E​

Tags: Saraya Arenais ​

Having Saraya this close was oddly comforting. Still, when she saw his wound it had taken her breath away as he expected it to. Since they had met he had crafted a perfect form with no contemplation of weakness of loss, yet now with this abomination of an arm he was very much something he'd been striving to steer clear of. He was vulnerable. The very thought of showing Saraya weakness made him sick to his stomach, yet he said nothing and remained silent as she examined the arm.

She brought up the danger and his eyes could not meet hers. Of course it would be dangerous and while there had been this chance he'd believed that he was safe from such a treacherous outcome. He breathed out for a moment before finally turning his eyes back to the woman he loved. "I believed to have the power of the Ark under my control." A falseness that he realized all too late. The power of the Ark was not something that would be so easily controlled or contained. When it did finally lash out the Sith Lord was lucky it did not claim his life.

She led him to a chair and as he sat down he answered her question. "I did what I felt was necessary to advance our House." He told her.

He held his arm out to her, feeling the strained, half-dead muscles scream from the exertion. It did not reflect to his face but his entire body tensed at the movement.

Is this going to kill you? The question stung, leaving a burning sensation in the center of the man's heart.

His good hand came down to his wife to be's cheek, a soft thumb rolling over the smooth curve. He offered her a warm, faint smile. It was meant to reassure her, remind her that there was nothing in the galaxy that could rip him from her arms.

"I will not allow it to kill me." His smile grew a bit as he looked to Saraya. "If only so I may enjoy the rest of my days with you by my side, with my children growing in your belly." He told her before leaning down to press a soft kiss to her brow. "This will not beat me. Besides, I must return myself to normal..." He said, rising from the seat and using his good hand to help Saraya rise as well. "We will get married soon and I must be perfect for my bride." He promised her. ​

 

[Saraya Arenais]

T R U S T​

T A G | Adron Malvern

Saraya was far beyond concerned for the image of perfection he had cultivated throughout their relationship. To her, his perfection did not lie in his appearance. It did not lie in the chiselled features of his face or his sculpted body. Her concern was centred around the fact that he was injured. That, despite his attempts to hide it, he was in pain. Some unseen force was draining the life from his arm, and it looked as though it would not be sated with his arm alone.

When he spoke of controlling the ark, Saraya did her best to swallow the expression of disbelief that wormed its way onto her face. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she cast her gaze back down to his arm. “You could have died.” She responded, her voice catching as the realisation settled into her mind.

His next words sparked a flicker of her anger in her stomach. What was necessary to advance the house could have potentially destroyed it forever. “None of this was necessary.” There was a note of irritation in her voice as she spoke. “Kay’s rebirth no more advances house Malvern than her death impeded it.” She sighed heavily but said nothing further. True that bringing her back to life was a great step up for Adron, but it meant nothing if this sickness was going to keep spreading. The thought of it made her shuffle uncomfortably.

She allowed him to comfort her, for his own peace of mind, but his words were hollow. Especially with the smell of decay still lingering in her nose. He could no more control this than he could the Ark. Leaning into the hand he placed on her cheeks, the tears finally began to fall. The trickled slowly over the curve of her cheek. A faint smile wormed its way onto her lips, but it lasted less than a second. Heavy thoughts weighed it down almost immediately. A wedding, children, a future together…

It all seemed to be slipping away.

Taking the hand he offered, she rose from the floor. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this? What the ark could have done to you? What it did to you…” She pressed her lips together for a moment and then folded her arms across her waist. “I don’t like being kept in the dark like that.” At that moment, she leant forward, until her head rested against his chest. His heart was still beating, as strong and determined as ever. That was more comforting than any words he had to offer, but she still could not ignore the one thing that had hurt her the most. “Do you really think I’m so shallow that this would change my mind about you? You mean far more to me than that."

Finally, she pulled her arms from around her waist and instead wrapped them around his. “We’re supposed to share everything, including things like this.” Saraya was aware that he likely kept it from her to keep her from worrying, but that had only made her worry more.