Sleepwalking

[Armand Temi]

The Caprine handed the Jedi his saber back. Smirking and in one fluid motion she stood on steady feet, more stable than her tipsiness would betray. Her eyes flit back to Centaris whose frown deepened which each step towards the tavern exit. That’s okay, Livna thought. When am I not disappointing someone? At least now I’m in control who I disappoint, who I please, and who I betray.

Which was a bleak thought indeed. You finally get your freedom, you silly goat and here you are off picking bar fights with strange men who are much stronger than you. The idea was absurd enough that she emitted a short, bark of a laugh and then grew quiet again as they wound their way through the bar guests and out into the street. But her pride would not let her back out now. I may not be a porcelain Baroness, or even the grinning fool of a working class merchant, but I still have my dignity. If he feels disgraced by her presence, that’s his problem, she mused.

She skipped along the cobblestone, almost gleefully at this point, and then the extroverted Caprine asked in a loud voice, “Have you ever been someone’s slave, Alkor? I wouldn’t recommend it but one of the benefits is that you have nothing to lose. Ever.”

Standing now in the street, Livna stretched her arms to the glittering Naboo night sky, limbering up for the fight. Her blue eyes, shadowy in the light of just a couple of street lamps, appeared far away again. “But you’re words about revenge have given me an idea…” The blonde maiden turned back to the Dark Jedi. He was attractive in his own way, and again, she felt a stab of pity through her breast for those open wounds in his torso, but like an asteroid heading towards a planet, at this point, she could not change her course.

“No light saber,” she said in a low voice. “Only our bodies.” As the Caprine said this she stroked one of her long horns with her pale, clawed fingertips. Oh there was no doubt, Alkor Centaris had the advantage, but Livna would relying on her bovidae racial traits – strong muscles and keratin horns – to at least not get her killed.

But she would be sore the next day, that was for sure. That is, if the Dark Jedi continued on with their impromptu contest.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

When she spoke of slavery, Alkor watched her in silence. She lived that life on her planet, away from any harm but what her owner gave her. Her job had been a simplistic one before the Sith changed it. Her lifestyle had twisted and writhed like a serpent by her own admission, and she fell victim to the darkness within herself. She fled. She descended into confusion and bitterness, anger and sorrow.

But the Caprine woman knew nothing of the darkness. She merely flirted with it, tempted herself with it, and teetered at its edge. She never gave herself over to it. Her words about saving lives and not taking them proved it. This woman was not a killer. Further than that, now she wanted to prove to herself that she could stand at odds with someone who was and succeed.

There had been Jedi who aspired to the same notions. Alkor had seen handfuls of them. All strong men, confident, and kind. All driven to the same extremes out of necessity, they still lacked a fundamental killswitch that gave the Sith an inherent edge over them. It was a quality Alkor lacked as well. Compassionate men felt remorse when pushed to the brink and further. As he stood across from her, considering her words, his eyes closed.

Did she know how it felt, to be deprived of freedom by her own foolishness? Did she have that decision, to choose between the right thing and something wrong? Had it cost her the only home she had ever known? She may have been a slave to someone else, but there were many forms of slavery.

He sighed when she asked that he not fight with his weapon, but he had no objection. To murder a young woman for no reason held no appeal for the Jen'jidai. As his eyes slipped open, his feet slid apart and his weight dispersed evenly between them. His hands came up open palmed and faced Livna, and he exhaled slowly.

Lightsabers were not what made Alkor Centaris dangerous.

"So be it."

Normally, he would have ceded any opening attack to the challenger. He surged at her instead, and his hands moved like two wicked blurs. His movements flowed like a river into an ocean, smoothly and unmarred by sequential timing. There were no transitions between step and strike. In seconds, he struck with the blade of his left hand toward the center of her mass, right in her stomach. If the blow landed, there was an extreme likelihood that she would end up losing the wine that she'd ingested.

[member="Livna Zios"]

 

[Armand Temi]

The trick to heat-butting was keeping your neck and shoulders rock-steady, especially for a Nur Caprine, of which Livna was. She did not have the shorter, spiraling horns of the Asti which could puncture armor or flesh, nor the ram’s horns of the Balae which could cause concussions due to the sheet massiveness bulk of the hard-as-stone horns. And although the maiden’s horns were unusual and wide-set, she could gore like the best of them.

She watched Alkor assume a fighting stance, her heart drumming faster knowing this was going to happen.

Adrenaline spiked, wiping away some of the cloudy inebriation as though washing a filmy residue from the surface of her mind’s eye, bringing the entire scene into a sharp focus. Using a mixture of Force sight and her natural precognitive ability, she perceived the Dark Jedi one second before he struck her, so that when the dark blur crashed into her, she bent her knees, and as she’d been taught to do on the Caprine sparring grounds, she swung her head down, using her horns thrust him away as a bull would to a matador. She could feel the scrape of his blade against the left one.

And Livna felt as though the wine she ingested may actually come back up, but only because a sudden nausea seized her. The horned maiden swallowed the acidic taste of it back down her throat.

She laughed melodically at Master Centaris, showing all of her fine, straight teeth, knowing that her party was a lucky block and not quite sure that she could repeat it.

“Oh come on, you can do better than that!” she taunted, the corner of her black gown falling off of one shoulder as she held her hands out fingers beckoning him to strike again.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Hot blood splattered messily from his arm as the horns raked flesh and tore into him. Still, Alkor made no sound. Her natural weapons proved most efficient. That alone would not stay the hand of a Dark Jedi. It was not a matter of first blood, nor second, or third. Bleeding was a natural process, and the pain that lanced through him only served to validate him. It was fuel for his unyielding rage, a cold fire that burned deep beneath the surface.

He would not stoke those flames for this, however. A wildfire was meant to decimate enemies on a greater scale than this. One drunken woman in a bar brawl was as nothing to the Sith he had killed, the Jedi, the Mandalorians, or even the Bounty Hunters who once came for his head.

As her horn gored his forearm, he continued his motion. His hand slammed forward dead center and he attempted to grip her by the hair as he pulled downward, hard. As he did, Alkor whipped his right hand up and belted with a rising punch toward the middle of Livna's torso, a strike meant to force the wind from her lungs.

More than that, however, it worked in tandem with the pull- if both strikes connected in the intended fashion, the punch would force her forward momentum to take her heels over head and lay her out on the dirt.

[member="Livna Zios"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Livna smirked at the gash she'd given Alkor, but there was no satisfaction in it. She'd gored him as was expected in a spar, but only a Sith would revel in the malicious carnage of a dripping wound.

I am no Sith, she thought her nose wrinkling and lip curling in a snarl. In her mind, she replayed how he flashed her the bandaged wounds from his robes. If she could get a good blow into his torso, maybe she would have a chance. But she could feel the anger building up inside him, radiating off of the darksider. Alkor was infinitely stronger than she. Livna could have twenty dagger-sharp horns on her head, and she knew it would not be enough to stave him off for long.

The maiden began to step backwards, but he yanked hold of her golden locks as though pulling at a rope.

"Sithspit!" she cursed and then in Caprinean, a string of expletives to make a sailor blush: "Umama wak iheyu , yia ditshele yakhe enda!"

But her string of curses towards Alkor's mother - whether she be alive or dead - would be promptly silenced as the Dark Jedi's fist connected with a highly sensitive area of Livna's torso right below her ribs. And as he suspected the momentum of the punch and the firm grip on her hair, caused the Caprine to lilt to the side and fall over, her hands scraping against the cobblestone to break her fall. Still Livna wasn't completely done. Her legs were strong from climbing the steep cliffs of Iktotch every day. She scissored her legs and clamped onto his own legs and then rolled, like an alligator, trying to take him down with her.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Whether it be fighting pit experience or the woman happened to have trained in a martial art, Alkor could immediately tell from her breakfall that she wasn't going to take a simple submission and be done. The Palawa monks who taught him were extensively specific about how to deal with any attacker, Jedi or otherwise.

It was the duty of a Teras Kasi master to neutralize any threat. When the Jedi destroyed their homeworld of Bunduki, they developed the art in order to counteract the exquisite offense a lightsaber provided. It was quick, brutal, and efficient.

It also afforded countermeasures for lesser things, especially physical attacks. When her legs snaked around his, Alkor instinctively dipped low and gave up his torso instead. When she rolled, he had his entire center of gravity as leverage. He dug both heels in and kicked off the ground to double the initial centrifuge of her roll, sending them into a wickedly fast spiral.

Her legs were crushingly tight around him as they went. Alkor used pure grit and practice to catch the ground with his left knee and halt their momentum, which bruised the joint and blooded welled up around the dirtied point of contact. This placed the woman with her back on the ground and in a proper guard, with Alkor over her.

He released her hair immediately and punched for her face, his own expression unchanged. Despite the rabid and vicious nature of his fighting style, the Dark Jedi appeared eerily calm.

Several cheers and gasps from the crowd at the two combatants drowned behind the bloodlust and thrill of the fight. Alkor tempered his aggression with raw focus. He was looking not at her, but through her.

It was like there was something else, and she was blocking his path.

[member="Livna Zios"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Livna suddenly wished that she and the Dark Jedi were back in the cozy, warm tavern, drinking a couple of pints and reminiscing about their childhoods. But she'd brazenly challenged him to this duel, and like the silly goat she was, there was no turning back.

You will take your punishment, Livna. This is what happens to servants and slaves. There is no escaping your fate. You will be subjugated in the end.
A bleak thought but pragmatic at least.

As they tumbled along the streets with no decorum whatsoever they gave the the pearl-clutching Nabooian crowd a performance they would not forget... until they rolled to a stop, and Alkor now was above her, his dark hair a canopy obscuring his handsome features.

But there was no respite for the maiden Caprine. Once he let her hair go, he punched her squarely in the face, bloodying her nose. This caused Livna to howl in pain, and again instead of surrendering - which she really should have done about now - she scrabbled at him with her short claws, going for eyes, lips, cheeks - anything to get him off of her. Her dress now was torn at the shoulder, and as she turned just for a moment, he would catch a glimpse of fresh whip marks along her naked back, a sign that she'd been brutally flogged in the last few weeks.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

As he connected with the jab, he felt panic consume the girl. She instantly went from capable fighter to cowering slavegirl, and flailed miserably beneath him. Alkor leaned back and snatched at both her wrists in an attempt to stop her. "Quiet," he snapped harshly. "You're making a fool of yourself."

If he was anything but annoyed, it did not show in his words or actions. Alkor breathed out the short lived thrill ride through both nostrils and snorted indignantly. If she wanted a fight, she had gotten one. Hopefully this would be a learning experience for the girl.

"Next time, don't challenge a strange man to a drunken brawl." If there had been any lingering intoxication in the Corellian, the past few minutes simply burnt it away. He was sober, and not very happy about it. "Go and get cleaned up."

What she did after that was none of his affair. He was not in the business of holding slaves, nor beating women. It was different if she wanted to fight, but the second she gave herself over to base fear she became no better than a Sith. If she wanted to stand against them, she would eventually have to overcome that obstacle. Of course, Alkor was not her master. He would not point any of this out to her. He had given her advice, and she could do with it as she pleased. Most everyone in the galaxy did just that.

Some of them even actually put it to good use.

Blood gurgled from the laceration on his arm and it throbbed with familiar pain. His knee burned from irritation. He had managed to deal very little damage to the girl, all things considered. That had been his goal. "I hope you found at least one of the answers you were looking for," he drawled.

[member="Livna Zios"]

 

[Armand Temi]

As Alkor held both of her wrists, a sudden desire for him came out of nowhere. It surged through her body to land in her loins. Perhaps it was how she was held, or just that it was reminiscent of the performances that she'd had to enact in the name of the Sith and her mistress. Carnal performances where she was a mere player, or even a jester.

Livna wiped at her nose, glancing at the wet blood as though it were a foreign object that hadn't come out of her body.

But she would pull away, despite what her body wanted to do, even though he'd beaten her.

"Where should I go," said Livna, rising. "I have no home. We came together as an audience to a funeral. Am I to disappear into the night with my wounds like some alley cat?"

"If you don't care what happens to me… command me to leave," she said with a challenge.

Livna had her own designs on revenge, and if this Dark Jedi could not help her, she would find someone who would. Because the Caprine maiden could not do it alone.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Alkor rose slowly and smeared the blood from his new wound along the bandages on his waistline, almost ritualistically. Though the blood continued to flow, part of it remained as a reminder of the pain, and of the bloodiness of battle. He let his sleeve fall over the wound and even as blood dripped from his arm, it did not seem to phase him. When she challenged him, he stared at her evenly. "I am a man who hates chains, worn by myself or by others. I break them, and am ill suited to hold them. Those who are fond of them are no friend to me."

He turned and looked up into the night sky thoughtfully. "I will command you to do nothing. Learn to be the master of your own destiny, or live for the rest of the life bound by unseen bonds." He placed one hand on his hip and leaned backward, stretching. "But there are men who hate the Sith, as you seem to, and they would be more than willing to have you among them." Alkor glanced back at her. "And perhaps one day, you will be able to stand against them as I do. But you will never do that as one of them, nor will simply hating them suffice to combat their considerable strength."

The Dark Jedi master held up a comm link that he had dialed to a private channel. "Seek out the other Dark Jedi near Rishi," he told her. "A man named [member="Nikias"] has gathered the strength of several men, all of whom will readily afford you training and other kinds of aid for the path you travel. That option is available to you, and you will find brotherhood among those men far safer and much more satisfying than trusting a Sith, or relying on Jedi."

For a moment, he considered going back to the ale house to quench his great thirst. In the end he decided against it. "And if you do go there, I will see you again."

[member="Livna Zios"]