SSC: [member="George O Rourke"] | [member="Minna"] | [member="Nima Tann"] | [member="Connor Harrison"] | [member="Vilaz Munin"] | [member="Thurion Heavenshield"]
OS : [member="Vengeance"] | [member="Darth Azurea"] | [member="Darth Ferus"] | [member="First Daughter"] | [member="Darth Kentarch"] | [member="Vaulkhar"] | [member="Mullarus"]
Now that she was a little closer to the group, she could make out more of their features. The one that the others had directed their words to was a dark haired woman, fairly young, a little shorter than Teynara, by a few inches at least, though she carried sufficient presence that she certainly did not seem diminutive. Perhaps it's the dark clothing, she thought, faintly amused by the idea. It's a little slimming, but it does make them all seem taller.
Not that such was needed for the other two: there was that masked being, a little taller than the woman, but far more mysterious simply because the face couldn't be seen. She, too, was obviously feminine in shape, but beyond that, more could not be said. Perhaps she's been injured, and needs respiratory support. Or maybe the mask was a function of intimidation: if you couldn't look into someone's eyes, they weren't really a person, or so many felt. Could be a droid shaped like a person, for all we know, though the sense Teynara had of her in the Force was something very different. No, she can only be a living being.
Then there was the young man that had exchanged words with the group, the voice civilised and not simply menacing, as she might have expected. He was well-built, strong, tall, and that alone marked him as dangerous, had the look on his face and the company he kept been a firm indicator. He was calmer than she had expected - frankly, they all were. Taken by rage and hatred are the Sith, or so her instructors had said, as had the Archives confirmed. Yes, their presences in the Force were fiery, tempestuous, a little chaotic, but these were not beings that let their every passion carry them away. Otherwise that hostility might have been unleashed by now.
Not everything here was as it seemed, then.
She could feel the Force stirring around them now, whispers of interaction that perhaps stemmed from so many of them gathered together at once. You never feel this at the Academy back on Voss, she noted inwardly, wondering if perhaps it was the nature of these Sith that was causing such a strange sensation for her. The blonde couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, but whether that was just her sense of nerves or the Force offering her insight, she couldn't say. And you can't stop to meditate at a time like this, she thought wryly.
Her eyes closed for a moment, the lids slowly folding down to cover those icy-blue irises, her breath coming a little slower as she sought for her centre. The Sith were simply watching them, perhaps waiting for one of the more senior Jedi to speak - whether Thurion or the dark-haired Jedi stood next to him, she didn't know - but even so, there was that sense of hesitancy. A natural pause that gives me just a moment. She gathered her breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled it slowly, allowing the tension to flow out of her limbs at that moment, a calming technique she had first been taught on joining the Jedi on Tython. Gather your tension as you inhale, draw it all to your centre, then release, and let go.
That was when she felt a hand on her left shoulder, grabbing her roughly. Less than a heartbeat later, a pause so short it was barely perceptible, the blade slid into her back, just off to the right of her spine, missing the column itself, but penetrating deep into muscle and tissue. She arched her back, suddenly powerless to move, a soft anguished gasp escaping her lips, her legs suddenly feeling nerveless, unable to support her. They collapsed beneath her, and she felt herself falling, the sharp weapon that had penetrated her body tearing out of her as she fell, ripping tissues and cutting a sharp gash into her back.
Her nerves felt aflame, burning through her with an intensity that robbed her of what little concentration she had, her only articulation a soft scream that spoke of the pain that was ripping through her consciousness. This shouldn't be happening, she thought absently, her mind struggling to comprehend how she had ended up in this position, overloaded with sensory information that was firing through every synapse in her body. Her breath came in gasps, strangling speech as she felt like fighting for breath, knowing that the damage was more than she could repair. The gash beside her spine felt warm, tingly, but her fingers felt numb, and she knew exactly what that meant.
Her impact upon the snow sent new waves of sensation through her, that sudden cold leaving her filled with a paralysing numbness, the endorphins released into her body as it sought to figure out what was going on leaving her suddenly detached, drifting, anchorless. Such a strange feeling, to die, she thought. She had to have been - what else could it be? Why else would I be lying here, instead of fighting to stay alive? The Force that she had trusted to protect her had failed, she realised that, and now it would let her bleed her life away out on some cold planet that she hadn't wanted to come to in the first place.
Lips parting once more as if to speak, to cry for help, she felt consciousness slipping away from her, vision blurry now, and fading rapidly. She wanted to shout at the others, scream at them to help her, but words eluded her now more than ever, and it was too late for her to act and warn them of the danger. They would have to comprehend it on their own as she found herself left inert.
And, to think, she mused murkily as consciousness slipped away, I thought perhaps the Sith weren't as bad as all that. If she died here, at least she'd found herself an answer.
