Private Strange Garden-Bedfellows

[Madrona A’Mia]

"Got a report of a student down, secondary greenhouse. You got it Madrona?"

The transmission came in over her closed circuit Kor'ethyr commlink and A'Mia stilled amidst her task of harvesting nysillin flower stamen. Her head cocked to one side and the Neti registered a faint sense of annoyance that one of her colleagues was passing off the work to her. She presumed it was because many of the other healers and helping staff within the institution considered the greenhouses her territory and didn't want to overstep.

The call to duty soon found her gliding toward the location of the supposed incident which is when she happened upon a visitor. After a cursory introduction and gathering that Darth Callidus was in some way interested in being involved with Kor'ethyr Academy, A'Mia extended an invitation.

"I must respond to reports of a student down but you're welcome to watch me work and ask questions about the school as we go. Consider this your first tour perhaps?"

The woman had a cheerful bearing to her and she was polite enough, but the warmth or brightness of her tone never seemed to reach her eyes. She guided her new companion toward their destination.

Meanwhile…

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The greenhouses of Kor'ethyr were lush and strange. A'Mia had leveraged her status as both acolyte of Darth Caedes and Lord Seer of Korriban in order to obtain a great many rare and strange species of plants. Students were expected to comport themselves with a sense of academic professionalism when working with the oftentimes dangerous botanicals residing on campus.

But accidents happen, and sometimes student rivalry or competition can be made to look like an accident. As was the case with one such poor soul, an apparent first year student per their robes. They were somewhere between the ages of late adolescence and very early adulthood, lying unresponsive on the greenhouse floor with a pool of blood forming around them. Whoever had been with them at the time of their likely demise had since fled- or perhaps sought help? It was hard to know.

Tag: Adean Castor

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[Darth Callidus]

Location: Korriban | Kor’ethyr
Tags: Madrona A’Mia Adean Castor

Callidus had made the journey to Korriban on a whim. Most of her time of late had been spent on Denab, overseeing matters of minor importance yet demanding of her attention. Dreary work, and frustrating to say the least. Her escape had been impromptu, but the destination had been on her mind for some time. Freed from the shackles of her own Master, Callidus knew the time was approaching for her to select a student of her own. Passing on her knowledge, and finding an individual to share in her ambitions would do much to ease the strain on her mind.

She had gained access to the Academy easy enough. Few dared to challenge a Sith, though there was enough pushback that Callidus had taken to wandering the halls of the Kor’ethyr alone. It was an impressive place, and the Dark Side energy, so recently returning to the world, flowed through her as she opened herself to the Force.

When she was approached by Madrona, Callidus stopped to greet her. The offer of an official tour, and the chance to see how they handled their students was something Callidus was intrigued by.

She nodded her head. “Very well, lead on.”

When they entered the greenhouse, Callidus took in the sight of the vast array of planet life, her mind working to sort and catalog everything she saw. It was an impressive collection of plants. Most Sith Callidus knew did not consider plant life to be worthy of their attention. Starships, mechanical horrors and other creations of war tended to take priority. Things that could give them direct and immediate result. The finer subtleties of plants were lost on most. It was a good sign that the Academy here might offer the type of education that would make a student appealing to Callidus.

Otherwise, perhaps they might find use as a new fertilizer.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Madrona A’Mia | Darth Callidus

It had been an accident, first and foremost. Self defense, if one had to call it anything else. Adean hadn't meant to get cornered by one of the other academy's acolytes, just as she hadn't intended offense when she'd brushed passed them earlier that day. Chit, she wasn't even convinced she had been the one to do so in the first place, that she hadn't been mistaken for someone else, the other acolyte too stubborn to correct their mistake.

She most certainly hadn't intended on killing anyone.

But that, it seemed, hadn't been up to her. A mix of adrenaline, panic, and...something outside of her control had called her hand. A wave of the force had flung the other acolyte across the room. The sickening crack when their head met the corner of a planter was deafening in Adean's ears.

She should've just ran then. She should've either sought a faculty member or merely continued on with her day as a visitor from Jutrand. Her feet did not agree with such sentiment, however. Despite her better thinking, Adean found herself approaching the now still, scarily still, form of her would-be bully, the color draining from her face as she got close enough to see the pool of blood forming around the acolyte's head.

No, this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. It had to be a daydream, or maybe a hallucination caused by spores in whatever these plants made up the greenhouse. Just as the tendrils of a plant slowly reaching towards the other acolyte's crumpled form surely weren't real. But the tendrils, real or imagined, didn't stop until they wrapped themself around the acolyte's leg, until they started to drag.

Adean wasn't quite sure what possessed her to put her hand on the acolyte's shoulder. Perhaps it was the building dread that someone could enter the greenhouse at any moment, or the strange feeling that any moment someone would. Perhaps that feeling was what compelled her to pull the acolyte's outer robe off their shoulders, to muster what shaky strength she had to push the crumpled form in the direction the tendrils continued to pull. Out of sight, among plants that would make the acolyte their meal.

And perhaps that feeling was the same force that pushed Adean to grab gardening sheers and plunge them in her leg. She couldn't help crying out in pain then, as much as she tried to keep the noise to the minimum. But she wasn't done there. Spurred on by adrenaline and panic, she rushed toward the remaining pool of blood, intentionally ignoring any urge to mind her footing, not trying to catch herself when she did indeed trip in the blood. All the better to disguise the trail left when the plant dragged the fallen acolyte to their end.

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

Having taken stock of Darth Callidus , A'Mia's strange eyes perceiving the woman's ambition- making note that like many Sith, it appeared she might pursue her goals no matter the cost. The neti reserved any judgement about what little information she might have gleaned in favor of first putting time into conversation so as to size the woman up. A'Mia was just preparing to ask a question as they entered the greenhouse, but was forestalled by the sharp biting smell of blood.

The neti froze halfway through the door, having opened it for her new guest. She extended her senses outward to seek disturbance or changes to this environment she knew so well. Then her tall frame was suddenly animated by intense movement, her many limbed form becoming altogether other and nothing even remotely bipedal. This allowed her to clamber spider-like across the various garden beds without need for use of the pathways, which in turn left them clear for her companion to follow with haste.

"What have we here?” A'Mia asked cheerfully, her otherwise beautiful face at odds with the spindly creature that came upon Adean Castor .

​

 

[Darth Callidus]

Tags: Madrona A’Mia Adean Castor

Callidus raised a single eyebrow as the thing that had brought her this far suddenly changed its form. It became far more like a creature and scuttled its way into the room, quickly ascending to the ceiling and approaching a figure further in the room. Callidus followed behind, making her way through the plants in the room without haste.

She sensed the lingering taste of darkness in the room, but it was hard to discern what was fresh and what was caused by the simple presence of an Academy full of Sith. She took another step, and her doubts were washed away as the sticky, tangent feel and smell of blood followed her. She glanced down, looking at the puddle, but shrugged her shoulders. She continued walking towards the other two beings in the room, each step leaving a blood soaked imprint in the floor of the room.

"A student looking to commit some extracurricular studying, perhaps," Callidus said, her voice warm and comforting as she looked the other person up and down, yellow eyes sparkling with enjoyment. "If that is the case, I applaud you. To find one so young committed to her studies..." Callidus extended her hand out to the side, and some of the blood pooling on the floor rose up, forming a small, spinning sphere above a single outstretched finger.

"This is curious though."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Madrona A’Mia | Darth Callidus

Adean's eyes widened with horror as the creature of branch-like spindles skipped over the pathways of garden beds. From her position on the ground, covered in blood both hers and someone else's, the sight would've been the product of nightmares in any other setting (at least one separated from the Sith). Instead, it was Adean who was faced with nightmare fuel, both in situation and the entity she was met with.

The cheerful voice was a jarring juxtaposition, fitting more the creature's face than the body. The confusion spurred on by her question was further propagated by the addition of a second voice, the other more obviously humanoid individual joined them. While Adean had been stunned to silence, her mind now raced for something to say as the sphere of blood rose from the ground. "I was getting ready to take some cuttings and one of the more sentient plants startled me," she started, gesturing both to the sheers and some leaves that looked ready to be pruned. She made a point to gesture in the opposite direction of where the other acolyte was being stowed, doing her best not to gawk at the sight of a plant all but slurping a limb into its being, fortunately (hopefully) to be seen only from her vantage point.

"I meant to find a first aid kit and then one thing lead to another and, well, I slipped." And hopefully, the slip would make her blood and the other acolyte's mix well enough to pass as just one humanoid for the time. Enough time to slip away and never visit this academy again, hopefully. "Apologies, I'll get this cleaned up."

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

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"A student looking to commit some extracurricular studying, perhaps,"

"If that is the case, I applaud you. To find one so young committed to her studies..." Callidus extended her hand out to the side, and some of the blood pooling on the floor rose up, forming a small, spinning sphere above a single outstretched finger.

A'Mia's face tilted strangely to the side, registering the use of sanguimancy by Darth Callidus with keen interest. She silently approved of the display of power, and also made some mental notes about the woman's tone- her use of disarming reassurance. The strange neti catalogued that information for a later date, storing it away in the vast mental database she'd gradually collected about social cues and interactions. It occured to her too, that the expiditious form she'd used to reach the student might be considered unsettling.

The Sith Shadow altered her form slowly as she listened to the nervous student, becoming humanoid and bipedal once more. Those strange green-blue eyes seemed to look through Adean Castor or into her as if looking at how her soul worked. There was a pregnant pause as the neti straightened up and considered her net words.

"You appear to be a first year, yes? And can you explain which cuttings starled you so badly that you've gored yourself like this? We will certainly not be wasting your blood, child. Rest assured."

​

 

[Darth Callidus]

Location: Korriban | Korriban Academy
Tags: Madrona A’Mia Adean Castor

Callidus tilted her head to the side slightly, eyes looking the acolyte over once more. She noted the injury in her leg, making a tisking noise as she harnessed the Force to increase the temperature of the blood orb, the sphere evaporating as Callidus took a step towards the young woman. “There is no need for you to stand there injured,” Callidus said, a warm and caring smile on her face.

With a flick of her wrist, Sith Lightning began to dance between her fingers, cascading and arcing from one long, manicured nail to the next as she extended a single finger towards the wound. Callidus looked a Madrona, a single eyebrow raised. “If you would, allow me to fix this, no need to let it keep leaking everywhere. You blood will be useful, but no need to waste too much.”