Strike Back

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

His arms slowly looped around her. "Yes."

He breathed across her skin as he leaned down to kiss her neck. There was a shake to his fingers as he grasped her, his fingers pressing against her pink skin and digging in there for just a few moments as he held her on her toes. His lips pressed against her skin again.

"Power." It was easy to admit. "He was the greatest of us."

Vitiate.

"He alone achieved the Immortality we so crave." It went without saying that Vrak wanted that very power. He wanted immortality, he wanted the strength to stand above anyone and everything. The Pureblood was a typecast of his species.

Yet he felt no shame for it.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

So that is what he wants...

Sera looked past Vrak for a breath, looking towards the wall in thought before green eyes wandered their way back to his focus.

"Why crave something like never ending life? When everything else around you withers and dies, what good is it to watch it unfold?"

Granted she didn't want to die, but knowing that everything else would, the idea of living a life after the passage of an entire galaxy of people had been ridden of, that was a bleak outlook that she wasn't quite sure she was interested in. Perhaps Vrak would see it differently though. Perhaps he thought if he lived forever he would inevitably be able to rule unopposed due to that immortality.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

"Time." He said quietly, almost as if in sadness.

There was something about him that changed in that moment. His grip tightened on her just a little bit, his eyes wandered over her form. Vrak became seemingly more genuine, a certain amount of truth entering his voice, unlike the amusement that usually came when he told of his plans.

"Time is the great enemy." He kissed her neck again. "Everything I build now."

He told her. "Everything I create, everything I learn. All of it will be undone by my death."

Vrak scowled.

"I have no legacy." He told her simply. "Not without life."

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

The woman's feet settled back to the floor and she drew slightly away from him. For some reason she felt an odd sort of resentment. Whether that was because she knew she would not live forever and that he would somehow bothered her, or that she found his reasoning flawed she couldn't be entirely certain. It just didn't feel right, the whole idea of it. It broke the laws of nature.

Maybe she was in some ways spiteful that his legacy didn't take her into account.

Not that she cared of course.

"So you plan to live as the reminder to the galaxy of who you are, and what you've done?"

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

He paused for a second. He could sense the slight shift in her emotions, hear the tone in her voice carry a bit of...not enmity, but perhaps jealousy? He frowned for a few seconds and considered her, wondering if perhaps Seraphina saw herself as something more than a simple assassin and toy in his future.

"I plan to live." Vrak began. "Because it is the only thing I know how to do."

That was really the truth of it. Vrak didn't want to die. Perhaps because he was afraid, perhaps because he simply wanted to, but in the end it didn't really matter. Vrak wanted immortality to preserve what he was, his knowledge, his skill, his power. Everything he had learned and everything he was. The Pureblood didn't want to see that lost.

"I do not welcome death." He told her quietly.

His fingers wrapped around her, drawing her back towards him. "I fear it."

It was, perhaps, the first time Seraphina would glimpse a true moment of vulnerability from him.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

"And yet, none who discovered the way to cheat death have ever succeeded."

She let those words linger as she slowly removed the protective garments over her arms and legs, as well as her chest. The items were delicately set atop one another on the table. When she turned again back to Vrak, she has dressed in nothing more than a simple fitted shirt and pants that had been beneath the protective armor.

The feeling she got from this conversation bothered her for some reason, one of which she could hardly pinpoint the cause of.

"You're wasting your time searching for something that will only see you to your death. Everyone has a time."

Hers could have been much sooner, had Vrak ever decided to follow through with detonating the explosive in her back, all that time ago.

"Yours, like mine, will come too, regardless of what you find in that ancient library."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

For a second he considered her words. There were few people that could make him second guess himself, on this matter even fewer. His father had called him a fool, his words ringing much like Seraphina's. Death was death, it came for everyone sooner or later. Even Purebloods who could sustain themselves for centuries off the Darkside of the force had an end. It was better to simply accept it than to run away from it for the rest of your days.

Like every fear, Death had to be faced.

His fingers tightened on her again, his eyes locking on her. There was a slight bit of hesitation to him, though his voice did not tremble in the slightest. Vrak did not show doubt, but there was something else to him, consideration and weight. "Then what would you have me do?"

He questioned her.

It was truly the first time he had asked her opinion. Usually she just gave it without thought anyway, but this was something else.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

Sera paused, her harsh green eyes looking to him for several seconds in silence. Twice she shifted her gaze away, though both times returned. She wasn't sure what to answer, or how to answer. He would live longer than she regardless. She knew that well. Her life was far more certain than his. Unlike Vrak and other Pureblooded Sith, she could not sustain her life on the Force itself. It was not something her species was capable of. Perhaps that was a reason for the way she acted, or maybe it was something more difficult to explain.

There was a strange feeling as she looked at him, one that she couldn't explain.

The Twi'lek leaned forward, one hand on his chest, and pressed her lips against his, a deep breath drawing him in, teeth tugging at his lip as she wrestled him briefly. In between the series of caresses she spoke, pulling him by the collar over her as she fell back. "Live." She whispered quietly. "For now." Another deep breath followed. "For as long as you can." She became more and more engaged with him after each spat of words. "Until death claims the both of us."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

The offer was an enticing one.

Vrak had never considered another path for himself. He had never thought of life as a thing worth living, he had thought it as a simple avenue for his ascension. The Pureblood had sought power for the sake of power, he had sought knowledge and strength, he had sought immortality. That had always been his intent, it had always been his goal. Ever since he had first picked up a singular bound book penned by Vitiate himself, since he had read the Dark Lord's words.

Now?

Now for the first time he felt doubt. Not in himself, but in the path that he had chosen. As Seraphina pulled him down and pressed herself against him he couldn't help but go along with her. His hands sprawled and soared over her skin, slipping beneath the cloth that still adorned her body. He freed her of them, his lips sinking against her bright pink skin as he simply took her in.

"Live." He repeated the word a second before his teeth sunk into her neck, his hands pinning her. "Is that what you want?"

There was no mocking in his tone, no amusement, no irony, his rhetorical question coming with nothing but consideration.

He gave her no response, no definitive answer, he only leaned down and kissed her. The same tender, almost soft kiss as before, as if seeking her, wanting more of her.