Private The Coiling Lash

[Kirie]

THE COILING LASH
or, The Silencing of Kirie Corsell
Jutrand

​

Kirie was tired to her bones. The past several weeks she had been essentially bedridden, struck down by some severe flu-like malady. There had been some confusion, as her body refused to respond to treatment, and she merely writhed in feverish pain, barely concious. Then, there had come a theory, that the blood she had so foolishly consumed those months ago on Echnos, which had granted her such strength, was now making her body pay it back. An equal exchange, as Kirie was beginning to realise all such things were. At first she had feared she would die from it, but gradually the severity of the pain lessened, until she was able to sit up again, and then eat, and then slowly amble around the Varanin residence. Today, she finally felt strong enough to go outside. No longer pained, but with a lingering weariness, like she had no more strength left to give.

At least it was a nice day for her first excursion back out of the house. The sun was shining but the morning air was crisp and cold, reddening her cheeks and getting her blood pumping, and her breath fogged as she walked, painfully slowly, towards the Academy gates. Kirie didn't expect to make it all the way there today- she felt much too weak still, but she was well enough that being locked inside the house another day was enough to drive her insane.

Kirie suspected, and hoped, that once the weakness that plagued her eased, that she would be relatively back to normal, freed from the problems her increased strength and senses had caused her, not least the debacle that was her training with Kaila. If she had to suffer through some pain and discomfort to return somewhat to her old self, that was fine by her.

She made it about halfway to the academy before she tapped out, muscles burning lungs acheing despite the leisurely pace of her stroll. Kirie leaned against an exterior fence off the road and fished her communicator out of her pocket, still panting, fiddling the dials until she'd navigated to Quinn Varanin 's personal device.

<"Made it half way!!!"> Kirie typed out.
<"Taking 5 then walking back.">

The comm made an uncooperative noise, and Kirie frowned down at it. Strange, her message had failed to send. She tried again, and the same thing happened. Kirie shrugged and started home.

Kirie hadn't made it far before she stepped. Not because she was tired, but because she felt a uncomfortable shifting in her gut, like she was being watched.

Then, three things happened in quick succession.

First, something large and dark passed over her head, glinting before it blotted out the sun. Next, almost at the same time, Kirie heard a heavy metallic scrape against the flagstones behind her. Something large, approaching. Then, before she could react to either the shape or the sound, her left arm suddenly clenched with a familiar yet unbearable agony emanating from the worst place she could imagine: the spot where her brand had been cut out.

The pain grew and grew without abating. Frantically, Kirie ripped off her overshirt, tossing it aside, leaving her in a black singlet. She stared at her arm, struggling to focus through the streaming eyes. Despite the blur it was unmistakeable. The spot where Kaila had cut out her brand, where Quinn had healed so that it was just smooth skin, it was burning.

No. No no no this couldn't be happening to her again she was supposed to be free. There was supposed to be a truce!

But it was happening, and she wasn't free, not really. The searing pain was fading to a pulsing ache that flared with each beat of her heart. Steam rose from her forearm, swirling around the familar marking, raised and red, that somehow once again marred her flesh.

The brand of the Kainate.

Lirka Ka​

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka watched. She was always looming in the darkness, hateful eyes that watched the eb and flow of the Galaxy to the best of her ability. Eyes that looked to the future, it was a shame that poor Kirie had become the object of her attentions this go around. Plans within plans, schemes within schemes, and boundless, petty cruelty blanketing it all.

Such a large place Jutrand was, so many miserable souls packed into the prime dominion of the Sith. So easy for someone to simply...fall through the cracks. With but a few mechanisms added to her "Second Skin", Lirka had become a walking blackout zone. These were dark dealings, foul things done in the shadows where prying eyes could not watch them. A moment to be shared between herself, a slave, and the poor unfortunate Pawns dancing to Lirka's tune.

Lirka's form, a goliath rising from the stone from which she had appeared, glistened with malign cruelty. Yet, she was not alone. A meager handful of figures scuttled from the shadows behind her, poor souls of pale skin, sunken eyes, and a gaze as distant as it was vacant. Just another piece in the puzzle of what was to come. By all metrics, Lirka could have done this cleanly, legally, spouted some tirade to the Minister and her yokels and whipped up a story for the poor Princess when she came looking. But Lirka did not like doing things legally, nor did she have any intent of involving her in what was to come.

The brand. Lirka knew it well, plenty a slave had been marred by it under her command - for a moment she had pondered if this girl, the one-who-got-away, had been one of her catches. It mattered little, in the end. All that mattered was that it was there, and that it would be the snare by which Lirka would trap this little fly. Lirka cared little for incantations and sorceries, for such things were the domain of the Sith - yet the results were undeniably efficient. Glowing lenses studied Kirie's form, once, twice, and Lirka couldn't help but frown under her mask.

"The Sith's obsession with such...meager...pets. Truly a mystery."

The words hummed out to no one in particular. Yet, soon her eyes fell upon Kirie's Brand, and for a moment ever so brief did Lirka pause, and simmered. She should have felt some sort of empathy, to see the brand not unlike her own emblazoned upon a slave. To understand the girl's paralyzing agony and spare her from the torment. But Lirka Ka felt empathy for none. All it did was remind her of her own shackles - and the necessity of what she was doing.

"Get her on the move."

Mechanized clacks followed the word, and the Once-Sephi's ghastly entourage were on the move. Quickly, a bag was placed over the girl's head and boney fingers grasped onto flesh to get the stricken woman on the move - shielded by Lirka's hulking shadow and the billowing cloaks of her fellows. They were on the move, and fast. Metal clanked against Jutrand's ground. And soon Kirie would be graced by a needle's prick, a poison to lull the senses, and to herald the girl into the embrace of unconsciousness.

Lirka had work to do. And her work was done far, far away, in distant places metallic and cold. An operating room, a scientist's lab where the only embrace was the coldness of sterile, chemical air. Where no eyes would watch but the two of them, where Lirka would show them all just what she was truly capable of.

 

[Kirie]

The hard surface of the street beneath her was ice cold, leaching the heat which radiated from her body from the burns on her arm. Kirie cradled the injured arm, screwing her eyes shut as the shadow of her assailant fell upon her. A voice rang out, metallic and hard, low and merciless, the timbre of a slaver. She didn't recognise the voice, but it didn't matter, she understood why the monster was here.

"The Sith's obsession with such...meager...pets. Truly a mystery."

Kirie's blood turned to icewater. Clarity broke through her paralysing fear and she knew she had to act, had to redeem herself for not putting up enough of a fight the first time. If Kirie couldn't get away now, she wasn't sure if she'd get another chance. Her muscles tensed and she slowly got her feet back under her body.

"Get her on the move."

"I'm not coming with you." said Kirie, defiant. She stood, head swimming, and turned, breaking into a hopeless, stumbling run. There were whoops and jeers behind her as she hobbled away. The house was so close. If she still had her strength maybe she could have made it back before being caught. As it stood, she had no chance.

A foot planted on the small of her back sent Kirie tumbling down, smacking her face on the paving stones. Kirie moaned in pain and struggled to rise. What else could she do? She was out of options and they knew it, the Kainites were just playing with her now.

The circlet! Oh if only she had thought of that earlier. Kirie rolled over and scrabbled frantically at one of her pants pockets, retrieving a delicate gold band a little wider than the span of her hand. Stars, she didn't even really know how to use it. She just had to try as hard as she could and hope it worked.

Kirie held the circlet against her skull as her assailants pressed in on her. She screwed her eyes shut and concentrated as hard as she could, holding the forms of Quinn Varanin and Kaila Irons in her mind. 'Help!' she screamed internally. 'The Kainites- I can't get away. I am-' Kirie felt the sharp prick of a needle in her arm, breaking her concentration. Kirie immediately felt woozy, and her grip on the circlet loosen. It clattered to the ground and was promptly crushed by a Kainite minion. Kirie wondered if the message had got out. It hadn't felt like anything had happened.

Darkness bubbled up from the floor and dripped from the sky, pooling at the edges of her vision. Her consciousness was fading fast.

"You won't... Get.. Away- With this." Kirie slurred, but she was already slipping into the Kainate leader's waiting arms, finally lost to the world around her. For now, she would have to face whatever waited for her on the other side of that darkness alone.

Lirka Ka​

 

[Lirka Ka]

That brief spark of defiance, so quickly crushed. Lirka respected it, really. Even from something as...lowly as Kirie the Once-Sephi respected the boldness of any who defied the powers around them. It was a shame it would matter little in the end. Defiance was but another test of Primordial Dark - a test that was to be met with force, and this girl had woefully failed it. Yet, carefully did Lirka watch her prey's movements.

Always studying, she was. Always noting, always thinking. It was a brazen move, what she did today. She had only the inklings of information she so craved, but that would change. She would be certain of it. A spark of fear, ever so brief as Kirie brought out her quickly-destroyed bauble. Lirka had no idea its meaning, but she knew the Sith and their peons had plenty of little trinkets of power. The time-table had been rushed. Yet, she had no intent of sharing these kernels of fear in her hearts. Instead she met Kirie's defiance with a cold, humming, amusement.

"Oh, but you will, slave. And I will most certainly will."

Lirka had allowed herself to get sloppy one too many times in the last cycles. Not again. She would tether herself, and in her tether she would do the dark deeds required to cement the path. It was humorous in a way, such a little wayward piece of Kainate property would be her catalyst. The Galaxy worked in such odd ways.

In the black embrace of unconsciousness, they moved and they moved fast. Tracks were covered, backchannels were taken, and Lirka's blackout masked their departure from the various surveillance systems that permeated Sith space like a plague. When consciousness returned, it would be in a place distant, foreign, a rumbling place that was perhaps a starship? Struck with the harsh white lights of a hastily constructed lab, some room converted for Lirka's foul endeavors today.

And of course, before Kirie's eyes there would be Lirka. Setting her gleaming helmet aside on a table: she'd offer the girl that meager respect, she would suffer, but she would suffer face-to-face with the monster. Eye to eye with the great oddity that was Lirka Ka, whose skin was a sickly pale-pink of a dead Sephi, eyes dyed in unnatural colors, and a voice that met her awakening prisoner with a nearly unnerving casualness: as if she hadn't just kidnapped the poor girl off the street.

"Welcome to the world of the waking...Kirie was it?"

Turning from her helmet, Lirka took heavy metal footfalls as she approached. Some stone in her hand on which she sharpened her metal claws to scalpels, racks of tools around the pair - objects of such irrationally cruel design that almost certainly couldn't have been for anything but torment. Yet all stood secondary to the ominous tube that sat alone in its holding container - the liquid inside murky and black, whatever laid within indiscernible. Real pieces of work, these Kainites are.

Soon, Lirka loomed before her in entirety once again. Seemingly utterly unconcerned with the foulness she was partaking in today.

 

[Kirie]

Kirie rose into consciousness like a diver surfacing from the depth. She hurtled from the darkness into the light of waking, the sensation as if only a blink of time has past since the needle had sunk into her flesh, driving the sedative into her veins. But she was no longer on Jutrand. She could sense that from the thrum of machinery, or was it an engine? A ship? Wherever she was, Kirie knew in her gut that her home was a faraway memory. She was in the realm of cold and metal now.

Struggling to tame the rising panic in her chest. Kirie forced herself to look around and take stock of her surroundings. She was strapped to a table in some kind of lab or operating room. Bright lights were shining on her, making it hard to identify anything in the corners of the room, but there appeared to be a door, a shelf full of equipment, and something large and hulking. A figure, observing her silently.

"Welcome to the world of the waking...Kirie was it?"

All of a sudden her mouth tasted like ash. The monster stepped into the light and Kirie froze. Her head was craned at an odd angle trying to keep the figure in view. She couldn't help but start trembling. She had been captured by the Kainates before, of course, but it had been a simple affair. She was assessed as fit for work, branded, and shipped to a camp. This was different. She wondered if she would go the way of the unidentifiable lumps of flesh floating in a tank of fluid on the far wall. Some freakish experiment, or remnants of the last person to end up on this table?

Kirie was able to get a better look at her jailor when she drew closer, placing her helmet on the table by her immobilised legs. She was awful. Pink stitched-together skin, grey eyes, dull and pitiless, like those of a dead thing. Over her head, Kirie's eyes found the cruel implements of torture, the black tube, stark against the bland grey and brown of the rest of the room.

"I-" Kirie croaked. Her voice was hoarse. She must have been unconscious for hours on end, maybe longer. "I think there has been a mistake." said Kirie. "I'm not just a slave." said Kirie, unable to keep the tinge of desperation from her voice. "I am protected. But, if you bring me back, we can smooth everything over okay? No harm done."

Kirie knew in her heart, just from looking at the beast, that there was no hope that she would let her go. She had to try. She had to do everything she could to get away, to get back to Quinn, and Kaila, and her life.

Even if she knew it was hopeless, she had to try.

Lirka Ka ​

 

[Lirka Ka]

In a way it was odd, Lirka felt more at home here in this little makeshift lab than she ever really had in the proper Imperial dominion. Here in this place of great torment Lirka Ka found herself finally with some modicum of peace in her wretched hearts. To poor Kirie home was a distant thing, yet to Lirka it was closer than it had ever been before. It sedated some of Lirka's own panic, it was a bold move what she did today. The possibilities for failure were many, such was the danger of uncharted territory.

Lirka's looming form still studied the girl with some curiosity. Kirie may have felt the brand before, the Kainate's touch upon her flesh as she was cast off into the workpits. But Lirka Ka was no Kainite, not truly. Lirka danced in the shadowy places of the Galaxy. A scuttling thing following whatever dark ambitions worked their way into her warped mind this go-around. Kainites served Carnifex ultimately. Lirka Ka served only herself and her own sadism at the end of it all.

Lirka's eyes locked onto the girl's, unblinking. A smirk had grown at the edge of her lips, a horrible, cruel thing. When she spoke, it was with the same uncaring casualness as before.

"Oh, this is certainly no mistake."

Lirka stopped her leering, moving over to one of the trays of tools though still continuing to speak. Clawing fingers tracing over all of the cruel instruments laid before her - things of such bizarre design their true purposes all but alien. Though they all most certainly would be dreadfully painful.

"With the Ministry of Order at my fingertips. I am aware you are a favored pet, I am aware you fall under the Princess's domain. And I am aware that through technicality you are more than "just" a slave: though I rebuke such a thing."

She turned to face Kirie once more. In her hand, another chemical concoction.

"A slave must earn their freedom. It is simply the way of the Endless Struggle - you have not earned your freedom, not to me. So, in my generosity I give you the chance to be free: from a certain point of view."

With slow, deliberate footfalls, Lirka approached once again. It didn't take a genius to tell just how much she was enjoying this whole thing. Though, she dangled this newest bout of chemicals in front of the girl's face: to some minor extent, a test.

"Pain-Killers. If you so desire them. I am not needlessly cruel after all."

Oh how Lirka Ka loved to lie.