The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

[Aver Brand]

“That’s a fething long time,” Aver nodded sagely, eyes fixed on the black taint taking the sky by force. The looming gray clouds were spreading like a bloodstain around a slit jugular, bound to the will of the young Sith.

“For just one name, I mean.” Scratching her nose in thought, the merc eyed her unlikely companion. “What were you called before?”

“And what’s,” she waved a hand at the rumbling firmament, “that all about?”

 

[Quietus]

I've had many titles since - Pillar, Beastia, Master, Ereza, Lanurein, Captain...

but not Darth. Never Darth. This, one of the few things she agreed upon with the rest of her bloodkin. Darth was beneath them.

Quietus may not be my real name, but it is the name the galaxy knew me by. The one that holds claim to all my achievements and history. My real name is inconsequential, the only people it had any meaning for have been gone for centuries.

She looked at Aver through the gale, water dripping from braids and lashes, cool upon her skin, Would it mean something to you to know it?

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver ran a hand through her wet hair and said nothing for a while. With closed eyes she enjoyed the steady beat of raindrops on her face, soaking her shirt, her jeans, her bones.

“Maybe,” she spoke at length, face scrunched up. “Names are... skins. For me.” Angling her body towards Quietus, the merc caught her gaze again.

“Aver Brand is a suit, just like Vrag was. It’s whatever I need to wear to get ahead.” It felt odd, phrasing aloud the thoughts she’d only ever shared with one other being. Brows furrowed, the woman took a step back from Quietus and reached out to her surroundings with the Force. Slowly, she drew it inside her, feeling out the fabric of the dreamscape the blonde had crafted.

Her dripping clothing was replaced by the Behemoth at the snap of her fingers. She tipped her Vong-clad skull to the side, then snapped them again. Hunter. Snap. Gambler. Snap. Gang runner.

SNAP

Ygdris Val.

“Depends… does your name mean anything to you?”

 

[Quietus]

She blinked through the storm, feeling the winds begin to die and the skies grow darker still. Time in the dreamscape moved forward to long, dark nights following the Cleansing of the Wilds. She watched Aver change faces by the light of torches, mentally moved by the display of control the woman called upon. It often took others much longer to learn that they could effect change here in ways not possible in the living realm. Aver was a quick learner, this she already knew.

...does your name mean anything to you?

Now it was her turn to wax introspective. Green eyes fell at the question, lingering on the cobble of stone beneath their feet. Did her name mean anything to her? There was but one person that used it anymore; Merovign. He, a far closer practitioner of the Shamalain dynasty culture, knew the purported weight of her name. Her eldest son, Solaeil, knew it as well but he'd never called her by it. Others knew it. Her grandchildren did, Amorella had, too. None of them used it and she supposed she gave them the impression that she'd rather they didn't. Not so - she'd simply rather they use the name that meant something. Held some sort of significance. But it wasn't a secret, not really. Not as though it needed protecting. It wasn't her blood name, after all.

Not in a very long time, she admitted, not since the last of those people passed on, turning to look back out at a horizon scorched of life. There was a time, shortly after the Gulag had died off, that Onderon had been nothing more than a landscape of charred forest skeletons. Quietus leaned her elbows on the stone wall, chin cradled in a palm as she considered her words.

But it could mean something again, all things considered.

Green eyes glanced back at Aver, presently Ygdris Val, the faint traces of an easy smile somewhere in her expression, Desdemona.

 

[Aver Brand]

Even as Quietus pondered the question, Ygdris pondered the wasteland stretching from here to horizon. It was an alien sight on Onderon, a planet ordinarily full of life to bursting. Her cold gaze flickered from scorched trees to wide swaths of blackened grasslands; destruction as far as the eye could see.

“You did this,” she spoke, lacking the inflection of a question. The scene she’d seen before – the storm, the sizzle of Force in the air – it had given birth to this dead panorama. Perhaps the vista would’ve shaken her more if she herself hadn’t turned other worlds to dust and ash, wielding fire and fleets as her weapon of choice.

The firrerreo hummed, holding the piercing green gaze. A shadow of a smile, then, before she offered the blonde a calloused hand.

“Ygdris.”

With a thank you still stuck in her throat, the mercenary tugged her closer.

“What would you like it to mean, Desdemona?”

 

[Quietus]

Ygdris.

Quietus took the hand and gave Aver a strange look. Wasn't that...?

But the Merc tugged her forward, unseating the train of thought for something else. Another question that required deeper thought. It was a struggle to form an answer at first. How does one quantify their names? What meaning did she place in a name that had gone unused for so long? Then she thought she knew - it wasn't necessarily what meaning it held for itself, but what meaning it held between them. The woman's brow tightened as she looked upwards at her companion, an answer at the forefront of her mind.

She held on to it for a moment longer, lips thinning in consideration for what she would say and what she knew, absolutely, would be the response.

Friend, Des offered finally to Ygdris, an ultimately earnest answer that held greater meaning for both of them than likely either knew. She gave the other woman's hand a squeeze to infer that she meant what she said while simultaneously raising her other hand to Aver's mouth and clamping it shut, her own eyes closing to brace against the remark she felt welling up within the Firrerreo.

Just ... be quiet for once. Please.

 

[Aver Brand]

It was there, immediately, at the tip of her tongue.

But so was Desdemona. With calm green eyes, and rough, strong hands, and fire-born warmth inside her skull. Familiar.

There wasn’t much give to it – never would be, not if she lived to see a thousand years – but she dipped her chin just a fraction. Exhaled. Ran her thumb across tanned knuckles in a gesture she couldn’t (wouldn’t) name.

Ygdris relented.

She didn’t say what Quietus rightfully expected her to say.

She didn’t say that please reminded her of (scraping armor sweat blood fangs tearing flesh moans wetness) worlds at stake on the shoulders of predators who knew a different sort of hunger.

She even resisted drawing a tempting finger into her mouth.

“I... don’t know how to be… a friend.”

She did say that. And perhaps, for the first time, it was what it was – the truth.

 

[Quietus]

The honesty was appreciated more than Qui was capable of saying.

I'm a bit out of practice myself, but...

Her hand dropped from the woman's mouth and slowly settled upon her sternum, fingers lingering over the clavicle where in the waking realm she knew to be the lines of her bloodtrail. Here in the dreamsphere she couldn't tell for the clothing if it was there or not.

...there's a certain amount of trust that goes with it.

Among other things, she kept to herself for knowing that Aver was hard pressed to not take a lead-in twice in a row. Once was difficult enough. A smirk appeared, fleetingly, Quietus dropped that hand from the woman's front to clasp on top of the two gripped between them, And yes, I did this. Her gaze rolled back to the scene of desolation, hands loosing themselve's from Aver's grasp if the Merc was so inclined to let go.

After the Gulag ran its course I collected what survivors remained. The immune. I brought them here, cleared the dead from the streets of Iziz and threw them to the wilds where we left the sick and dying. And then I burned everything. Nobody knew if the virus would linger or come back. There was no cure, no certainty of anything but death. I took no chances.

A beat, a slow breath, the Beastia nodded to herself as if silently reaffirming it had been the right decision.

I stayed only long enough afterwards to ensure the planet had begun to heal, then I left.

 

[Aver Brand]

Getting over herself long enough to say those words had been… demanding.

But also freeing, though why or how eluded her still.

Content to maintain her silence a while longer, Aver allowed Desdemona to move away, introducing some welcome distance between them. She took in a deep breath of the dead air, rubbing absently along the three black streaks across her chest.

Torching the plague seemed like a sensible decision. Not that Aver would have cared enough to bother saving others – she’d just feth off and let natural selection do its thing.

“So. Do you frak all your friends, or is that just me?”

There was comfort in the racy remark, like rebooting a personal shield after getting zapped with an ion blast.

 

[Quietus]

She retook her position leaning hunched over the wall, elbows supporting her, the whole of the dead valley presented to her view. This wasn't a place or time she'd ever revisited in her own induced dreamwalking and it struck her as odd that she would do it now. Quietus wasn't really sure why she'd chose to show Aver this moment, she supposed it was due to the woman's curiosity about the Gulag and her hair. The two subjects could not be more disunited.

It was peaceful, and for a moment she thought maybe Aver had succumbed to the sincerity. But then she opened her mouth and removed all doubt. No such luck.

A grin split across her face, fully bearing serrated pearls and brimming with humor. Quietus shook her head and the beads in her braids gently clacked together in response.

No, Aver might be able to feel the sensation of the smile in the telepathic response without ever needing to see it on her face, I don't make a habit of that. Takes far too much socializing.

A beat, a breath, her shoulders shifted, she looked back at the Merc, Are you ready to wake up?

 

[Aver Brand]

Laughter snapped the last threads of tension, and Aver felt her shoulders relax. Icy eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment of respite, an exhale escaping her chest with the release. If her nod seemed overly eager, well… she didn’t really care at this point.

The Queen and the mercenary had reached an understanding. It wasn’t what she’d expected coming here, but perhaps that was part of why she’d come at all – to experience the unpredictable.

So many of her daily patterns were repetitive and transparent. Not to the common man, but Aver had been embroiled in one conflict or another for the better part of two decades. Excitement faded from many of those everyday engagements, prompting her to seek it elsewhere.

And she’d found it, true enough – in the most curious of places.

“So how’s this waking up thing work?” she asked as she joined Quietus at the lip of the tower.

 

[Quietus]

There was something to be said for the Merc's laugh - the sort that didn't exude malicious intent was rare. Quietus enjoyed the sensation of it, compounded by the fact that it was technically all happening within her own mind. The empathic energies were easy enough to read and her companion's sense of relief was something she could almost taste on her voice.

Another breath, deep this time, followed by a nod. Yes, this was a good a time as any to call the session to an end. Straightening from her spot she moved to join Aver at the precipice of the tower where she stood at her back, leaning in to express a warm breath across the back of the woman's neck.

It's simple enough,

Quietus stood up on her tip-toes to nuzzle against the back of Aver's head and then just as the wind died down she spoke, verbally, in the woman's ear.

"you have to die."

Two hands pressed against Aver's back and shoved the woman bodily from the tower. A flash of golden hair signaled the Beastia joining her fall moments later.

 

[Aver Brand]

Getting the drop on a cybernetically-enhanced Force user with two decades of battlefield experience was… an impressive feat. But Quietus was nothing if not impressive.

First, her voice. Her actual voice, a low, lilting purr in her ear.

Then, empty air.

Feth.

Twisting with a half-scowl on her lips, Aver turned around to stare daggers at the Beastia.

“So much for trust between friends, huh?” she yelled as the wind howled past them, ruffling blonde and red hair alike. Her skin prickled at the cold, her gut was in her throat, her heart was racing – but her face split into a wide grin.

No rush quite like crashing against jagged rocks and waking up to a faceful of royal bosom.

 

[Quietus]

The last thing Aver would hear in the dreamsphere was the ringing laughter of the Beastia, who grinned broadly and fully back at the woman as they plummeted to their deaths.


~~~~

The pair awoke to the fire still crackling nearby. Night had fully settled in over Scarside ridge and with it came the chill of the twilight hours. A lingering aroma of dinner remained within the tent, the mint-spice of her still-burning Sten mingling in from where it lay on the dirt floor near the stones rimming the firepit.

Green eyes peeled open to stare up at the overhang of the tent where shadows played within firelight. Quietus could feel her heart still hammering in her chest, the pinch of adrenaline still coursing through her veins, and the weight of the Mercenary upon her. She felt the bubbling vestiges of her laugh somewhere in her lungs and it split that same grin across her face as her ribs shuddered with the silent chuckling.

She'd not awaken from the Dreamsphere in that way in quite some time. Usually it was more quiet, less abrupt and messy. Sometimes the death came upon her on its own as drugs wore off or outside sources roused her from the spell. Either way, the look on Aver's face had been relatively priceless. Quietus reached up to rub at her eyes and then at the dried blood on her face while the Merc came-to on her own.

 

[Aver Brand]

The first thing she noticed was how warm it was. Fire was crackling nearby, its flames banishing the chill of the storm. And then there was the steady heat of the compact body beneath her own.

Aver yawned and smacked her li— blood?

Propping herself up by the elbows, the woman licked off the rest of the iron, quirking a brow. “‘D you get a bit hungry there?” she ventured, lips ticking up into a slow smile.

She was in no rush to move. As if having Quietus below her wasn’t enough incentive to stay, there was also the enticing matter of breasts, and their entirely incidental, but nonetheless completely welcome proximity to her hungry mouth.

Icy mischief twinkled in those lidded eyes as Aver leaned forward…

and planted her shit-eating grin into the noble cleavage.

 

[Quietus]

Eh?

The mute's silent chuckling paused briefly at the question. Hungry?

No, the spell requires blood t-

Uuffff - expressed through her lips as Aver planted her face in her chest with a thump, knocking the air out of her lungs. The silent chuckling murmurs and smile returned.

Don't suffocate in there. I can't wake you up from that.

 

[Aver Brand]

"Oh, be quiet for once, Quietus," came a muffled voice from the bosom.

A pause, a moment of consideration, then: "Do all your spells require blood? I'm sensing a pattern here."

The abandoned levity of their current situation was a welcome counterweight to the long strides she'd taken out of he comfort zone in the Dreamsphere. This was... familiar. But also different, because none of her other lovers were quite so equal to Aver in this respect.

She parted her lips and ventured with an indulgent tongue against salty skin.

 

[Quietus]

Smirk. What snark from the woman. First she was cryptic and now this. Really, the Merc needed to make up her mind.

Quietus let her head roll back, eyes staring at the ceiling of red cloth before closing to mull over the day's events. A strange day for certain, but a welcome break from routine. The Beastia found, as her fingers crawled up into Aver's hair, that she would not mind more days like this. Especially now that her children were entering an age where independence was a thing.

No, she messaged firmly at Aver's scalp, just the ones I use on you.

 

[Aver Brand]

Ugh. If Aver even noticed she'd abandoned the effort of speech for thought, she was too tired to really give a shet. You're horrible.

Her breathing began to even out as the firrerreo arranged herself into a more comfortable position, still very much on top of the shorter woman.

A bit more to the left... mm. Lower... yeah. That does it. Warmth suffused her languid limbs, hot against the lips she pressed to a steady heartbeat before settling in for the night.

 

[Quietus]

The fire slowly died, its crackling flames fading into the songs of nighttime. Beasts baying in the distance as cool nights gave way to hunting hours for those that hid from the wretched sun. Far away the songs of tribes echoed through the mountains as they, too, took advantage of the cool hours in the dark beneath the moon. Insects chirruped and buzzed, a faint breeze found its way through the tent flaps. Aver eventually rolled away for the rising warmth between bodies. Quietus stirred only once to douse the braziers within, kill the last flames of the firepit, and open the top covering of the tent.

She returned to her spot by Aver, forgoing her normal sleeping area for the comfort of the social room to sleep beneath the view of the stars peeking in through plumes of escaping smoke.

A soundless sleep. A dreamless one. The same as it had always been for a rather long time. Those nights filled with the void of endless nothing were what initially drove the woman to train in Dreamwalking. She missed revisiting old memories, and given the fact that most everything of her past was gone save for the memories themselves ... well, it was one of the only ways to acknowledge all she'd lost over the years.

~~~

A handful of hours was all she ever really slept, and so she awoke some time before the sun would rise. A quiet hand to Aver's shoulder, should the Merc stir as well, impressed a notion of calm without any further words. There was no need for the other woman to wake and she could, so far as Quietus was concerned, enjoy her comfort and rest for as long as she liked. She left, briefly, to retrieve fresh water and foods for her guest. Upon her return she silently settled down on the pad towards Aver's feet, electing to spend some time attending to the wild braided locks of her hair. Namely; pulling the braids and their adornments free.