We Put the Grr in Guerrilla Warfare

[Aver Brand]

The Nest couldn’t give less of a shet that she was back, though. Reminded her firmly why they’d chosen this place to live instead of the spit-sheen neighborhoods of the Stardome. Those were too much like the sterile white of hospitals, where you knew there was blood and disease clawing at the thick coating of bleach and paint. Aver was no stranger to façades and lies, but in this, at least, she would rather stay true to herself.

Besides, it was such a Force-damned hassle to clean blood from white walls.

The door rattled a bit as it slid open. She made a mental note to throw another credit chip the janitor’s way. Wouldn’t want the building to come down around their ears, as fun as it sounded like. Skipping the third and sixteenth step – they made awful noise – the merc slithered up the landing like a Ralltiir tiger through high grass. The last surviving neon light in the corridor flickered with the erratic rhythm of a dying heart, filling the dead silence of the night with annoying cracks and hisses.

It also covered her approach.

As she sidled up to the door, Aver glanced down at the takeaway bag in her hand. The food was still steaming, enticing smells of meat and spicy goulash teasing her senses. Her mouth watered.

She didn’t knock. She just stepped in, quiet as the night. The pop of gunshots echoed along the reinforced glass, muffled and distant. As if she’d sank underwater, looking at everything from the great below.

Smiling, the firrerreo stopped at the lip of the bed. Basked in the view, one of the few which could still make her stop and stare. It was the only time he seemed at peace. Sleeping.

Alas, they had work to do.

“Honey,” she spoke, gravel under the heel of a phrik boot. “I’m home.”

[member="Loray Tares"] | [member="Roger Kranos"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

He was having the worst dream.

A world covered in snow. Not unlike the world he once felt a cursed longing, the feeling of cold between the toes. Sitting in the tavern, down the street from the local medical supplies depot, and old man rocked. He held in one hand a picture of his wife and his children and their children. The sort of picture one takes at the annual family reunion. In the other, he held a glass of whiskey that reflected the flicker of the fire contained within a charred stone fireplace. Everyone passed him, knew him, and gave him a warm greeting and pat on the shoulder. An old gaze, tired and depleted, starred out from the war torn face of a man that bore scars of the life lived by a warrior. But he was never a warrior, he was the old man who was born in this place. Lived in this place. And would soon die in this place. Nothing to every denote his existence at all...except for the offspring he bore in those cold Arkanian nights.

No. He heard the word echo through his dream as the old man looked up towards the ceiling, searching for the origin of that voice of God. This isn't right. A realization of a forsaken place, Loray struggled against his own dream. He tried to force the man up, to walk into the fire and roll in it. To break the glass of the frame, to introduce a robber who would kill the old man. Put him out of his misery. But for all his attempts, the man simply sat with a smile and rocked back and forth. The creak of the floor beneath him, the sound of the fire and its warmth, the way the frame was textured beneath his thumbs - always rubbing. It was surreal, lucid, and horrifying. And as the barkeep approached the man, Loray did everything he could to break free from this hell.

"What would you like with your caf, Gabe?"
"Oh, you're too kind. I'll take cream and honey."

He rose from the bed, first remaining laying with a propped up hand. Chest heaving from the rampant distress of the dream, he blinked steadily as he looked upon the woman. Awe, frightened awe, painted his face as he wondered what madness conjured such a dream of end without them. He would curse the gods and every realm he could for such an end - one of happiness and ease. This wasn't a pill he could swallow, nor would he ever have to, but the disturbed lingering tones of the dream clung to him. And he couldn't shake it.

Yanking what bare sheets covered him away, he stood without thought towards clothing or modesty. They were far beyond that. He had gone to sleep knowing she would return, feeling the heat of her presence crawl down the small of his back, but seeing her now - he couldn't be more relieved. Two steps was all that was needed to have her in his hands, cradling her chin between propped up palms. His fingers curled around her neck, his thumbs beneath her chin. He had to know she was real, he had to search her complexion for all the wear and tear he knew existed across this canvas. A tired red eye narrowed as he leaned forward, nuzzling her collar bone.

"You smell of war...and death...and pain." He spoke casually into the dark, lit with the vibrant ice of her eyes and the ambient glow of the street lamps - clamoring through the narrow body length window. They had work to do, he recalled her intermission in his dream. He took in the smell of her natural tones, all mixed with the noise of sweat and warfare, before recalling the work they did, indeed, need to do. Taking in a long exaggerated breath of her, he pulled away without hinting at the notion of letting go. "I looked for you back on Coruscant."

And he had failed to find her. He couldn't recall the effort he had put in, drunk on the agony and misery he had brought to the fortress. It was distracting, intoxicating, and the whole incident was blurry to him now. A moment of pleasure, recalled for the pleasure and not what had birthed it. "Where did you go?" Happiness turned into mild curiosity expressed through the eye, wondering where she received treatment, if any. He could feel the soreness in her, reverberating through his own presence, and the wounds lingered on the air like the pressure imprint on flesh. Here for now but soon to be gone and forgotten.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Less than a breath after the words had left her lips, Loray was pressed against her. No, not pressed; clinging. His fingers were clutching at the edges of her plates as he nuzzled into the nook of her neck. His heart drummed against her phrik armor, loud and powerful in the silence wrapped around them like a protective cocoon.

‘Are you okay?’ wasn’t a question that felt very comfortable in Aver’s vocabulary. While it was staple for nearly every sentient out there, the merc never had a need for it. The people she’d been running with during all walks of her life were never okay. Asking was redundant.

Even so, the query itched at the back of her throat. There was a desperate quality to their embrace, and Aver didn’t like desperation. It unsettled her stomach in the same way spoiled meat did.

“Part of Centax… collapsed on me,” she said after a small pause. The words felt bitter on her tongue; an admission of failure. Sour. “Some Jedi Healer took care of it.” Not exactly some, but I can’t tell you yet. It feels too new and too sore and I’m not sure. You’ll know when it’s time. You’ll know.

She held his gaze a moment after the unspoken petered out, then placed a soft kiss on his forehead.

“Dinner’s on the table. I brought Annajan,” Aver said with a blossoming smile. His preferred cuisine was quickly growing on her. Rich with meats, spice, and exotic vegetables, the diet was practically ideal for people in their line of work.

“Anyway. Shower.” She tilted her head in the direction of the bathroom and carefully extracted herself from his arms. Battle sweat was all fine and well, but she couldn’t wait to wash off the grime of that lousy transport.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

And just like that, she slipped from his fingers, leaving steaming food in her wake. She smelled of blood and metal oil and it only made sense to wash these things away. Like a wall, scrubbed clean, before applying another coat. And as she stepped away, he felt the welcoming cold once more and the lingering notions of disinterest. The food didn't call to him. Not that he wasn't hungry, he just wasn't sure one way or another.

The flicker of a lamp hanging from an apartment complex across the distance, that interested him.

The way the canopy over the new flower shop was ruffled at the corner, that interested him.

The way the beggar, standing just out the shop, dropped a cup of change and cavity filled teeth, that interested him.

The food provided no allure as he approached the window, placing a hand against the glass. Dropping the limb to the side, he spotted that man and his beard, standing beneath the ruffled canopy. As he turned away, Loray stepped back and out of the light, merging back into the shadow of the room. Sitting down on the bed, he breathed in quietly and continued through the moment of introspection.

How the dreams of Gabe had cut into him, he had always assumed that it was a one way door. It was his gift to give to the man, not the other way around. The feeling sat with him, like the shadow of the adjacent building against the bed. Just within arms length, far beyond understanding. And the fear would quickly turn into hateful reminder of the failure to remove that individual from this plane of existence.

A Jedi Healer...He dropped the subject as soon as he thought the words. He assumed it was a moment of manipulation but the feeling imbued in the thoughts felt far more foreign than that.

Flexing his hand open and closed, he lifted his head. "Kranos is on Point Nadir."

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Maybe it wasn’t just the people-filth clinging to her flesh beneath the armor.

It was also (maybe) the reminder of Avalore Eden, burn in Nether (sticking to her skin like napalm, scorching just the same). The weight of closure that pressed down on her shoulders since Coruscant. The Force-damned piece of shet ugly feeling crawling in her gut, like she was about to throw up from one too many shots of piss-poor prison grog.

Gnashing her teeth, Aver fled into the cool air of the bathroom. Space. Space was good (not the between-the-stars kind. she hated that kind). The door hissed closed with a click, and she leaned back, face to the dark ceiling.

There was an immediacy to her flight that she loathed. (but not hated. she’s never hated anything. (except space)) Sweat beaded on her forehead and escaped down the sharp bridge of her nose (she’d stopped counting the breaks at twenty), then smeared over her lips. Through worrying teeth, the salt bled into her mouth, tingling all across her tongue.

Frak, she thought, and maybe it was the most articulate thing for a while.

When she stepped out of the cabin, all the heat and grime and sweat were gone. Her silver skin painted her in deathly whites against the black tile of the room. drip drip drip she went over the floor, and for once it wasn’t blood.

Almost made her smile. Almost.

Because once the sharp bite of an ice-cold shower faded, the dread pooled in her stomach again. Lips peeled back across her teeth as she sneered at her reflection. Strong arms braced against the sink, spine arching with a fury that was hers and hers alone. Scars danced with each flex of muscle, tighter and tighter, until her back was nothing but a distorted mesh of lines and burn-shine. Blue eyes glared wide open at the horned Baphomet grinning back at her in the mirror.

Maybe there was a crash of broken glass before Aver emerged.

Maybe there was a streak of red across her knuckles.

Maybe. A lot of that going around lately. Frak.

She wiped her blood and unease into her thigh before snapping on a pair of boxers. By the time she reached Loray and the table, Aver (maybe) looked much like always.

“Yeah?” She met his gaze, then followed it out the window. Saw the corner shop, the dance of a cigarette tip in the dark. Frowned.

“We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

A chair scraped across the floor and then she was tearing into the fat ribeye. The rich sauce dripped down her fingers, hot and spicy and burning the broken skin. Aver fed her hunger, and the gravy slowly mingled with her blood.

Just like everything else.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

Everything about her was wrong. The feel of her presence, the way she moved away from him, the way that feeling in her gut transferred into some form on unease. Neither sick nor well, simply unwell. Perhaps this was where like minded and well adjusted individuals would commiserate in their woes, discussing the issues and finding comfort in soft words and discussion. But there was nothing he could tell her to ease the absence of synchronicity, even if he would have known what ailed her. He would have dived deeper. Starting at the small of her back, crawling up each vertebrae, though every outward extending rib, through every bone, through the blood and the marrow. Like a current running over a transformer pole, he would ascend the internal flesh of her spirit, reaching the neck and mind to determine the origins of such malign indifference.

An autopsy on display with the sternum cracked, the organs exposed, he would investigate and find the cause that shifted balance. Because he couldn't discern the origin of his own ailments, he would happily find hers and resolve it. But as he watched her sit down, sit at the table and stare back at him, he understood that that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted quiet. Not quiet in the sphere of each others presence, but the quiet that came from deep within. And it was something he could understand. Nevertheless, the desire to discover what caused her malady would not go unnoticed. He was anything but modest with his intentions as his crimson eye searched her, form and figure and gaze.

Outwardly, all was right, as Mercernaries sat at a table in solitude, attempting to dull the ache of oddity with consumption. He hadn't been hungry but somewhere between her going for a shower and coming back, he had found a plate in front of him. Steaming hot, doused in spices, and lingering - the sort of heat to start small and end big, numbing the back of the tongue and causing a lesser man to sweat.

He blinked slowly as he diverted his attention from her, spurning more carnal desires for the touch silver skin and handfuls of red hair, as he admired the lamp lights and their inconsistent flicker.

"I believe our mission can be considered complete. I have the regalia of the commanding officer for proof." He narrowed his eye. "I brought the ship back. If you'd like to take a look, it's sitting in dock with the rest of our things."

He was never worried about her because he could always feel her, like a feint hue of light as a skyscraper blocks the view of the sun. No direct connection but always the feeling, the sense. The strength of the presence, slowly growing with every lightyear of her travel back to him. Or perhaps just back to Point Nadir. He picked at the food, now in her presence, and he couldn't stifle his curiosity.

Ygdris...what really happened?

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

She hadn’t known how much she’d missed real food until the moment the spice hit her tongue. Pleasure bloomed outward from that point of contact as she tore into the bloody flesh with sharp teeth. The steak disappeared down her gullet in seconds, and she was left sucking on the syrupy marrow.

The spoils of war they had amassed over the years had long surpassed her willingness to count. Be they credits or material goods, Aver had never cared for them much beyond their practical use. The stealth ship of the Alliance would serve them well for some job or the other, and that was the extent of its relevance to the mercenary.

She hummed in noncommittal agreement.

It was then that Loray edged closer, blotting out the light from the outside.

Her teeth ground through the bone, leaving pale splinters in her mouth. She spat them out on the plate and stared hard, as if they were at fault. The appetite she’d felt before was gone in an instant, along with the warm buzz of a contented belly.

“I’m not sentimental,” she spoke at the table, boring holes into the plain metal surface. “Not a fan of the past, either.”

The chair felt too tight for her skin, and so she sprung from it, pacing over to the windowed wall. Her icy eyes found the figure of the drug dealer in the treacherous darkness of Nadir, his twitchy hands and his fourth cigarette.

“If I have to deal with it, I kill it and make into something better.” As if to underline the anger in her voice, a distant gunshot rang out across the neighborhood. Several more followed in a tight staccato, then strangled cries, then silence.

“Not… this frakking shet.” A growl crawled from her chest, low and cold. “The Jedi who patched me up was…” She laughed a dry, humorless chuckle that felt as alien as the ache in her chest.

As her gaze refocused on the reflection of her icy eyes in the window, Aver could swear she saw the shadow of a skull grinning behind her.

“She healed the one person that destroyed her life.”



[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

A slow hum escaped him, the sort of pause and long draw that might supplant understanding with callous judgment. But who was he to judge, an occupation long ago thrown into the stamping molten flames. The words she spoke through thin vermilion lips and the stories told through wavering glances of ice chips, they stood at odds. And it was as transparent as film, the way this untold scenario wore away at her. As if, somewhere along the way, they may have obtained a nuanced form of conscience.

Uncertainty showed through in feint glimmers of his expression, contemplating whether he could understand such a thing. He had brought a residual weariness back with him, a heavy burden unintentionally torn from the sands of the netherworld. But he couldn't discern whether a haggard resolve to move forward, a lackadaisical approach to his mission in life, would necessarily ever translate to anything more than that.

"The Jedi Healer lived...yet her life was destroyed." It didn't make sense to him. There was life and there was death, they but inhabiting the passing eternities that stood between such finite events. Admittedly, he could piece together the exchange in some fashion. Aver had, in the past, committed some act that might have imperiled this Jedi Healer. But he stood looking awkwardly at the frame of a puzzle, absent the pieces within. Standing with a long drawn out breath, he casually pushed his chair back against the table, deigning to forgo continued consumption.

Scratching at the shifting phantom of the carbuncle on his palm, he leaned against the table with crossed arms. The faintest glow of a crimson eye looked back at her through the glass, against the silhouette of Nadir staring back. That was the truest persona, the presence that would eternally judge.

"This torment, this struggle...does it weaken or embolden you?"

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

She rose her hand, half-ready to draw circles on the tinted glass, but changed her mind midway up. It fell back to her side, limp and lifeless.

Like my frakking mind.

Her lips curled back over the sharp points of her teeth, and her skull grinned back at her in the window.

“I don’t know,” she grunted, chest filled near to bursting. “I don’t know!”

Aver whirled on [member="Loray Tares"], fists clenched so tight they were white. “It’s— it’s driving me frakking crazy!” Like a caged beast, the mercenary began pacing around the lightless room, grinding a circle into the floor with the weight of her step.

“I spent the whole frakking flight here thinking about it. Ha! The whole frakking flight!” Her red hair swirled like blood in the water as she shook her head. “I have no frakking idea where this shet came from. I didn’t want it, and I sure as Nether didn’t ask for the frakking thing!”

Her heels clicked together as she came to an abrupt stop, breast heaving. Quiet, then:

“I hate it.”

An exhale.

“So… I guess both. I hate hating, so I’m angry that I hate… and anger is, well…” she laughed, spreading her arms to encompass all of Nadir.

Everything.

 

[Loray Tares]

A hand lifted from crossed arms, pressing the cup of his palm against this mouth. Not to silence his words or muffle his breath. Just a simple gesture of thought, watching her pace loudly and frantically. It was a rare moment for him to be more collected than her, a rare thing indeed. Anger and hate were the fuel for his disposition, the quiet menacing beast lurking beneath the still waters. But for those who could sense it, they could often see through the deception.

It would be a lie to say he didn't feed off this energy, this animosity. Standing as nothing but flesh and skin, he was immersed in her anger and anxiety. A dog lapping at the waves of a lake, rapidly turning over to supply more. He could fill himself now, to the very brim, and bake beneath the comfort of it. But for a moment that passed by, he wondered if it truly was hate that fueled him. In many ways, the agony he brought upon others was more gift than curse. Seconds twisted in eons, torment bestowed upon every stretched out fiber of time, filling every nook and cranny. He didn't truly hate, not in the traditional sense. But he relished in the hate of others, which put him at the cross roads between helping Aver and enjoying the presence of her infliction.

He wasn't a selfish person, not when it came to her and her. He found a higher purpose and pleasure in subservience, even if he made them fight tooth and nail for the upper hand. There was something to be said of the challenge, lay waste to the surrounding for the spur of the moment interaction. But for these moment, he felt alien and removed. And the realization sent a shiver down his spine.

Bare feet padded towards the red head. Pressing a hand against the small of her back, the other wrapped around her outstretched arm with fingers curling around the corded muscles of her forearm. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he let out a long breath. "If you are so angry, why don't we do something about?" His crimson eye shifted from the frustration of her expression to the arches of a building across Nadir. "I hear a new small gang is peppering the station with disruptions. We could give them a visit, teach them the way of Nadir..." He turned his head over, pressing his cheek against her left shoulder. "We could find a look alike for this Jedi Healer...put to rest these feelings. Or we could revisit the real thing."

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

“Yeah,” she snorted and let her head fall against his. “Why don’t we?”

--

Aver had forgotten what it was like to break a man’s skull against a wall.

She’d forgotten how it felt when the hot blood from a slit carotid sprayed across her face.

How sticky fat could be, and how it stank like all Nether when it burned.

She yanked her hand out of that skull. She removed her blaster from the gang runner’s chest. Shliiiiick the body slid off the hot metal and down to the floor. It flopped aside, leaving another piece of colorful Nadir street art on the concrete behind it.

This was good. This was simple.

Nobody would mourn these frakkers. Of course, nobody would mourn the deaths of Brand and Tares either. If anything, thousands of souls all across the galaxy would rejoice. They would laugh, wouldn’t they? Celebrate, even, they would—

She punched clean through a trandoshan’s gut. Eyes bulging, he writhed like a fish on a hook until she reached up and snapped his neck.

Feth.

Death raged all around her. Its fury, so familiar, was now an alien breath on her neck. Feet so used to the step still followed the rhythm of the dance, the sway of the melody.

But her head, her damned head… it wasn’t in it.

To the outside observer, her movements would seem methodical as ever. Every attack an efficient marriage of strength and momentum, every decision the result of lifelong training and experience. She slithered through the gaps of the battle, reduced to nothing but elegant brutality. Each moment between one death and the next was all predator.

Should be. Should be.

No matter how hard she hit, how many times she squeezed the trigger, how deep she shoved the blade.

“What the FRAK is wrong with me?!”

The bleeding rodian wrestling with her iron grip didn’t answer, though he did squeeze out an incredulous wheeze before coughing out his last breath. She dropped his corpse as if burned, stumbling backward.

“Feth feth feth feth!”

She could scream herself hoarse, but what was the point? The copper and salt in her mouth would taste the same, only she’d sound like she’d just gone through five packs of cigarettes in as many minutes.

Out of sheer petulant anger, Aver kicked his head in for good measure. Objectively she knew that fighting while frustrated was the best recipe to end up in the ditch with the rest of them, but, well…

Aver was angry.

[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

He stepped on something soft. Before putting his full weight forward, powered by armor and mechanics, he was sure the man was made of bone and flesh. But beneath his force, he was diminished to nothing more than a skin suit filled with broken teeth and splintered bones and ruptured organs. Blood came forward from that last cough as he looked forward, feeling nothing but indifference for the next notch on his belt that laid seeping on the ground. In this state, beneath this armor and through the whispering urge of an immutable soul saber, he was an oppressive force. Physically, mentally, and spirituality. Even as he pushed forward, he felt the fire of defiance die within the eyes of his next victim.

They would fight, as they had always done. But it felt entirely without spirit. While he had escaped the field of blades and only further invigorated his instability, caught in the twilight between apathy and cruelty, he felt oddly caught on the strings of some invisible master. Instinct, boredom, and a city filled with easy targets: his bloodlust grew and faltered all the same.

He followed her through the carnage, the one left behind to finish off those that weren't caught in her vicious grasp. But even then, it felt like simple momentum with passion removed. How they had fought, when they first came to Nadir, felt worlds apart from this. His leg came forward, the flat of his foot catching the chest of an armored brute. With one simple exertion, the mans legs were in the air and he was nothing more than a stain beneath the boot of a former tyrant. The floor even gave way, tiling dented or cracked beneath the attack.

He looked up, stepping forward as three came from behind. A bar of durasteel cracked against his armor, sending Loray to one knee. Another, much larger Trandoshan, stuck the barrel of a rifle against his side and opened fire. The simple inertia sent Loray tumbling through a stack of tables, all falling over in one spectacular topple. As soon as he hit the ground, he was rolling over and unleashing the typically masked presence of his aura.

Ribbons of red and ribbons of black, seeping out from his pores.

Lifting a broken pipe from the ground, his power imbued through the entirety of it. The rifleman held down the trigger, each shot returned back with the invigorated adhoc weapon. Within an instant, he was in front of them. Two slumped over, riddled with the whirlwind of bullets that were returned to sender. Standing before the rifle wielder, still firing into Lorays now exposed chest, Loray brought the pipe down. And down. And down again.

He felt another attacker move against him, hitting him across the back. Unphased by the strike, he continued to beat the rifleman. A living thing crumpled before him, blood spattering helmet and walls, and turning sinew into pulp. Grunts of anger escaped the groaning metal as his new assailant backed away, following a hard stab of a metal spike through the back of Lorays armor.

"What...what are you?!?"

No words escaped the former Sith Lord. Fromafar, his continued attack against the man, who was long dead, could be symbolized by the bowing and swaying movement of that metal spike in his back. A flag, barren of insignia, signalling his ravenous intent.

He was mad. Not at himself or at this gang. He was mad at Aver. For allowing herself to be impacted by some pathetic being on a planet that didn't matter. He could see it in every step, in every punch and every vulgar expression. He wanted this Jedi Healer dead, he wanted her presence wiped from the universe. Wrapping both hands around the pipe, he stood unrelenting as he smashed the body. Until there was nothing left. And even then, that notion wouldn't stop him.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver was the one who replied, without ever uttering a single syllable.

She whirled on the spot amidst the pools of blood, the splintered plastic, the bent metal. Her left arm was taut, extended, as if pulled forward by an invisible chain.

But it was Loray’s attacker that found himself yanked from equilibrium, twisting and flipping through the air like a ragdoll. His body was wrenched, torqued, and finally subjected to pressure that rivalled the ocean depths. And, much like there, the frail bag of flesh and bone could not withstand it.

He landed a few paces in front of her, sliding up to her boots with the pace and slick trail of a snail. A crumpled vessel, no longer fit to contain the contents that were spilling around her in an irregular halo.

The quiet that had taken over so rapidly after the unholy ruckus of death was not lost on her. She simply chose to enjoy it a while longer, counting the strikes of metal against duracrete with minute dips of her chin. [member="Loray Tares"], like her, was efficient and meticulous in his violence.

He was also insane.

Biting back a sigh, Aver let her steel-still arm fall to her side. She unfurled her fists in careful mechanical increments, then righted a table that had miraculously survived the carnage. With a careless sweep she brushed off the worst of the debris and leaned back on the stained surface.

“Stop…” she gestured at the smear he was beating with the rusty pipe. “Stop, Rev. You’re being a frakking child about this.”

Was he?

“I’m not… ugh.” Another instance in a worryingly repeating pattern, her palm found her forehead. Visor. Whatever.

“I’m not gonna… change, frak. You’re acting like I’m gonna frak off to join the frakking Jedi or something. Shet—”

The crack of a blaster interrupted her articulate speech. Aver stumbled back, bracing her shifting weight against the wobbly table. The scorch mark was only visible by the heat still licking at its edges, black on black.

The mercenary only had eyes for the shooter, though.

Didn’t say anything to his confused face as he squeezed the trigger again. She just moved aside, flowing through the destruction with purposeful strides. Every shot was deafening, and every shot missed. His fingers were trembling now, feet probing the space behind him for a quick escape route.

He got the right idea, too late.

She disarmed him with such ease it almost seemed gentle.

What followed was anything but, because then she dropped his weapon and reached forward and spread his ribs with her fingers like a blossoming flower and he screamed, only not for very long and not very loud at all. The crackle of splintering bone and tearing pleura filled her ears in a visceral symphony, lungs and heart filled her palms. She ripped organ after organ from his gaping chest, until nothing but skin sagged on muscles sagged on bones.

Holding him at arms’ length, Aver Brand regarded the pitiful remains of a creature. She regarded the rictus frozen on his face, replacing each line and feature with the soft and the feminine. Instead of a black military buzzcut, brown hair was sweat-stuck to his skull. Lips full, nose quirked.

Eyes… dead.

He dropped to the floor with a sickening squelch, a human-suit folding in on itself.

“I’m still me.”

 

[Loray Tares]

The black pipe was slippery now, a motley of crusty and tacky red residue. He huffed and heaved, despite her assurances that she wasn't a different person. Frustration, it seemed, went both ways. And despite the fact that he hadn't said a word, she knew very well the issue that bothered him.

When he was satisfied that the ground and trandoshan were so finely meshed as to make difficult where one ended the other began, he lifted himself from a knelt position. Looking forward, it appeared that she had taken to another combatant. With another sigh, he tossed the bar across the ground. Sliding and spinning with the slippery coat, slick with blood, it came to a stop with an elongated trail behind him.

“Stop, Rev. You’re being a frakking child about this.”

Sometimes, he felt like a child. Wonderment and profound epiphany, revelations filling his view with every fresh encounter or enticement. Sometimes, he felt as if everything was the new experience he hoped it would be. Those were the rare instances when passion overtook him, where the moment became something worth extending and savoring to the full. This was not one of those instances.

“I’m not gonna… change, frak. You’re acting like I’m gonna frak off to join the frakking Jedi or something. Shet—”

He reached down to his abdomen, fingers titillating a sharp edge pushing between his plates of armor. Reaching behind him, he coiled the voxyn fingers around the shaft of a long metal object. "A spear...in this day and age?" He let out a grunt as he twisted hard and yanked, freeing it from the small of his back. He wasn't sure if it pierced any organs but it seemed like a precarious spot to get injured, nonetheless. Turning, he let out another growl as the man stood behind him. Not smart enough to run, it seemed.

His free hand pressed against the wound, feeling that vibrant expression of pain as fingers rummaged about in opened flesh. Pivoting, the spear lashed out to slash the man from cheek to cheek. As the inertia spun him, Loray stepped forward and pushed the spear through the small of the attackers back. Piercing the wall, he twisted, pinning the man in place. To the sounds of screaming, he merely lifted a finger to his visor and abruptly hushed the combatant. Stepping forward, he grabbed the man by the back of the head and smacked him into the wall. His knees buckled and the weight of gravity stretched the wound, causing him to yelp and catch himself.

"Stay quiet...you might live longer." Hopefully he would stay quiet. Loray enjoyed the precipitation of fear and pain amidst all the action. The concept of hope only sweetened the deal. Stepping heavily on his right foot, approaching a limp, he looked towards Aver to the subtle chorus of the man crying in the background.

“I’m still me.”

"Prove it." Narrowed vision and clenched teeth, he breathed in heavily for the aching wound. "Tell me who this Jedi is. Tell me what you did to her. I wont go searching for it." His frustration in her change in resolve spurred undying curiosity. The sort that would only be sated with a form of conversation that they were always quick to avoid.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver snorted.

“Prove it? Prove it?” Still staring at the wretched remains of a corpse before her, the merc pried her fingers from their clenched fists. “The frak do I need to prove to you, Rev?”

Twisting to face him, Aver left a trail of slick red bootprints as she strode back through the destruction. Swift as a lightning strike she pressed flush against him, armor to armor, chin to chin. The intimacy of combat felt as natural as breathing after all these years. But with Him, with [member="Loray Tares"], it was more than that. It wasn’t just two well-oiled cogs spinning in perfect sync; they were one and the same, a singular machine that could tear apart anything and anyone, so long as it set its mind to it.

And therein lay the crux of the problem.

The frakking mind.

Aver half-laughed, half-growled at his face, slamming a bracing hand against his chest. She didn’t push him away, didn’t hook her fingers and yank him closer either; just kept that treasured stripe of distance, of balance.

That was what she needed. What they needed.

Equilibrium.

“I don’t— shet— the frakking Jedi doesn’t even matter, yeah?” With a dull thud, she let her head fall on his shoulder. “Could’ve been frakking anyone. I don’t know. It’s dumb, I don’t really care for any of it. It’s just… there?”

If you took away the armor and the blood and the corpses, it’d almost look like two people comforting each other. Almost.

“It’s nothing. It should be nothing. Ugh.”
“I just— I didn’t do anything to her. Not personally.”

“Remember that coward Jedi I caught during the war? Must be, shet, fifteen years now? Twenty?” Aver frowned as she scoured her memory, but the years of bloodshed had all ran together by now – just one long, red era of constant conflict. “Anyway, back then. I was… I don’t even know what I was thinking. Young, you know. And high on the victories, and on greed, so I…” she shrugged, letting out a noncommittal grunt, “hurt him.”

She pushed off then, cocking her head as she tapped the side of her visor. “Broke him down and put him back together the way I thought was better.”

“But what the frak did I know?”

Aver snorted.

 

[Loray Tares]

“The frak do I need to prove to you, Rev?”

He would have responded if not for her intent to apparently charge him. But it lacked the force he expected. Where he recalled slipping and sliding across blood stricken floors, bodies entangled in eternal struggle, he instead found teetering balance as she splashed against him. Rivers of red scouring a sandy coast. Instead he was content to listen to her, to be there quietly and hear what she had to say. These moments were so few and far between that even in the midst of his mania, he could appreciate the intimacy. For those that looked towards them, they might have envisioned dogs prepared to scrap over pieces of meat lying on the ground. And that might have been exactly what it was, if not for it being entirely different.

Instincts almost always claimed him. And from the way the armor seemed to contain him, the way the field of blades had muffled the rage, he was stricken by these moments where soft and tender expression might have made sense. They had been through a lot, more than most could state in tandem with such a well defined duo. Except for when she was there, a trifecta. So what came next might have been a surprise or at the very least, a cutting knife through the tension of their interaction.

He lifted his hand, pressing tar tinted fingers against the nape of her neck. In other circumstances, his hand might have gripped strips of hair and yanked, consumed by these vexing and awe inspiring moments of passion. But the passion landed towards something quite different. Understanding.

“Remember that coward Jedi in caught during the war? Must be, shet, fifteen years now? Twenty?”
“Anyway, back then. I was… I don’t even know what I was thinking. Young, you know. And high on the victories, and on greed, so I…”

She might have pulled away if not for the grip he held tight against her. A body that would have fixed to her, would have engulfed her, were it equipped to do so. She had regret and, for the brevity of these moments where the soul saber deigned to not speak or utter madness, he did too. There was a horizon that he had long passed, irreconcilable in the sins committed and the damage he had done. But that did not prevent a hesitant expression, the occasional look over his shoulder as he wondered what might have been.

"We have hurt so many, haven't we?" He stated, quietly, as his hand withdrew from her neck to draw a thin line across the jaw of her helmet. Of course, there were so few that he recalled in wonder and resentment towards himself. Only recently had his mission trended somewhere between purpose and burden, often favoring the latter. His thoughts moved towards the children of the man whom he should have known as brother. Who was his brother. And how the wife of his brother drew last breath beneath his cold and dead hands. He wasn't often quick to discuss these matters with Aver or Matsu. The realization that he was now a father, himself, only further strengthened these doubts within himself. And these thoughts, these memories, were now free for both women to pluck from his mind.

The removal of his cursed twin only further weakened his ability against mental infiltration, a thing he had once taken for granted. "What were we to do? We are monsters, prone to baser instincts." Was he referring to this Jedi or to his nephews? "They are the foundation for which we have built everything."

The bloodthirst he so often embodied was replaced, even dismissed, for nothing more than business. This killing, mutilation and suffering, had abruptly become a transaction in the background of her suffering. This wasn't the pain for which he longed. It was deeper, more long standing and far more apt to change. And he wasn't sure he was happy about that, about the notion of things being different.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0wK6s-6cbo


She laughed, a loud and cracked sound. For a breathless moment she thought it was all she had to say to his questions, his truths, his… accusations.

Aver closed her eyes. Her grip on his armor strengthened. If it weren’t phrik, her fingers would’ve left a lasting imprint upon the metal. And that, she thought, could be said for a great many things in the galaxy. If only they had been phrik, they would have survived this storm which had once called herself Vrag and now walked the worlds as Aver. Before that, other names, other faces, other jobs to keep her hands busy.

Each iteration was supposed to be better. Stronger, faster, smarter. That was the idea, methodical dissection. Nothing was sacred in her merciless pursuit of refined purpose. Self-destruction by any other name, Yigdris had sacrificed everything she’d ever had on the altar of evolution. Principles, ideals, body. Ever an unstoppable force and no single immovable object in the whole wide universe.
She could do anything.

“I know.”

She did. She could.

“But should we?”

Aver laughed again, voice lilting with mirth. “Frak! Look at me!”

She shook her head and let it drop against his shoulder. It was easy to lean on Loray. They shared height, and many other things besides. She was always there, always a part of them both, but it was… different. The two of them were one side of the coin, split into a jagged mess. Matsu was the other, deep and dark and utterly unfathomable unless a part of you existed inside her.

They had never subsisted by anyone else’s rules. The reality they forged was their own, often as lawless as the wild grins they bore. Their veins ran molten and red, their hearts throbbing and bleeding to the rattling rhythm of a gun.

As she considered this, Aver looked around. The cooling corpses, mauled and broken beyond the hope of recognition. The ruins of what was once a diner, beloved by some and forgotten by a thousand others. The cold black armor removing them from the rest of the world: a barrier not to keep others out, but to hold them in.

She believed in change. In improvement.

“Rev,” she said, cupping the metal of his cheek. A loving gesture – lovely, if not for the blood drying on her fingers and his face. “Whatever we are… whatever we become… we are ourselves.”

And they did not build. Creation was a rare gift left to gentler hearts or, indeed, those who had hearts at all. But even that was a pointless miracle if you let it wither and die.

Nature was not stagnant. Nature did not stand still. Civilization, however, often did. Species evolved so far out of the primordial muck they had forgotten what had gotten them there in the first place. Seated upon their lofty thrones, the sophisticated called it ‘destruction’.

“Revolution.”

The natural selection of the civilized sentient.


[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

What were they, if not forces of nature, themselves? From the microbial ooze that predates all the mystics and magics and formations of civilization, life crawled from a spark in the nights sky. And from the spark, upon barren land, the universe was filled with the wind-carried ember of creation. Eternities passed as they spent their time growing and becoming the things they are now. Species across the universe pepper the cosmos with their impact, worlds and geographic formations bend to the will of time. Canyons form beneath the force of a thousand rivers, oceans shrink and swell with the cycling of weather, and stars die when there is nothing left to burn. And all these things, from the toad that dies in the shrinking puddle to the civilization that lives in glory and prosperity, share a common thread.

They are fragile things.

Fragile things beneath the hands of Gods. That such time could pass in creation and with the simple flick of a wrist, they could have it forever removed from the annals of time - the truth of their status was undeniable, even if measured against the fate of ants. They conquered Manaan, they brushed the forces of Kashyyyk aside, they all but destroyed Selvaris. Worlds, once, were allowed to live or die based on the whims of a few. And they still did - by their leanings towards indifference and their interest in one another and Nadir.

Why would he look for pain and destruction upon the surface of dying worlds when he could have it beneath her pale fingers or her unending gaze? No matter where he went, whatever place he took to, her knew where he could live forever. Because the eternity of his existence would last forever, until they decided otherwise. And then it would be the abrupt silence for which longed.

It wasn't that they changed or that they were different. He wasn't sure if it was revolution or evolution, though it did feel set upon a cycle. The sweet whispering of the blade crept and seeped in, filling the cracks left by the field of blades. Aver kept him in place, as did Matsu, but he couldn't deny a certain calling beyond their voices. Something far deep below, not entirely burned away by the fires of conquest. Aver had her regrets, ephemeral as they might have been, and Rev Loray did too.

"I have always looked at you..." Not one to miss a moment to touch on the literal, he could recall many memories with her presence. Dating back to war and the way a certain shaped crab fit just right, he held certain memories more fondly than others. But all were held, nonetheless. "I would have you as you...nothing more."

His hand moved from her cheek to the hand, pressing against the metal of his cheek. Taking her hand in his, the fingers formed around hers to retain it in place. "What would you have of me?"

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tja6_h4lT6A​

​

​

“I will always change, Rev,” she said, leaning her forehead against his.

We all do.

Her lives had taught her many things – her lives, and her lovers. Ygdris had always been a transient force. A hurricane, raw and unbridled, that passed through and left naught but destruction.

(Soil upheaved, ripe for new people, new crops, new… everything. Death and renewal ever walk hand-in-hand.)

To the bearer of the storm, lessons never came easy, and always came late. After worlds had been broken and erased, lies unveiled and illusions shorn like the first mist of morning. Vrag died. Aver lived. If she’d had any regrets over the burdens of times past, they had bled away with the last man in the room. Not… quashed. Not excised, nor banished.

Met with – eye to eye – and deemed useless.

Because I have to – want to.

When words had ceased leaving her lips, she did not know. After their many years together, the bond came swift and easy, without even a shred of conscious thought. Her honesty was complete, here. She could not be anything but she.

Glacier eyes opened with a curl of a smile at the corners – first wrinkles gently denting the skin.

“I would have you,” Aver replied, quietly. Simply.

“You leave me often,” she murmured against the cold metal of the helmet, tracing her fingers to his temple.

...where do you go?

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

Despite how Vrag was gone now, Reverance still existed. The soulsaber had ensured that, the whispering of a thousand souls was enough to rekindle the insanity that had exploded into solar flares on the surface of Selvaris. But within the metal of the suit, within the arms of a firrerreo, the noise was stifled. She could conform him to purpose, even marrying it to his mania, such as the moments that preceded these on Coruscant.

Change is constant, just as we are.

He didn't release her hand from his grip. If anything, he held it with a certain firmness. Any uncertainty or discrepancy that might have existed between them, it would have been amplified. But there was only silence when the question was begged, of where he went.

How could he know, if he was leaving himself as well?

"Where I go...I do not know. But I would take you with me, if that is what you want."

His other hand slithered up from her hips, clicking at the clamps that sealed his helmet to the armor. With a wheeze of air, the helmet lifted from his head and dropped to the ground in a thump. The individual he had left, living, had departed long ago amidst this deep conversation. Crimson eye searched out the ice chips that searched him back.

You are my anchor. I am adrift without you.

[member="Aver Brand"]​