We Put the Grr in Guerrilla Warfare

[Aver Brand]

“I’d like that,” she responded, a light smile to her lips. This unnatural calm found them both… willing, for once, to follow the tranquil melody instead of the war drums. For Aver it wasn’t so difficult, but she knew him like she knew herself – knew what effort it took to achieve such clarity.

Thus she smiled, and met his gaze with steady glacier eyes.

Change? Yes.
Abrupt? Never.

I’d like to see the Field of Blades with you. Walk between the stars… with you both.

They were the two edges of the same razor-sharp blade, a near-perfect balance to each other. One took what the other gave, willingly, sapping blood with boundless joy. And yet… it would destroy the sword, such rampant abuse – it would, if not for the precise point between them. Right in the middle, neither and both at the same time. Their state of rest, of equilibrium that runs through the strong and the weak of the sword, and never breaks.

Aver ran a thumb over the edges of the scar mottling his long-lost eye and leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead. (bleeding and kneeling, first taste of skerr kyrric, of your sweat. a lifetime ago)

“Oh, stop with the sappy shet, Rev,” she chuckled against his skin, tugging him a fraction closer. “Or so help me, I’ll cook you that fething candle-lit dinner.”

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Roger Kranos]

Another time, same place.​

Clicky clack clack.

Click...clack.

Clack.

Bejeweled and bedazzled fingers strafed through coarse locks of salt and pepper. Luxurious, flowing, tasty lengths of facial perfection. Steps of glittering red tap shoes came to a halt as his electric eyes shimmied up the tall phallic structure of glass and metal. They called it a building but what it looked like was a cactus without needles, a razor with no head, or one of those banana sundaes but without the ice cream and chocolate and cherries - so, a banana. Ever quick to judge based on entirely superficial standards, he dismissed this place as novice attempts at business and made a slow yet swagger-full approach to the door.

​Before the man could talk, Kranos opened his phone and held up a soft and decedent hand. He waved it around as the bouncer tried to talk. "No, no baby no. That's not what I said at all." He covered up the mic and looked at the bouncer. "Tell your boss that Kranos is here." He stopped the bouncer from responding as he turned, giving him the chilliest of cold shoulders that could ever be shouldered. "No, what I said is that I liked you better without the dress. Not that you looked bad in the dress." He laughed in a manly fashion. "Of course. Alright alright, yeah yeah we can meet up later. Yeah, yeah...emphasis on the meat. Ciao." He made smoochie kisses on the mic before shutting it and turning back to the bouncer.

"Loves expensive steak, what are you gonna do? Now..." He slid up, all casual like. "I assume you have me on the list."

"No."

"No? Huh, well damn. Not gonna lie here, you're rustling my jimmies." He turned his bottom lip inward, chewing on the bits of beard that made up the soul patch. "Well, can't force ya. Tell your boss I'll just send the shipment off Point Nadir."

"Wait wait..."

He was already turning. Looking back over, he dramatically lifted a hand to his ear. "Sorry, didn't catch that."

"Go ahead."

Kranos nodded, patting down his expensive suit of plush lavender - heartily brushing away this awful offense. But don't worry, the shoes matched the color fabulously. "That's what I thought." Pulling out a pair of overpriced sunglasses, he whipped them out like a brazen torero with corded leather in hand and dirt beneath his feet. Never was a man more meant to do this than him.

"You know it's dark out, right?" The bouncer stated, painted in an expression of confusion that marked his genetic inferiority. Kranos simply laughed as he cracked a tasty bit of carsanum between his back teeth and stepped into the building.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Incidentally, ‘the boss’ also loved expensive steak. Food was one of the few luxuries she indulged in. Besides violence, of course – but that wasn’t a luxury.

It was home.

When the bouncer commed up, Aver was midway through a blue ribeye. She did not like being interrupted midway through a blue ribeye. A flex of the jaw – the bone snapped and was ground into dust between her gnashing teeth.

“What.”
“Uh, boss… there’s a bearded weirdo here, in a purple suit? Said his name was Kranos?”

Nadir dealt in drugs. Tons and tons of drugs, every day. It was a lucrative business, especially all the way on the outer rim, in a port where nobody gave a shet what you were peddling, so long as someone got paid. Spice? Carsanum? Glitterstim? Everything was fair game, nevermind the ruined lives and health hazards and all that crap.

Aver… didn’t. ‘High as a kite’ was a state she’d entertained exactly once in her relatively long life – a damn near impossible achievement considering the environs she’d spent that life in. You couldn’t round two corners without tripping over a junkie right into a dealer’s arms.

“Let him through,” she replied, steeling herself for the coming conversation. For all his faults, Kranos was inexplicably capable and efficient at running a drug outfit. And, likewise inexplicably, they enjoyed a successful, decade-spanning working relationship.

Life was full of curveballs, tell you that.

She shovelled the rest of the excellent bantha down her gullet with a heavy heart. Business meeting or not, good lunch was not to be wasted.

[member="Roger Kranos"]​

 

[Roger Kranos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIOaU7Sm-ZE​

All was quiet on this frontier. He moved like a lazy gazelle, frolicking playfully across a perfectly polished marble floor. Perfect…because it showed his image so well. Poised with a gait that spoke of worth and quality and alpha status, he wore a stunning smile like any other piece of apparel - well. One that held as much value as all the rest, maybe more. A priceless embodiment of his views, of his predicament in life. But he had to admit, it was more a gift to others. After all, he hardly got to see the expression – he wore it for the posse.

Silence was everywhere, the glistening and gleaming of jostling gold was enough to send a livening rattle through the otherwise dead building. But that all changed when he pressed firmly against the elevator button, beckoning its servantile aid. But when the doors opened, he knew immediately that there was something special about this elevator. The tastiest of jimmy jams whispered out, the sort that spoke to him in ways that few women could.

Bobbing his head in contemplation, waving his beard to and fro, he hip thrusted inward, beneath the high of a carsanum tablet that was previously dragging its feet upon arrival. Not anymore! The doors shut as he turned, proceeding to smash the chit out of that top level button. He was sure it was stuck at that point. Just like him, it had nowhere to go but up.

Whistling in tune to the elevator beats, he adjusted his salt and pepper beard of immeasurable length. Running fingers through the flowing locks, he fixed his sun glasses just as the door opened – to which the only answer was sliding, provocatively, and coming to a vibrant stop in front of the boss.

Snapping his fingers to a juicy inaudible rhythm, he stopped bobbing his head. He stopped everything. What is that?! Looking over to the desk with that oh so spicy red head sitting there, he lifted his nose skyward and towards the trajectory of his eternal ascent. Taking in a long and full bodied breath, he questioned the very heavens. “Is that steak?”

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The boss was many things to many people – ‘the boss’, actually, to a select few. [member="Roger Kranos"] was among them. One, because their association spanned not only years, but also lives. Two, because the drug outfit he ran was an important part of Nadir’s business.

Aver respected that. Respected competence.

It was why she didn’t throw his tripping, arrogant, grinning ass right out the window the moment he set foot in the room. Her fingers flexed a degree closer to a fist as she wrestled something resembling a smile onto her face. The bearded bastard ought to thank all the stars and gods out there that he’d picked the Equalizer with nerves of steel – going with the other half would’ve earned him a mouth full of bleeding teeth decades ago.

“It was steak. You interrupted my lunch.” Her lips thinned. Food was important, more than guns or credits or lives – food was sacred.

There was no other seat in the room, just two trigger-happy guards and one white-haired skeleton with a datapad in her hand. Aver liked her meetings short and to the point – nothing made a man talk fast like standing with his back to a pair of fully-automatic P-series Blaster rifles.

“What do you want, Kranos?”

 

[Roger Kranos]

What did he want?

He ran four fingers through the beard, from throat to chin, as he looked around. Putting fingers on the rim of the sunglasses, he pushed them back up the bridge of his nose. "Oh. Sex. Drugs. Sadism." He adjusted the color of his fabulous jacket. "Duds. Bling. Friends. Enemies." He held out his hands, counting and bobbing his head. "And maybe throw sex and drugs on there again, just so we have a set priority."

He started to approach, removing the distance between he and the boss, before the pair of haughty men started to lift their blasters. Kranos merely smiled, holding his hands, as if to push back. "Gentlemen...Gentlemen! We're all friends here. Kind of...right?" With an expression that might have seemed laden with a particular frustration, he looked back to Aver. "You really should relax more. You know..." He snapped his finger." I know a primo masseuse down the road..." He aimed a thumb behind him. "Well, down the way. Really gets in there deep."

Not sure if his jovial attitude was making a dent, he shrugged. "Well, this is harshing my buzz...Look, we are saturated on the drug arena. Our production methods are too efficient, demand isn't keeping up with synthesis. So we need to makes some decisions baby..." He stopped. "Boss." He laughed. Some might have taken it as a nervous laugh but it was actually the carsanum giggles kicking in. "Either we cut back production to artificially raise demand, which will hurt the margin, or we find new avenues for sale."

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

She listened to the first bit with a face as dead as the cold rock of Selvaris.

She listened to the second bit with a modicum of very internal amusement.

She answered the last bit through teeth that definitely weren’t grinding. But they were getting there. (And the road was a six-lane highway with no traffic all the way down.)

“You couldn’t have called about this?” So rude, this [member="Roger Kranos"]. Aver could’ve finished that excellent steak in peace.

With a glance sideways to Erida, the merc extended an open palm. The pale woman handed her a datapad with all the necessary facts on display. Any of the smaller factions of Nadir would kill to get their hands on that delicious bookkeeping data.

“Can’t have a dip in profit, can we?” She smiled, finally, and leaned forward in her seat. One elbow, then the other – she joined her hands with a slow, deliberate interlocking of fingers. For some reason, they gave a very strong impression that they’d much rather be squeezing someone’s throat.

“I know you’re a smart man, Kranos. So be a good drug dealer and prove it to me – confirm my expectation that you wouldn’t dare show up high and running your mouth if you didn’t have a frakking plan.”

 

[Roger Kranos]

"I mean..." He looked over to Erida and smiled. "I would dare to do that. But I'm getting the impression it's a good thing I didn't." He held out his right hand, uncurling fingers in a semi-sky high gesture. The likes of which flashed entirely necessary and somewhat significant signets and rings. The iciest of shining ice, cool to the touch and oh so...icy. "Calling would have missed out on this little bit of chemistry we got going." His mouth moved in a chewing fashion, just enough to rattle the man mane.

He looked around, catching a significant shimmer of light from a particularly expressive lamp shade. "My...God!" The colors danced in vibrant tones as the image shifted, warping right before his eyes. He let out a laugh, bejeweled fingers pressed against the rock hard muscles of his abdomen. It was like pressing against titanium or durasteel or one of those really durable metals. None of that soft whatnot. "Do you see this thing? Wow!" His other hand pointed towards the dancing light as he looked over to Aver, perfect teeth showing in a genuine smile. "This is amazing! Mmm! Look at those moves!"

Eyebrows lifted in a moment of self-awareness, realizing they may not see what he's seeing. That's fine. Betas, the lot of them. Except the one with the red hair. Tough egg to crack. Pressing a finger across the front of teeth, he rubbed lightly and cleared his throat. "Heard about a planet called Maena? I hear it's hot this time of year." He lifted an accusatory finger towards Aver in the shape of a gun. "Just...like...you." He cleared his throat again, moving his hands to cradle one another anxiously. "I think we can expand there, touching the hearts and minds of all the wanting."

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver Brand was not a woman easily swayed by emotion. Anger, perhaps, but even there she maintained rigorous self-discipline and focus.

And yet.

This man, this frak-forsaken junkie, had arrived to her office, unannounced, interrupted her fan-frakking-tastic steak, and proceeded to ride the waves of his high right there in front of her desk, wasting time and patience she could’ve spent doing a thousand better things. Between the Equalizers and Nadir, she wasn’t exactly plagued by boredom.

Her nostrils flared.

A hand, tranquil and still a split second before, flashed through the air between them. The contact of bearded flesh against armored glove resounded with a wet crack through the silent room. Erida pinched her lips in sympathy – the two guards flinched.

“I’ll look into Maena. Thank you, Kranos.” She paused, steepling her fingers. “Was there anything else?”

[member="Roger Kranos"]

 

[Roger Kranos]

Thank god for scotch, good drugs...and sadomasochism.

He stepped back as that sensual hand slapped across the glorious locks of beard that graced his manly yet inviting face. But the beard could only do so much and he was stuck with a sensation that caught him somewhere between arousal and star-struck. Gripping his jaw, he shook his head as he made sure it wasn't broken - the carsanum was working over time, really good chit right here! "Mmm...that metallic taste!" He said as he ran his tongue across white teeth, smearing blood from the inside of his mouth. Flexing his hand in low power fist, he stepped back far enough to get out of range of another good slapping.

"You gotta take me out for dinner before we tumble down this particular rabbit hole..." He stated as he started walking backwards. "Pixie dust is my preferred safe phrase but we can negotiate later when not so many people are watching. Though this one..." He aimed a finger at the white haired woman. "She seems like she likes to watch. Am I right? Oh I'm right." He rubbed his jaw, laughing. "You pack a helluva punch. Alright, that's it for me."

He turned and head towards the door, flinging a hand over his shoulder. "Toodles. I'll call you next time...maybe!"

With the swagger that only Kranos could show in face of such obvious superiority, he flung the double wide doors open and strutted through - heading back towards the elevator.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Erida visibly twitched towards her concealed blaster, then squeezed her fingers into a fist instead. Aver just watched him leave, imagining for a moment the alternate reality in which she signalled the guards, who then proceeded to shred that ridiculous violet tux into so many little pieces.

The elevator doors slid closed, and the merc expelled a heavy sigh. “Teheron,” she spoke without turning to the pale woman, “test the waters on Maena. Who’s who, what goes through New City customs, what doesn’t, you know.” Aver waved. “The whole frakking shebang. I want a full report in, mm, three days.”

“Of course, Miss Brand. The transfer of all drug-related business should be complete by tomorrow.”

“Good. Take the rest of the day off, Teheron. Go to a fancy dinner, out for drinks… whatever. Relax a little.”

I know I will.

And with that, Aver Brand was off.

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

 

[Loray Tares]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHfTFaI22xs​

Night was perpetual in Point Nadir. And from out of it, he climbed. A steady rock of consistency, mania apparent, that forever tumbled through the streets towards those who were deserving. As the lights flashed in the lift that took him towards the ceiling of the inner chasm, he watched as lights flickered from afar. To bed, to work, to their death. It was all the same, a life long dance interrupted by moments of peace. Interrupted by his presence.

The doors spread open and he moved inward, the metal of his armor clicking across the polished floor of the dwelling. His left hand moved to click a light on in the kitchen, dimming it to a subtle hue. As he pressed blackened fingers against the chest plate of his suit, he felt the flesh stick and resist removal. The fresh coat of red was tacky from air exposure, the screaming and gurgling was still ringing in his ear.

The shade of a sound that followed him, turned up beyond his control.

Stepping into the bedroom, he moved to the wall that stood hollow next to the pane of glass. Pressing a hand at the corner, the material sunk and slid open. Empty hangers and a mannequin sat, unadorned, waiting for him to part with the armor and with the saber. But he hesitated, a whisper clawing through his mind as his vision turned back to the bed. It was disheveled, just as they always left it, quick to depart and long to linger.

But something seemed...off. A smell, just a hint in the air, lingered and persuaded investigation. Kneeling down, he moved to look beneath the bed, anchoring himself to the bed with an exposed hand. Still frames struck him, memories of moments shared in this bed. Blood. The flash of a knife. The caress of flesh. The way skin almost makes a sound as nails are dragged down it. Blond hair, red hair, pleasure.

Betrayal.

The word wasn't his but it echoed through his mind, all the same. A thousand souls, speaking in uniform tone, as they crescendo to an accusation of worst possible outcome. He shook his head, clutching his left hand so hard that he felt blood well up. There's no reason to be angry.

You're just a tool.

He wasn't anything more than that and he knew it. But a most capable tool. One with no purpose beyond conquest and selfish desire. He longed to hear the screams drown out the audible words. Lifting his vision towards the ceiling, that same aura that defined combative intention blossomed from his core. Steam and smoke, ever hinting at disruption.

Placing his blackened fingers against the bedside table, he gripped the ledge and flung it and everything on top of it towards the window pane. Smacking against unbreakable glass, the wood crumbled and the various items scattered across the floor. He felt the anger froth forward trough trembling of his voxyn hand, lifting to grip the top of his helmet.

You're a fool.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Normal day on Nadir. Mercs toting rifles through the streets, junkies lying needled in the ditches, whores beckoning on every corner. Couldn’t take a step without tripping over a pile of refuse – or a dead body.

Not unless you were the one who put them there. Aver had that privilege, and didn’t trip once going home. Good thing, too – it’d be downright sinful to spill her armful of steaming, mouth-watering annajan takeaway over the dirty ferrocrete. Balancing her belated dinner in one hand, the merc unlocked the front door and started up the steps.

And then she felt him.

Fury lanced up her spine like the blade of a knife, buried deep and wrenching. Eyes wide she grasped for the wall, food forgotten as it tumbled down the stairs. He was the roaring ache in the pit of her stomach – the blazing anger coiling her hands into claws. Without a second thought, Aver chased her mind, jumping whole floors with her long stride.

It wasn’t panic that she felt, nor was it concern that drove her swift approach.

Morbid curiosity. What could pull a man driven by apathy so far into passion, again? This was change – a return, even – to a creature of purpose and emotion. [member="Loray Tares"] lurked beneath the black sea, but Reverance…

her lover was the conflagration.

Aver burst through the door, teeth on edge, half-expecting an old enemy with a knife on his throat. Their treachery finally come to haunt them, set to repay it with blood.

But there was nothing.

Nobody save for the hunched figure of the mercenary, the thin crimson stripe of his helmet reflecting in the one-way window. The thrashed remains of furniture lay in splinters about his feet, his own little halo of destruction.

She wouldn’t – couldn’t – delve into his head. Too much screaming, too much chaos.

“What’s the feth is going on, Rev?”

 

[Loray Tares]

Reverance. Loray. Which is it?

The nails of his blackened hand pressed against the blue tinge of his armor, dragging down from scalp to jaw. The sound bore a hole in the silence that followed her question - sharp edges that cut through the thick haze of his anger. He felt the hand buck, the way it does when the saber was called forth, forced to dry heave in moments of anger and passion. He reached over, tightening a grip around the Vong wrist, as he avoided an immediate response to the woman.

Stepping forward, crunching wooden debris beneath the weight of a sudden frenzy, he felt the confusion pulsating from his lover. And in these moments, he didn't care. The reflection that looked back at him through the tempered glass, it shifted and exaggerated, blurring before coming into focus. Where his hands dropped to his side, its hand lifted to gesticulate. As if it were talking back. The sound was slight but as his vision narrowed, everything came into view.

We were created for necessity.

Necessity.

Not to endure treachery.

Treachery.

You are wasted.

We are all wasted.

His mind drew images of the field of blades to the forefront, casting it as backdrop to his reflection. Thousands of swords stood pocked and rusted in the sand swept sky, cogs moving to the overture of an endless end. The sound of clanking metal echoed so loudly, yet it couldn't drown out the noise of his specter. Like bending metal, warped and fitted poorly, slicing against itself and set against the cracking of bone and sinew. Something confined beneath a set of armor, but only for so long.

"Who is she..." He stated, quietly standing in the eye of his own storm. "The blonde that is was in my..." Lifting the natural hand to view, he inspected the thing which brought so much anger. He felt the sudden desire to rip the whole arm from socket, from flesh and tissue and bone - and beat his shadow to death with it. Would that make the noise go away?

"Our bed?"

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The room shimmered, twitching like a bastard with a gut wound. Her spine was curling in on itself, it felt like, and he bleed through, all over. Memories of Netherworld, rust red and rippling, rivers carved through flesh and bone. Loray crawled beneath her skin, emotions ripped wide open by a grenade.

They’d always been a ticking bomb.

As he spoke through teeth, Aver flashed back to the day previous, to that bed he looked ready to throw out the window. Licking her lips, her fangs, the firrerreo forced deep breaths to stymie the enraged thrum of his presence. Spilling over every front, and she could do nary a thing to hold him off.

She moved, a long stride across and she was before him, warm bodies flush. Fingers found his, wrapping around, dragging him closer. Beasts of physicality, the both of them – freed and caged by it in the same breath. Vrag had been powerless in the realm of the mind, but Aver had banished her fears; made her peace with her absent remorse.

And she’d learned it from the blonde, no less.

“I’ll show you,” she murmured, eyes closed, words hot against his mouth. Aver let him in, invited him right to the beginning.

Strife, first. (Always.) A brief negotiation, a show of teeth and strength. They’d gone neck and neck, two predators who both got what they wanted in the end.

Death and collapse and rebirth in this cradle of filth. A lonely trip to Onderon, years later, the memory of her wrath at the mark. They had clashed again, brief as a summer storm – tempers cooled with conversation and hunt and good food. An uncanny trip through the Dreamsphere, candor and reciprocity.

Skip again, to the polluted streets of Nadir. A dark corner of the Arcade, whiskey and seduction and easy laughter. Knives in the kitchen, then knives in the bedroom.

Icy blues opened to stare at the man inside her head.

“She is… a friend.”

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

He watched, as powerless as he felt within the throes of the cursed weapon, with years passing before him. A negotiation on Onderon, spanning back to the frame of the One Sith. He watched as they continued to touch, ships passing in the long night. Endless remembrance, deflecting off one another, only to land once more in each other's arms. In this bed that now stood as monument for the years that they had spent, hiding things from one another, despite their ever constant connection.

"A..." He shuddered as he felt the closeness pull him back from the edge, her fingers around his - through his. Like the entanglement of bodies and minds, the way they could fill a grave and still find time to succumb to more visceral needs. But what he saw, it was beyond visceral. It was close, standing deep within each others shadow, and intimate beyond what introspective images could show. "...Friend?"

Years...

Lies...

Deceit...

Year...s.ssss...

He snapped his head towards the bed. Fabric began to squeal, wood and metal moans. The legs rumbled beneath the weight of insurmountable power, powered by anger that wasn't his own. Without so much a gesture from his hands, the sheets and mattress split apart. The wooden legs and metal frame curled over, bending inward as the fabric began to ball into a wad. Like a giant ball of paper machete, built by pieces of paper, this object formed as the jagged shaped rolled across the floor - gobbling up material, until nothing of the bed was left. Then, once it was all consumed, there was almost an inaudible hiss as the object rolled with gravity towards the door to the bedroom bathroom.

"When were you going to tell me?" He spoke words through mental incoherence, the welling up of the saber now obvious in his tone and inflection. He turned back towards Aver, feeling the chips of ice as they worked to cool fiery temper. Temper that was foreign to him. Yet, he found a sudden comfort in it, an anger that was welcomed. A shift in his mentality, one that more closely resembled the disregard of Selvaris. "We hide so little from one another..." His voxyn hand moved upwards, curling around the collar of her armor. "Why hide...this?"

Because she lies...

Lies...

His hand retracted from her collar, reaching for his head instead. A growl could be heard, just shy of a murmur, as he stepped back from her. Whether for her benefit or his own, he wasn't sure.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Muscles flexed beneath sliver skin as she set her jaw. Blue eyes hardened, nostrils flared. The beasts’ hackles were raised, teeth all but bared for the assault.

“I never hid it,” she spoke, frost descending upon her words with visible strain. “You just never asked.”

When they were like this – unfurled, raw, each burning with their own brand of anger – they slipped and weaved and bled into one another like two rivers roaring towards a joint waterfall. Holding herself together was like trying to swim against the current. Aver barely maintained her standstill, yet all the while, little chips and shards and slivers were torn away, escaping downcurrent.

It was then she heard it. A fourth presence that had no business in the ocean of three.

Determined and swift, Aver reached after him, pulling Loray close. Because this was Loray, she could see it now, when she abandoned the visible and allowed herself to look with her mind – a dark miasma, seeping out of every pore, the telltale black smoke throbbing with violet.

A different wrath rose within her then – vast and infinitely cold. The ponderous weight of a glacier pressed forward. Unyielding.

Let him go, Ygdris hissed, looming above the thousandfold parasite. He isn’t yours to have, like I’m not his.

We belong to no one.


[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

The sounds of a thousand words, spoken simultaneously, couldn't overwrite what he already knew. And even as her lips thinned to speak, hands clutching his sides, he couldn't make out the sound. Everything was red. Sight, sound, smell. Everything.

He felt her anger and it only worked to compound his aggression, the sound of seething coursed through every vein. His hands moved to grasp her wrists, clutching around the metal of her armor. With but a simple expression of wills, swirling between his own and the soul sabers, red and blacks hues poured out from the slits of his metal. With a singular force push, originating from his core, Aver was yanked clean from her grip on him. He was of sound mind enough to not hurt her, though she wasn't easily harmed. Things were just too...confusing.

Gaze lingering on her at a distance, he turned as the soul saber ejected from his palm. Gripping the bile slick hilt in his voxyn hand, the obsidian blade came to life with a sickening groan and hiss. Like lights cutting through a thick fog, he lifted it towards corner of the room - where duracrete met glass. Slashing down and over and up and down, he carved thick gashes into the material. With every hit, he let out a nearly inaudible grunt, as violet paved his way to the exterior of the building - to the heart of Nadir.

Glass began to turn to goo, duracrete began to crumble away, until the stagnate air of the apartment met the stagnate air of Point Nadir through thin cuts. Extinguishing the blade, he stepped forward and starting clawing at the holes. When that turned futile, he coiled fingers around the hilt and began punching the wall and the glass. Puncturing divots in the wall, he began to extract plumes of duracrete with every wet thud - splotched patterns of Voxyn and Kiffar blood remained in the indent.

Overwhelmed with frustration, his left hand undid the helmet and flung the item across the floor. Salt and pepper hair coated in sweat, face drenched, he let out a huff of air as he tried to catch his breath. His vermilion view shifted back to Aver, quietly contemplating the circumstance, as he turned back to the wall and continued his assault.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Unbidden, a memory. Black as tar, old as dirt – endless cold dungeons in the bowels of Prakith, durasteel walls and durasteel hearts. A horned demon roaring above the broken shape of what used to be a man, strewn all over the room, over her hands.

I can’t he sobbed into the metal. I CAN’T he screamed, later, kneeling in a pool of his own tears and blood and vomit, and Vrag never stopped.

I can’t.

The wounded beast fled from her grip, panicked distance of flesh where there was none between minds. The silken whispers echoed louder and louder, a field of grass rustling with the howl of wind. His grunts and fists and kicks reverberated down her spine, physical ache spilling over the torn walls.

I can’t see you like this—

Aver pulled every ounce of her awareness into a single point in her gut, a miniature sun of her violent presence, drained from her head and him and the room and gone. Like she would do so many times on the battlefield, where Vonduun sank its claws into her flesh, where she would mold with its rhythm and its thoughts and just move.

No screams, here. No whispers either. Just the vast nothing and her own clarity of thought. For the first time in a decade, she was alone in her head.

There was once a steady mass of glacier here, she knew, but the ice was strewn all over now. Her armor had long given out and shattered. For him, for her.

For Desdemona, too.

Ygdris lied often and well, but not to herself. Never to herself. She looked upon the shards of blue, their jagged edges glinting beneath the harsh light. There was nothing here for her anymore, alone. She did not belong, but she did feel.

And perhaps that was enough.

The world returned to focus as Aver exhaled through her nose, fists clenched white. She met his red gaze head-on, jaw taut with pride.

“Give it to me,” she spoke, quiet and clear between the crack of his knuckles against the wall.



[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

His world stood between a hard turn and a fish tail, aggregating images and noises to the brink of explosion. Everything felt like a head on collision, from a thousand different angles, faced directly at the sternum. His sternum.

He heard her words but he couldn't hear them. Not like normal, not within. Confused by the loss of stereo, her words came in the pattered rhythm of his hands against blocks and glass. The wet smacking, the compression of flesh against splintering bone, sent a shock of pain through his body with every impact.

Give it to me.

Don't give us to her.

She doesn't deserve it.

He felt his arms drop to the sides. They were heavy and numb, stricken with a deep ache that transcended his desire for pain. Turning, he looked towards Aver, unsure of his own emotions. It was a place he didn't want to be, he wanted to be rid of it.

Turning the hilt over in his hand, he inspected the engraving. He flexed his hand around it, confident that the hilt would break beneath the force of ten men. CERS kicking on, Voxyn hand huffing, but nothing. Just the same electric sparks of red and black, coursing over the mouth of the dragon.

She doesn't deserve us.

He bared his teeth, aggravated at the lack of compression on the hilt. With a huff, a sharp breath of air escaped his lips, as he looked towards Aver.

"No one does." He spoke out, despite the fact that she couldn't hear the conversation. He flung the item, sending it sliding through duracrete and glass until it struck the sole of her armor. Feeling the weight of his body shift, despite still being in the proximity of the weapon, he fell to his knees. Amidst glass and debris, his hands clamored across the ground to find balance until he finally propped himself back up.

With knees against the floor, he looked towards the woman, stunned by the sudden silence as he searched for the response he couldn't find. He felt bare...exposed...weak.

[member="Aver Brand"]​