We Put the Grr in Guerrilla Warfare

[Aver Brand]

The boiling seas ebbed, tempered by the icy shores they lapped at. Steam curled around them in threadbare veils, chasing away the cold, chasing away the heat. Standing next to each other, they found balance. Apathy and passion, and in the middle… them.

Whatever they were these days.

She smiled into his skin. Fingers scaled the lines of his ribs, the soft indentations where serratus pulled inwards at sharp angles. “I don’t know, Rev,” she murmured into the warm muscle of his shoulder, blue gaze dancing with the droplets of water in the air.

“Do you hate him?”

As she asked the question, Aver leaned back, seeking out his eye. “Because hate only ends two ways – you kill him, or you let him go.”

Pressing lips against his cheek, the firrerreo pulled away and returned to the bedroom.

[member="Reverance"]

 

[Reverance]

She might as well have kissed the cheek of fire. Burning, hot, and fixed. Flames moving, captured and held at bay by the subtle breeze. But that breeze was dying, the thing that tempered his mood was all but gone.

She wasn't answering the question. She was dodging it, deflecting to the known. She had a piece of him in her, she knew of his feelings towards the brother that he'd rather see dead than ever hear his name again! He clenched his teeth as she moved away, dodging the topic further, and making small the feelings that urged her to persuade him against natural current.

If she thought the flicker of warmth presented moments ago, or the flash of her skin in all tempting appeal, would be enough to captivate him and distract him eternally - she was wrong. She had a chance to do something about the actions that he desired to take but instead, she looked into the heart of a devil and asked him to let things go.

"How I feel is known to you." He spoke through clenched teeth, watching her flee to the bedroom. Anger spiking beneath a stern gaze. Narrowing towards her, he breathed in loudly and laughed. "So be it, Aver."

If she loved him, it was a poor showing of it. Dismissive, deflecting, and navigating away from the seas she looked to calm. Storms brewed in the distance as he turned, placing the empty tumbler on the island. He had no urge to break things, this wasn't a matter of being mad at the answers given. It was an anger that resolved around something else, something stirring between them.

He grabbed a few items and left the apartment. He wasn't sure when he would return. She would have to find someone else to comfort her...it shouldn't be too hard.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

She let him leave – would’ve let him leave without gesture, without comment. But he couldn’t resist. Aver sneered at the empty bed as the door closed closed shut, hackles raised.

Such contrast to how their night had begun. Loud and angry, boiling over with emotion she could neither place nor resolve. Now this.

Quiet and angry was so much worse.

Aver unfolded a tense hand into the darkness, sharp syllables spilling from her lips. From corners and crannies, crabs clicked across the floor. Skittering together until they molded into a shape well known, Ygdris paused before their companion. Uncertain.

Like me.

Blue eyes flicked to the door but she knew, she knew he was far away already – in her heart, in her spine. Though the first one was nothing but a hassle. Why the hell’d she ever think it was a good idea?

Rage, fury, ire, wrath – all those she could deal with, had spent the better part of forty years making her own. They were as intimate as the touch of a lover. Perhaps more so.

The rest? New and stumbling and weak, like a beast just crawled from the red and black and wet.

Something warmer nuzzled her side, and Aver looked down. A twinge of a smile.

“Hey, Pup,” she croaked out, throat suspiciously tight. Resting a palm on her withers, the woman circled an insistent thumb along its spines until one of them broke the skin. Eyes fluttered shut, and she bit her lip as the sharp pain flooded her body.

It was nothing – she had fought with broken bones and torn muscles and prevailed – and yet it was everything. A sting to ground her, to keep her from… what?

What?

Bright blue eyes glared back at her from the window, lost amid the twinkling lights of Nadir. Its Queen and King were seething and split and it didn’t care.

It didn’t give a kark.

Small comfort. Licking the blood off her finger, she pulled away and fell back onto the bed. Cold and new.

Like me.

Her companions encircled the woman, guardians in the dead of night. Teeth bared, she coiled from the Force, slipping from its grasp and into the black beyond. Ternion burned. The sliver in her spine burned. The three lines on her breast burned.

Aver went to sleep. Alone.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

​A quiet overtook the room as he stood on idle, hand drifting along the datapad. As a reaper among dead notes, drifting through an apartment that had become a rift between the inseparable, he welcomed the time to think. He had made mistakes, mistakes that couldn't be undone. Such as that...

​​A crimson eye glanced towards the bedroom, desolate and cold. Somewhere, the Soulsaber hid and his armor with it.

​He blinked, drifting into a nether filled with hypotheticals and vertices to a line he hadn't taken. All the things he couldn't do, and couldn't change. And the choices he had made.

​He felt the cold sting of regret for his separation from Gabriel. Because it had caused more turmoil than he was prepared to take. It caused a chasm that breathed and wailed, reminding him that in every waking moment, his intellect and brutality could be overwhelmed by a stubborn sense of pride. And ignorance in direction, not knowing what he wanted or where he was going. Just that he couldn't be sated.

​Why do I want him dead? What did he do? What is he to me, beyond the tumor that was allowed to flee?

​His gazed drifted back to kitchen, along the footpath she might have taken to greet him. Waking up in the middle of the night, realizing he wasn't there to keep the sheets warm. Taking in a deep breath, the hollow crimson stare hovered over the information on the datapad.

​"Sheriff of Sulon..." He uttered, breaking the quiet of the room that he inhabited. "He hides in plain view."

​[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The Nar Shaddaa job had been a professional courtesy. Beyond their personal association, beyond their… issues, they were still accomplished mercenaries. A reputation to upkeep, agreements to honor, all that crap. And they had – they’d put it aside and carved a swath as bloody as it was wide through the Collective’s forces in the Access.

But that was it. Rev slapped the Soulsaber like a mockery in her face, and Aver left as soon as the last enemy gave his final twitch.

“Yes, Sheriff of Sulon,” she echoed softly as she paused in the door. First time they were together in the same room in a while that it wasn’t for a job. Her jaw tightened, and she worked to relax the muscles.

A lot had happened in this while.

Too much.

“He’s not hiding,” Aver continued as she stepped fully inside, closing the door with a soft click. “He’s living. Moving on and away from that. From his past.”

She discarded her weapons on the table. Took off her helmet. Found his sole crimson eye.

“Like us.”

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

​He breathed in, quiet yet sharp, as she entered. It had felt like years since they shared a space, removed from business. He longed for it, like a shark swimming through the haze of blood. He wanted this to be over but he couldn't grasp it, despite himself.

​"Not moving... " He shook his head. "Running. Running away from what he was...what he is. " Gabe was no angel, he had faults and was part of the issue. The weaker component, but a component nonetheless.

​A lot had happened, indeed. But they were the same, he knew it to be true. Same, and changing, all at the same time.

​Crimson eye lifted to match her gaze, head canting to the document.

​"He should have done a better job to conceal himself. " Reverance spoke from the side of his mouth. "He acquired a homestead on the planet some time ago. Tax records indicate that he has multiple dependents or temporary residents. At least three children, multiple women, even some interesting species..."

​​His vision narrowed, as if he might regret the future consequences of his own proclivities. Eye darting from the tablet back to Aver, he showed the first cue of anger. Not in her. He had realized, as soon as the door slammed shut in his wake, that it wasn't really her. He couldn't understand himself or his own anger and that infuriated him.

​"Why?" He shook his head. "Why should I let him go?"

​A question asked in sincerity, looking for an answer that might defy his principles. That might convince that his desires were wrong.

​[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

As her lover talked, Aver neared. Soft steps across the warm floor – she’d left the boots behind in the kitchen. Her armor fell away with practiced movements, disposed of with little snaps of buckle and strap. When she reached [member="Reverance"] on the bed, the firrerreo had naught but the bodyglove to cover her modesty.

Whatever remained of that.

“Undress me?” she offered, quiet – an olive branch. They had a mountain of problems to scale, and the brother didn’t even register in its shadow. High time to put the matter to rest and attend to the real troubles.

“When we… did whatever we did, after I killed Selenov… Gabriel was still there.” Blue eyes flickered over his face, the right face, with the right scars and the right red gaze staring back at her. Something tender twisted behind her ribs.

“And he’s still here,” Aver gestured to herself with a tired sigh. “You split after, and he’s still here, Rev.”

Would you kill a part of me?

 

[Reverance]

​The physical action of unraveling mirrored what his world felt like, absent direction or reason. He watched, as keenly as she moved, the ease in which she shed her metal plated skin. Some husk of herself, cast aside to grow it back in the near future. Softer parts were now exposed, the sort they often showed each other, like the pale flesh of a bare belly.

​"No... " He stated quietly, dark tones of swirling blood finding distraction in the form offered. And the way she moved, knowing full well the answer to the question she spoke to him. "I want you as your are... " His gaze drifted down, blackened hand lifting to the collar of her body suit. Then down, gripping the zipper between thumb and index. Like another set of skin, peeling away to reveal what lied beneath, he calmly pulled down. "Whole. Perfect."

​He hadn't considered the effects of that day, the way she would obtain not just a sliver of himself, but of him as well. They were as one, for so long, with hidden breaths and discrete lines, blurred by the shared body. It made sense to him, more than it did then, that there was a sense of self preservation in this request. If she loved him, than she might have loved him too, and he could only imagine the trouble in differentiating the two. Only when time was spent with both, would the variance be so pronounced.

​His other hand moved upward, tracing the edge of the body glove where flesh was exposed. Reaching in, one hand and then the other, he peeled the suit off - starting at her shoulders.

​"I have hate. And anger. And need. " He could feel her warmth now, kept hidden within the suit but released now. To feel and to taste. "What will I do with these things, now? Centuries spent in want for his blood, only to stand in self-denial of it."

​What will be my recompense?

​[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Air touched her skin first.

Then coarse, calloused hands. As familiar as her own, they traced downwards from broad shoulders, baring skin that was all silver tonight. Too much turmoil contained within, and no-one to pour it into.

Had she grown complacent? Spoiled?

From ally to lover to… crutch?

Blue eyes opened to regard the man before her as he stripped her out of the bodyglove. Reverent [member="Reverance"].

No. They were weaker alone. But together, worlds fell at their whim.

Aver reached down, capturing his wandering fingers with her own. Without looking away, she folded them over, one by one. Brought his fist up for her lips to kiss.

“Give them to me.”

 

[Reverance]

​He looked on, liberation and enthusiasm concealed beneath a hungry gaze. The way she cradled his fingers, pulling it inward, tender in moments surrounded by strife and chasms - he couldn't help but find surprise where he was so often confident. She was him, and he was her, and the universe felt tumultuous when they were at odds.

​As her lips pressed against knuckles, fingers outstretched to claw at the sharp features of her jaw line. To remind her that above all else, she was there. Towering above anything else. Conquest, accolades, baubles, worship​. You are more than...everything.

​"No. " He smiled, fingers curling behind her neck and beneath her chin. "I won't give you my hate...I couldn't." It wasn't a stammer or stutter, slip of the tongue beneath apparent confusion, that delivered these words. In these matters, he knew himself. And from the genesis of honesty, promised on these broken floors, truth would spill out from opened wounds. On this subject, he was beyond certain. "But my anger and need, these are yours to claim."

​His one hand moved to relieve her of the rest of her body suit as the other pulled her towards him. The very same lips that found fingers would find his lips in their stead. He wanted to know of the experiences she had, in his absence, and of the way her views had changed - the way the whispers of a spine seemed tempered and somehow wiser.

​They would speak, later, of this Sheriff of Sulon and of what had been learned. But there would be time for that in the future. The present was destined for something far different.

​[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

There were steps she was still learning.

But there were also dances she could take to in the dead of the night, with no music or partner to guide her. Sun and moon. Used to be they both prayed to the fathomless black; back when their lives were endless war. In the time since, they had both grown accustomed to a new song. Its melody more varied, its rhythm more than skin-deep. Ever forward, if only to outpace stagnation.

rust red river​

Aver smiled, unraveling the dark hair tied on the nape of his neck. Her lips parted against his, tongue licking into a hot mouth to feel the anger, to taste the need. As he cradled her jaw, Ygdris traced her fingers down along his ribs. Grasping his hips, she pulled him flush against bare skin.

rippling roaring​

Somewhere through the years, that star had set for her. Too far, too long, too cold. The sun was meant to warm the bones, and Vrag had loved the fire even as it charred her flesh. Older now, and wiser, indeed – Aver preferred her fire tempered by centuries and knowledge, and went to find it elsewhere. In the groves of deep green…

rushing down my spine​

And he, instead of growing away, grew with her. Roots set deep into the soil where the sea lapped at the shore.

Resting her forehead against his, Aver murmured into the kiss. “I want you as you are… whole. Even when you’re not perfect.”

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

​"Good..." The words whispered in the quiet of the apartment, smile born against her lips. With a chin cradling her jaw, feeling the evolution of their life with every inflection of her thoughts, he turned. He turned himself and he turned her, pushing her against the mattress until her legs buckled. And she would have nowhere to go but down.

​"That is all I will ever have to give you." He stated it with an air of confidence, immersing himself in the notions that he would always be this broken thing. The anger for his brother, once felt so cemented and formative, was fleeting in the wake of what he felt between them. Memories that she had, of the time spent away, slowly moved from one body to another - and he was content to drown in it. Fingers trailed down, pulling the remains of his shirt free as he placed a knee on the mattress.

​There were things she had learned, he could feel that.

​Things about herself, about him, and about everything else.

​Change was constant and so were they, no matter the illusion of wedge or obstacle between them.

​Moving over her, he took in the sounds of closeness, amid the backdrop of sirens and gun fire outside. Nadir was a bustling place, even when sleep and rest were called, it was ready to go. Crimes, internal strife, and warfare - the natural physiology of a place so moved by animosity. A place where they felt at home. Black hair draped down from his shoulders, shrouding the space between them in black, as he washed skin of silver with darkness and a piercing crimson gaze.

​And he pressed his lips against hers, once more. Tender, as before, but moved by hunger and clawing need. He loved this woman, more than the Vong loved pain. More than the Qworlth skaal loved destruction. More than the desires of Gods and the slaughter, justified in their name. In the absence of the great black hole, once siphoning away infatuation into an endless abyss, he had nowhere to put it but here. Where he wanted it, among teeth and lips and metallic skin.

​[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

With the veil of black hair came the night, and with it, her lover. She welcomed the weight; the cool sheets against her back as he pressed forward and she lay down. Their dance was older, and yet they reinvented the steps, the song, the floor they moved upon.

Change, indeed, was constant. Even in the partners they invited along for the ride.

Red lips stretched into a grin as he kissed her, and there wasn’t a warmth, exactly – but Aver felt something apart from the ice, and that was enough for now. Tracing all the way around his ribcage, the firrerreo pulled him flush against her, ducking her head to smile against the skin of his neck instead. Tongue and teeth roamed the familiar pattern of his tattoos, eyes closed as she took in the taste of his sweat.

The Leviathan and Horned One would have to wait.

They still had a new bed to break in, after all.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Their world grew quiet, after the noise of bodily expense and interaction, and sleep came without much resistance. There were words that needed speaking, feelings that would either be understood or resented, but the future would bear the burden of such magnitude and potential strife.

They had moved on in those moments and as much as growth could be shared, engorged roots split the soil all the same. Change came with pain, pain that was necessary. But it was only natural for the earth to resist its own cleaving.

Waking up to the quiet of her breath and the restlessness of Nadir, he placed both hands between his pillow and his head. Looking towards the ceiling, he watched as the shadows of speeders passed by with the whine of repulsor engines - silhouettes given life by the blaring persistence of advertisements.

From the corner of his gaze, he looked towards the partially exposed flesh of her back - sheets pulled low for comfort. Pensive expression adorning his face, he fixed his gaze back on the ceiling and remained quiet in his contemplation.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Most days she’d wake first – go for a morning run, dodge some bullets, bring back a fresh breakfast. That sort of thing.

On the outside, the Brand-Tares household looked normal enough.

But set foot in the apartment, and the illusion shattered like you’d shot it with a high-powered rifle. Weapons and armor littered the place; the flat itself was too barren to feel lived-in, too much like a fortress and too little like a home.

Most days.

The last week; no, the last karking month had been an exhausting experience. Aver was out cold on her side, legs tangled with Rev’s warmth. A good night’s sleep if she’d ever needed one.

So it was long after the artificial dawn had filtered through the windows that she finally stirred. Pale scars danced across her back, Aver stretched out like a cat – let out a guttural noise of pleasure as her spine popped with each vertebrae.

A beat of quiet, and then she turned around.

“Been awake long?” came her gravelly murmur as she half-draped across his body.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

He didn’t need to look at her, not to know how she appeared. The sounds she would make, stirring bare beneath the sheets. The pop of her spine, like the echo of muffled fireworks, and how she purred through the warmth of her coarse voice.

Turning, she layered herself against him and a faint smile ghosted across his lips. His hand moved from behind his head to beneath hers, running fingers through locks of long grown red hair.

“No…” Though he considered a clever remark on a reawakening. That deep down, maybe he had awoken from something else. But it was far too profound for the sentiment, particularly for the grogginess that still lingered over him. “Just a few moments.”

He hadn’t been through the same level of exertion as her, though he felt partially to blame. The way he left, the way he carried that soulsaber in some form of petulance, and the way that he held her at a distance. Even when they were apart, they were never truly apart. Except for the past few weeks.

“What was he like?” He spoke to the ceiling, crimson eye searching. He couldn’t kill the man, that much was true for now. In some ways, he found he preferred the voice of a sheriff to the thousands. “An alchemist?”

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Awareness trickled back in, like blood from a shallow cut. Aver studied the tattoo curling around his neck through lidded eyes. Calloused fingers traced idle patterns across the torso, mindful of the slow rise and fall of his chest.

She froze for a moment at the question that pierced the soft quiet of the apartment. Her hand hovered above his sternum for a beat before she laid the palm over his heart in a slow, careful motion.

Propping herself up on her elbow, Aver sought out his one crimson eye.

“Not what I expected,” she spoke, offering a wry curl of her lips with the words. “In some ways, at least…”

With a sigh she brushed away an unruly red strand from her face. “Stubborn. Self-righteous. Prone to getting impaled,.” Aver side-eyed her lover at that, “but yes, an alchemist. A good one, I guess.”

She chuckled.

“Not that I’ll ever know. Our last run-in was… a mess. Unplanned karking mess. You know what’s worse being in a room with the Leviathan and the Horned One? Being in that room with Gabriel.”

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

He laid quietly, her body against his as she spoke amid many different emotions. As far as he could recall, that was the nature of Gabriel. Every emotion brought about was negative in some way, and not the sort of masochism that Reverance longed for. This was closer to nagging than anything even resembling pain. A toothache that one couldn’t help but tongue.

“Now you know why I moved to remove him…” He drifted from the sight of ice chips to find the ceiling again. Breathing, her hand resting against his chest, he lifted blackened fingers to wrap around her calloused hands.

“He was loudest in the beginning, before I took over. And then after that, it was a dying voice...his stubbornness eroded eventually. Even stars die...but he didn’t die.” He drifted back, furrow of his brow stood crown above a crimson eye. “I’m not sure when his voice came back, beyond a subtle influence. But as soon as it did, I had to cut it out. It was…” He smirked. “Reckless. I had never transferred essence like that. It nearly killed me. He could have killed me when he was born into the clone body. But he didn’t. He just left.”

He shook his head.

“Gabriel knew the risk of leaving me alive. But he did it anyway. That was stupid of him.” He took in a deep breath. “So what of this leviathan and horned beast? You have another run in? Show me?”

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Accepting her own quiet for his speech with a grateful smile, Aver pulled up and crossed her legs. As Rev spoke, she angled herself so that she could still look at his face. Her mouth quirked up into a soft, fond smile. Though she could call it up before her mind’s eye with picture-perfect clarity, it would never be the same – there was unmatched vigor in the lines marking his features. Teeth on a canvas.

She nodded slowly, reaching over to the nightstand for a lighter. A cigarra was pinched between her lips a moment later, red cherry glowing in the blue flame.

Smoke filigree crawled through pointed teeth as Aver tilted her head back. Red hair fell over her shoulders, down the scarred lines of a powerful back. She ran thoughtful circles with her thumb over his sternum, parsing the experience in her head.

“They’re getting stronger,” Aver admitted with a slight scowl. Blue eyes fell closed as she ashed the cigarra on the floor, took another drag deep into her lungs, and let the memories spill over in a tide of red.

Entangled in smoke and remembrance, Ygdris’ lips stretched into a wolfish grin. “Time we did something about that.”

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

She was inherently laconic, sparing with her words in favor of the distillation of thoughts across skin. The nature of the memories danced closely to oneiric images, a dream reconstructed with uncertainty in its occurrence. If it weren't for the spirit that they cohabitated, a binding that spanned from spine to heart, he might have carried mild incredulity for the events that occurred.

But as it was, he took it all in. Her finger rubbed over his sternum as she sat up, cinders of a fire moving inchmeal down the shaft of the cigarra. Based off the images, the feelings and the confusion, the inanition that he felt perspire from her pores was no longer surprising.

Stretching upward, fingers wrapped around the cigarra and extracted it from her grip. Planting it against the slight parting of his lips, he suspired as the smoke clawed its way down his throat. “Hmm…” It would have been easy for him to fixate on the memories particular to Gabe, his family, and the homestead. But for his part, this Leviathan and Horned one seemed like a much bigger issue than familial concerns.

“Can't go to a planet without finding them, it seems…this Avatar.” He shook his head, satin pillow case crinkling beneath his movement. Smoke fell from his nostrils, hazey slipstream twirling into an amorphous cloud, quick to disperse. “The cult leader. I assume there are more. We can't do much about it until we sort out their end game.” He withdrew the cigarra from his mouth and rotated it. Enjoying the flourish of her lips and the smoke clinging to the wrap, he offered it back to her.

“Do we have any leads?”

[member="Aver Brand"]​