We'd Like to See You Dead

[Matsu Xiangu]

Rhen Var - Silver Jedi Holding Facility
Post-Battle of Ruusan - Pre-Korriban Tragedy

The light was wrong.

It was sterile, fluorescent - a hospital? Her head felt like it was split open, as if moving would cause her brains to slop out over whatever hard surface she was laying on. A hospital was likely. It took another few breaths for her to work up to opening her eyes, a narrow squint that barely allowed her to see past the ache of the light hitting her sensitive eyes. At first she could have believed it was in fact some medical facility, the memories of Ruusan right before she’d blacked out in attempting to incinerate Connor Harrison from the surface of the planet flooding back to her. While she didn’t know who would have evacuated her from that ruin of a planet, it was always possible.

But that train of thought was quickly dashed when she realized she was shut behind a giant glass window. No door. At least not one that was readily visible. Trapped.

A thin cord of rage boiled through her pounding head, her face twisting in rage until the open wound on the side of her scar cracked and bled. But it was gone as soon as it came, giving way to something cold and calculated. No room would hold her. They had taken her when she was defenseless and for that she would ruin them - cowards. Her thoughts drifted to her son and whether he’d managed to escape Ruusan unharmed, but almost moments after she thought she heard footsteps.

Lifting herself from the excuse for a cot in her spare surroundings, she limped to the pane of glass that constituted the front of her cage. Whomever her captor, she would look them right in the eye before she destroyed them.

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor didn't leave her side. He sat at the outside of her cell within the locked down room on a single chair, and waited. To be fair he had nodded off once or twice waiting for the beast to wake, but he wasn't worried. He was quite safe.

And then, as his head nodded forward and snapped back before entering dreamland, she was up and at the cell looking out like one of those nightmarish figures who just appear in your dream...and with each blink, they get closer...and closer...until they have you.

He stood up, flexed his shoulders and walked over in a casual stroll. Over his left eye he wore a grey eye-patch; quite the rogue look indeed and the result of the Ruusan engagement with her. Lucky it was just his eye that needed to heal; seconds later or inches closer it would have been pulled from his socket and he'd probably be dead. She sure knew how to leave a mark on him.

His rhythmic, dull footsteps were the only sound as he made it to the cell, inches before her face. To others, it would weaken them to their knees to see such a woman looking like this, but he had seen her pre and post, so he saw right through the outer shell. A few seconds passed as they just looked at each other. He then looked around the cell and tapped it with his finger.

"I don't even know what this is made of actually, but it's strong. I hope anyway." He then looked at her and circled around with his finger. "Outer wall is hijarna stone with synthweave that will give even you one big headache, and we've got tunqstoid doors. Is that the name? I don't know to be honest. Master Ike does all that sort of thing. I just use her toys and gadgets!"

Connor looked at her again and noticed she seemed dead on her feet. Not overtly breathing, moving, blinking. Nothing. But that was all part of the Matsu Xiangu charm - being near dead even when her heart was beating inside that fragile body.

"You never told me you had a son, anyway. I could never imagine you as mother material. Or...any other material for that matter."

He flashed a little smile. This was going to be interesting. Finally, he had been given the upper hand on the woman who had broken him so many times.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She should have known it would be Connor.

Looking back on the clashes they’d found themselves in over the last decade it was almost amusing now, to be on that side of the glass. There was a time where she simply hadn’t cared enough about the goings-on on the Galaxy at all to find herself in a position to be trapped within some Jedi prison. And if she were being honest she still didn’t care about the galaxy. But she’d found the fascination in being a part of it, of carving out some little misery. However, despite the fact that she ostensibly had all the time in the world to ponder her philosophy, her captor stood in front of her like a cat with his canary.

Had she the mouth she would have smiled at him. Instead the skin around her ruin of a mouth stretched in some vestigial abomination of the expression, her tongue pressing against the half-healed clot where he’d dug his fingers in to her scar to push it from the hole. It crumbled away until her tongue pressed through her teeth and out of the wound as if waving at him, and she tilted her head in study.

“All those fancy things and I can’t even get a decent pillow in here? Seems a bit cruel, don’t you think?” She reached up, pressing a metallic hand to the glass where he was tracing the outline of the facility as if they might hold hands. “How is Master Ike? It’s been many, many years since last I spoke with her.” Once she and the Jedi had hunted monsters together, years long past where Matsu had not learned to so deeply loathe anyone that called themselves a Silver. Funny, that - Jedi wasn’t an automatic hatred, but if they numbered themselves within the hypocritical burgeoning of light-wielders she mistrusted and misliked them.

Her ribs hurt, an ache in her chest when she drew breath. She wondered if they hadn’t seen fit to kick her when she was unconscious.

At the mention of her son her pupils dilated, consuming the ruddy amber of her temperament at rest as if she might drag him in to her gravity and watch him freeze. She did not fear for Onley - to do so would be to allow weakness. If her son died then he was not fit to live or wield the Force. No one would use him against her. But even still...she loved Onley, in her own way.

“Quite rude of me, you’re right of course,” she answered, her voice curling around the ‘r’s like a snake squeezing its prey. “I did not think myself Mother material either. His father and I considered killing him in the crib, but curiosity got the better of us. You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” She paused, laughter low and warm pressing along her telepathic connection to him. “Reverance and I decided to let him live and see what he became. And he is anything but a disappointment Connor. You should see him kill.”

The material of the holding cells was rather brilliant, she would admit. Her head hurt so much it was all she could do to speak to him, let alone use her mental powers to try and make a guard set her free when no one was looking. And she had a feeling Connor would always be looking. “So what’s the plan Connor? Keep me here until I rot?”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor glanced to where her hand was near his. Such a romantic. He wasn’t going to move first. She could intimidate all she wanted – it was part of her web spinning that he was accustomed to.

"She’s fine," was all she would get on another Silver Jedi. Less ammunition. "And your pillow is good enough. That’s real plush stuff, none of your artificial rubbish here."

He let his shoulders sag a little, sighing, thinking out loud to himself at her question.

"I would say keep you here whilst you rot but it appears you’re already doing that," he indicated to his face, to mirror hers. "I’d like to help clean that up for you but you didn’t really extend me the same courtesy, so I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t."

Connor stayed perfectly still and did his best not to stare or feel intimidated by the small woman. How he would love to dig inside that head of hers and that body. To see all the elements that made her up; what was real, what was not. What was human, what was artificial. What bled, what didn’t.

"I have no doubt your son can kill – he’s had a good teacher – but, you do know that he’s just flesh and blood. Like you. And look where you are now. If there is another Xiangu out there, I guarantee you one day I will end them. Your son is on borrowed time." There was a chilling calmness to his deep voice. "You have brought so much misery and pain to this galaxy, but for what. What do you want from all of this? And spare me any preaching about cleansing the world or the Sith will rise again, blah blah blah - give me something. Come on – you’re Matsu Xiangu, Sorceress and Un-dead Queen. Shock me. Make me feel all this pain was worth it!"

He didn’t even realise he’d hit his palm on the glass atop where her hand was.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

If she had lips she might have curled one at his suggestion that the pillow on the cot was ‘plush’. But then again, this was a Jedi prison, and they had that odd habit of denying themselves simple pleasures for some reason. Either way, it mattered little as he spoke again.

Her eyes narrowed as he spoke, letting the flutter of his emotion - what could reach her through the headache - whisper across her mind as his emotions ranged far and wide. She thought of it like a spider did its web, sitting still and feeling which strands twitched with the struggle of prey. If she was quiet and paid attention, the tug of varying emotions felt the same way. She could follow them down to the center when they were done struggling. But Connor was funny, one of those few who met her time and again on battlefields far flung - even to work together once as necessity dictated. They were far past posturing, miles past an idea of what the other should be. So she was just herself.

The start of his response was calm, and she was almost mesmerized by the chill in his voice. He threatened her son so casually - so violently even - that her fingers curled against the glass where their palms were flattened together. Once again she imagined turning him to the dark, the way he talked making her itch to peel back his scars and poison him. She was oh so very patient, and if it took her a lifetime she would see Sith Lord Connor Harrison.

But the chill melted in the wake of a fire barely controlled, one she hardly even felt burning until his palm slammed against hers on the glass in between them. Now it was about her.

She missed her mouth. She missed smiling. She would have then - something small, demure, understanding and warm.

“It wasn’t worth it,” she said, nearly a whisper in his head. “None of it is worth it. I don’t care about the Sith. I don’t care whether this galaxy is cleansed of some imaginary scourge or if it chokes on it. The pain you feel? The people you suffered for? The Order you dedicated your life to? None of it matters. There’s nothing at the end.” Laughter - warm, quiet, consoling, friendly. “I spend enough of my time around death to know that the life we’re given is the only thing that means anything, and I will use it for myself and no one but me. None of those civilians you risk your life for would ever do the same for you - they’ll run and hide when you need their help and blame you when you can’t protect them properly in return.” Her eyes were a sanguine blaze around the black pits of her irises, her speech more feverish. “I am Matsu Xiangu, and when I die they will spit on my name and erase me from the history books but it won’t matter because I will be dead, and I will have reveled in my own power. That is what I want. And you are Connor Harrison, Jedi Master and protector of the innocent, and when you die they’ll make some statue that collects dust in a temple no one ever visits, your name lost to the centuries and plague. And you’ll have spent your life protecting them, and they will not even care.”

Her metallic fingers clacked against his, as if willing them to web together.
Her voice was calm again.
“There’s nothing at the end. Your pain has never been worth it. And everything I've done, I've done for me.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

He viewed himself as one who had glimpsed both Light and Dark, but in reality, he hadn’t. It was just what he told himself to make the Dark seem less attractive when it sidled up to him and wrapped dark tendrils around his body and mind. Matsu was doing it again. She had seen the Dark. She was the Dark. That was nothing what Connor had seen before.

If he had, he wouldn’t be standing on this side of the cell.

The voice inside his head was ethereal. It was like a voice from the other side; it was like his sub-conscious talking to him as he stared at this woman – a mash of cybernetics and bloodied flesh and muscle. There had been a pretty woman there, once.

It was a gentle voice, not harsh or aggressive. It was just gentle and understanding and matter-of-fact. It even made sense. Why did nobody else ever make sense?

What was he apart from a name a few remembered, many forgot? Even the lightsaber he held wasn’t his; it was nearly 900 years old and granted it had been tweaked and fixed now and then, it held a legacy that he never would have. He would disappear like the sands of Tatooine blowing in a storm, and a faded name in the Silver Jedi memorial garden.

He couldn’t move his hand away and almost felt like it was absorbing into the glass.

"You have a son," he said after the voice ended. "Something I’ve never felt; a connection to another. Surely you’re doing this for him now. For his future. His legacy. He must mean something to you."

Anyone listening in would have a hard time to decide if Connor was talking to the Sith Sorceress, or himself.

"You would have been a goddess among gods had you not fallen to the Dark Side. Think how you could have been if you’d had fought with us. What you could have achieved – all of this? It would have so much easier without the death and deception you cause. You’re one of the most powerful people I’ve ever met. And look at you."

He turned his head slowly, eyes soft. He was fascinated. He had never been this close – well, he had, but without a clawed hand ripping his flesh away like sticky tape from his muscle.

"What happened to you? What made you like this? Why are you so self-destructive? You could have so much more."

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She enjoyed the space in which they stood, like dipping her feet in to some warm trap of seawater held in a sandbar, the current of their emotions entwined swirling over her skin. There was a beat of silence after the mention of Onley. That would be the natural thing, wouldn’t it? To give up her life for her son, to do all she did in the name of bettering his life. But he’d said himself he hadn’t expected her to be a Mother, and in most ways she had no firm grasp of what that should mean.

“I never wanted him. I kept him because I wanted to see if he would grow in to something strong, and he did. If he had been weak I would have killed him and regretted not doing it in the cradle. But he saved me that waste of time. His legacy means nothing to me, and neither does mine. I am in this galaxy for the time I am given. Whatever he does when I’m dead is none of my concern, and therefore this life is mine to live for me.” She paused, contemplating her son. Her son. Who would ever have thought. “But I do love him. In my own way, I love him.” They had come too far for her to pretend as if Onley did not mean something to her - in that, he was right.

She was familiar with the way Jedi were taught, the lies they told themselves. Oddly enough she felt such sadness at the curbing of Connor’s power, of the way they held him back. “Am I not a goddess now? I answer to no one. I throw in my chips with those who might further my power or cause and when they no longer serve my purpose, I leave. I am beholden to no one, I answer to no one. Can you say the same? You tell me that if I fought with you everything would have been easier, but which of your decisions does Master Heavenshield not have a say in? In how many council meetings have you wasted your life hammering out a simple decision?” She did not sound accusing - merely sad. She pressed up against the glass, stretching to her tiptoes so she might look him in the eye as her tone changed to feverish once more, trembling at the thought of her own power. “How many times have you used that fire of yours and known there was more just under the surface that you can never touch because of some words you once swore to uphold? How many times have you known the solution was right in front of you, but you were yoked by rules that will not matter in the end?” She came down off her tiptoes, taking a breath to let herself come back to calm, conspiratorial. “If I fought with your Order, I would have been me. But weak. Bridled. Controlled.”

As he turned his head, so did she to mirror him. Are we so different? Her eyes were soft too, inviting. She wanted desperately to push him off some edge, drag him by the uncertainty down in to the dark where his kind were so convinced monsters dwell - only to find his true power.

“I think I’m a product of nature and nurture. When I was young I set out in to the galaxy on my own and I met a man named Krius Syonis. As young women do, I believed the adventure we were on was something more than power and control. But I was wrong and in the end he took control of my head and made me remove my arm,” she explained, holding up the left cybernetic. “He made me see things that weren’t there, convinced me of an illusion. And from then on I swore I would let no one in my head. He hurt me, but I think I was meant to be wrong. If I wasn’t I would be--” she paused, kind laughter cascading through their heads. “--I’d be like you. I’d have taken that experience and dedicated my life to making sure no one else had to go through it. There’s something novel to that idea. But instead I chased my sickness and in it I found solace. And more power than I know what to do with. I killed Krius. And nothing stands between me and what I want anymore.”

She rarely - if ever - talked so much. Her head was pounding and she was exhausted, but she had to explain to him. She needed him to see the chains around his feet.

“You are strong as a Jedi, Connor. Perhaps the strongest I’ve ever fought. You are so wasted on them.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

The flesh wound and manky skin was all superficial with Matsu. That was just for effect - the natural look - but it wasn't her. She was more than the physical being. She was the mentalist who got inside your head and carried you along from there. Since the poison had been rooted to his brain stem years ago, she had been there. Even when it was pulled from him, she was still there. She'd always been there. She almost belonged there. Matsu knew him better than anyone else; that was what scared him.

His eyes were slow as they blinked, he was in no rush to hurry her on as she talked in his mind and it was like a mother reading a school report to a child. Pointing out where the mother had gone wrong in her time, and how the child could do better given his skill. Connor was older than Matsu, but she had experienced more than Connor could of the Force in double his lifetime.

Connor's fringe crushed up against the glass as he rested his brown on the cold surface, eyes closed, breathing slow and hard.

Usually by now he'd be stood yards away, smirking, laughing and questioning her preaching. But with Matsu Xiangu, he couldn't. She wasn't like the others.

"I...I couldn't live like you. Without purpose. Without anything. So alone. So...empty. Nothing to show for it." His eyes opened, and Xiangu was still there. "I'm so tired. I am tired, Matsu."

The events of Korriban had hit him hard. Continuous diplomatic missions that felt like dead-ends. Heated confrontations. Physical and mental exhaustion. And what to show for it? The eyes of everyone judging him and his Order. Questioning his standing and everything HE had done for them.

"You know what, after all this Korriban nonsense?" He looked up at her and shook his head. "I don't care about the ones who died. Not my problem. Not my issue. I feel nothing. I only feel for the battle I'm not winning convincing everyone else of what we are! We're not murderers!"

His voice was louder and he stopped before going off on one again.

Pulling himself back and exhaling, his breath condensing on the glass for a second, his eyes looked up at the strip-lights shining on them. Minutes went by. He just looked up. Not know where he was anymore. Why the hell he was talking to her of all people.

He wanted to speak, but he didn't know what to say or how to say it and it took him a while more to think of the words.

"Thanks for not killing me. I know you could have. But you didn't. I thought I was dead that day."

He didn't look at her.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She shifted when he rested his head on the glass, on tiptoes again so that they might come close to an even height as she rested hers too, the glass the only thing stopping them from standing together heads bowed as if old friends commiserating.

When he opened his eyes, hers would be right there - dark roiling amber with streaks of crimson jagged from the corruption of her power.

She let him vent, asserting his uncertainty about the way she lived and giving way to a promising blossom of irritation at the mention of Korriban. That had been a distinctly ugly affair. Of course Matsu had gone up against the Silver Jedi enough to realize such an order could never have come from one of their own - it had to be have been some idiot acting alone. But to the Sith at large such fine details would not matter. It was the perfect opportunity to drag those shiny silver capes through the mud and further their own cause. Her first name spoken without venom or sarcasm was still ringing in her head - a harbinger of times to come perhaps, a time they might be partners and not enemies in some pointless battle.

She let the silence settle after he insisted the Silver Jedi were not murderers, thinking over her answer before it came.

“That’s just it, isn’t it? What being a Jedi teaches you about the value of you, yourself, your being?” She could only see his eyes, the ragged scar tissue where she’d ripped at him, the blue-gray an answer to her ancient amber. “You say I live without purpose, but that is not true. My purpose is me. You say I am alone. I am not - I have me. You say that I have nothing to show for my life. I do. I - have - me.” Her fingers pressed against the glass as if willing it to break. “I have more credits than I know what to do with and more houses on more planets than I can count on both hands - material things of course but if nothing matters I might as well enjoy myself. I have known power beyond measure and I grow each day. I have two lovers for whom I would die, and they would die for me. I have a strong son. A few friends. And I have me.” They came apart at the same time though she didn’t back away from the glass. “Every morning I wake up and I have myself. And every night when I fall asleep, I have myself. I live my life in service to the great constant - myself. And there, at the end, under some great mountain looking down as I die...it will only be me. And that is everything.”

She blinked, considering him when he thanked her for not killing him. Those were words she’d heard before in different variations from many other people but it was strange to hear them in what felt like an increasingly surreal conversation.

“You’re welcome. But then, we wouldn’t be here having this delightful conversation, would we?” Another short bout of warm laughter that drifted as she was lost to her thoughts. They both seemed winded, one by revelation and the other by the expulsion of power and craving. A few minutes passed, a silence that Matsu did not find uncomfortable. When she spoke again it was quiet despite the fact that she couldn’t truly break the solitude of the holding area even if she wanted to.

“I suppose I can’t,” she finally said, her eyes ticking along the ceiling as if reading something there. “Kill you, I mean.” She looked back down towards him. “There’s something dark in you, something that calls to the void that I can’t ignore. It wants to be set free and it makes me ache. So I wait. For what I can’t say. Perhaps for you to choose. To ignore it and stay the beacon of hope and justice in the galaxy, a Jedi - in which case I will spend the rest of my life making sure you are wiped from the galaxy. Or to listen to it, leave the sun behind, and join me in the dark.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

She was infecting his mind. She was getting under his skin. She was, by all accounts, an itch.

Again, she was everything he had wanted to be. In a position of power and status; a name that rang out and spoke volumes before even meeting them. People loved and hated her. People knew her and what she stood for. mAnd she had wealth, and residences, and a lover – nay, lovers. TWO! – and a child. This disfigured freak had it all.

Connor had nothing. A body painted in failure. A ship, a holocron, small quarters that weren’t even his own in being provided for by the Order, and nothing else. Years of heartbreak and heartache. Conflicted affairs of the mind, broken friendships, pulsing headaches, internal bleeding…suffering…mass deception…what about Thurion and Coci? They trusted him; they depended on him. And Kyra? She followed him, and would to the ends of the world. And Joza? She was a friend, of course, he couldn’t risk more. She had felt enough pain.

The thoughts about them soon started to turn sordid and he had to stop.

"Stop it." He snapped his head up to her, eye narrowing slightly and voice echoing around the empty room. "I can’t."

The first step – admitting he couldn’t do it, which meant somewhere in his mind he thought partly he could.

"You don’t know what it means to be someone to others, do you? Do you know how many people look up to me as a leader and a role-model? Future generations count on me to help give them my knowledge to continue the battle well after we’re dead in the ground. I help build this Order. I saw it nearly torn down from the inside – twice." He pursed his lips, not wanting to get rattled again by something that always annoyed him. "I’ve fought people to get rid of them and I’ll do it again. They’re not taking that away from me and you’re not either."

He stepped back, composing himself slightly and turning his back to her for the first time. When he did, he closed his eye and lifted the eye-patch off. It was irritating.

"You wouldn’t wipe me from this galaxy, Matsu. I’m the play toy you can’t afford to lose, so don’t give me that. Same with me. I hate you, but I am fascinated by you. You're horribdly beautiful to me for some reason even I can't comprehend. I don’t think I could actually ever kill you. But don't let it go to your head."

Connor laughed a little. He enjoyed feeling carefree and in a powerful position right now. He was in control. Finally.

He placed his hand over the raw wound and held it there, letting out a hiss of air at the pleasure/pain sensation of finally touching the itch.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Careful Matsu, careful…

The Lightside was skittish, prone to running just before the Dark could envelop it. Pushing a Jedi to rise (for they always called it ‘falling’ to the Dark Side, propaganda - it was ascension!) was never easy and had to be done with care. She could feel his conflict, the people he cared about tethering him to the bricks dragging him to the bottom of some stagnant ocean.

He spoke of being someone to others and her thoughts drifted over the apprentices she’d had, the factions of force-users she’d lent her strength to. True, she was no permanent fixture in the lives of anyone except her lovers, children, and a few select friends - but that was to her advantage.

The responsibility of being a role model sounded dreadfully boring.

His mood was changing, a confidence blooming back in to the conversation that shifted its tone. It was a distinctly prideful sensation - a sin, some would say. She felt some burning, skin-peeling sensation under her eye, the same eye he scratched at as if in release of what they both dredged up from the deep. She reached up, swiping cool metallic fingers against her skin to soothe it, a mirror of himself that he couldn’t see with his back turned.

“I’m not trying to take anything from you. I’m trying to give you something.”

She contemplated their stalemate. She wasn’t opposed to the idea of killing him, contrary to the idea of two opposing forces needing the other to carry on. But she didn’t want to have to. He was endless fun - interesting where most of the galaxy ended up being predictable and trite. She would kill him if she had to. But she would rather see him fall to madness.

“If you’re not going to kill me, let me go. I am not meant to waste away in here. And it will be easier if you just open the door.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

"Stop!"

He pulled the eye-patch off, or mostly tore it off, and span back to her so she could see what she had done. Connor walked the distance back to her holding cell - she was so dainty in there all alone, so feeble.

"See what you gave me?" He pointed at himself. "You've brought me nothing but pain over my whole life! You've riddled my body and my brain with your poison and you say you want to give me something?"

Connor's chest was tight with frustration, and he was itching to repay her for it all right now away from the eyes of the Order and the galaxy.

"You don't deserve to waste away in here, you're right. You deserve to be taken apart piece by piece and broken down limb by limb. That's what you deserve. You have NO life out there anymore. You have NOTHING." He scoffed and pointed at the control panel on the back wall. "Easier if I let you out? And how will it be easier? For who? You? Of course it will. You don't get to rot away watching the galaxy you built collapse as we take it back! And if I take you out of here, trust me, you won't be leaving this planet alive."

He was enjoying this power too much; finally, he had her.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

With the patch over his eye gone, the scarring was plain to see. He couldn’t claim that he hadn’t left her with deformities either - the tight clasp of burnt flesh along the crest of her shoulder blades from his fire was proof enough of that. But the mark on his face made her think of the Dark, her claw marks slashed downwards, like veins infected and crawling down to take him over. It was natural for the body to resist disease, for a time at least. But some day she prayed his would give in.

Couldn't he see that all that pain, all that suffering - it was a gift? It was a key.

His vicious words were met by a slow cascade of the same quiet, warm laughter as before, though this time tinged with a hint of true amusement. He spoke of mutilating her, of atrocities so violent that any Jedi who heard them would balk at the rogue Master’s monologue. Matsu had always suspected that even the most pure Jedi struggled with natural violent urges but even they probably did not describe dismembering a woman - war criminal or not. And he’d said it himself… ‘stop it.. I can’t.’ He could. The veil was thin.

With that she turned from him, gliding back towards the poor excuse for a cot she’d been given and taking a prim seat on its edge. She stared towards the wall across from her, in profile from the Jedi Master.

“You’re boring me now Connor. Let me out or leave me here to do it myself.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

For a few seconds, there it was. Matsu Xiangu pushed Connor over the edge of his ego. Summing up what he knew everyone thought about him. Allies, enemies, friends, lovers - or rather ex lovers.

Boring.

No matter his actions and words and thoughts, he was boring. He was fading faster than the setting Jakku sun he'd watched sink from atop. She was right? Yes - and was she goading him? Yes. But if life had treated him better, if those he stood with had treated him better then maybe he wouldn't be so boring.

He turned to the control panel and waved his fingers, turning the red light green and unlocking the door. And with that quick motion Connor didn't waste time in side-stepping to the door and pulling it open, the air hissing as the heavy door glided across at his heavy touch.

Matsu sat there, all smug and righteous, and the Jedi marched towards her with no fear and no hesitation to get close to the one who was supposed to be so mystical and powerful and scary. She was nothing but flesh and blood and she could be hurt just as much as anyone else. Connor didn't stop moving - he placed his hand hand agianst her chest and pushed her back violently against the wall, across her bunk like a little doll. Not waiting for any of that spider-like retaltion, Connor grabbed her thin arm tightly and dragged the witch up, frog-marching her across the cell and out like a prisoner. His prisoner.

The Jedi stayed silent, his heart burning and face set. He felt like a man made of stone and wouldn't break for anything, and so he kept dragging Matsu across to the exit, pulling open the door after a code input and across a cold tunnel and up a flight of stone stairs which bled small snowflakes from the cracked cieling along wiht a few rays of muted sunlight.

Up her went, unaware if she was even still there or what she was doing - he was a man possessed and had reached the end of his tether.

The double doors parted at the sign of someone approaching, and the cold plains of Rhen Var greeted the pair. Connor's ship to the distant right, and only an old radar post to the left before a frozen lake that once hid the Silver Jedi prison. Now it was defunt and un-monitored. So nobody knew Connor was here with the Sith.

Throwing the rag-doll forward into the snow before him, he stayed close to her; feeding his hate from her very aura, fists clenched.

"Boring? So what now - you're free, what now? Tell me, Matsu, are you going to hurt me over and over again until my brain bleeds?"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Nothing but her eyes moved when he unlocked the cell with the flick of a wrist, her gaze shifting to the change in color indicating that - just like that - she was free.

Her limbs went limp when he strode in to the room. She hadn’t tasted fear in decades, not since Krius Syonis had left her beneath the mountain on Skye, and not even with Connor Harrison bearing down on her did she experience that emotion’s ghost. But she had known it enough in others to allow its convincing hold to claim her, the importance of acting her part impressed upon her simply by the knowledge that while the Jedi had not yet given in to the truth, already she could feel his power with more presence than it had ever held while he shackled himself to his code. Her back hit the cell wall with enough force that she wondered if something hadn’t cracked, curling in on herself as if attempting to hide in plain sight from her attacker. (Feed. Feed on me.)

He was much taller than her and it wasn’t an act as she struggled to keep up with him up the stairs, taking two at a time despite the hazard of their icy edges as they neared the surface. She let uncertainty infect her remaining features, falling in to some character essential to Harrison’s journey.

It was almost freeing to play some scared little woman again.

The doors opened on the snowy planet and for a moment she wondered if she wasn’t dreaming. Every important moment of her life seemed to revolve around some snowy landscape, and then the world slowed to a crawl as a drop of blood leaking from the wound around her mouth stained the snow near her feet. (Watching herself bleed out, a legacy nearly stopped before it had even started. Not meant to die then, not meant to die now.) She had only a second of the view before he threw her forward in to the snow, and she allowed her feet to tangle beneath her so she fell in to the powder. It was freezing and almost felt soothing against her burning wound. It melted in her hair as she looked up at him, allowing her usually impassive face to show brilliantly crafted fear.

“I’m not sure you’re worth the effort,” she stammered out, truth laced with the lie of her panic. “If you insist on staying in the Light, I’ll just kill you. Torture is a waste of my time if I’m not getting anything out of it. Boring.” She should have been getting up - staying on the ground left her in a precarious position. But she would push, and push, and push and push and push...to the dark, yearning...

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

There it was again. Boring.

Licking the bottom row of teeth, Connor looked up into the white sky and opened his fingers, letting the cold, brisk air run around his free skin. It all started here, all those years ago. Body bashing against rock and ice and water. Knocking the wind and confidence out of him to be the boring Jedi he had become. Maybe it was time to let the cold re-birth him.

Slowly, he turned to his prey, all trace of the kind hearted Jedi from Voss gone. He embraced the cold and let it lap at his cowl as he watched a fragile Matsu on the crisp snow, dotted with her blood. His eyes were a cloudy grey, not his usual blue.

"Torture?" he said. "This isn't torture. This is me getting what I want."

He stepped forward quickly and placed an ice flaked boot on her chest, not caring for the pressure applied crushing her breasts or rib-cage. In fact, he pushed down harder to do hurt what he could. Maybe she was letting him do this. Maybe not. Either way, he was in control. Putting all his weight on his left foot atop her body, Connor delivered a snap-kick to the right side of her face - sharp and with force. Then, without hesitation, he ignited his blade and held it upside down, the blue blade that used to reflect his blue eyes now reflecting nothing but his venom towards the Sith, and he brought the blade to Matsu's right side of the body and held it there.

Holding the blade, he closed his eyes and saw it sizzling her clothing away, and the flesh, burning it and blistering it and melting it, cooking the rotten skin to the muscle below that with a stench of boiling blood, burning skin and dead tissue.

Connor looked down, burning his hate into her face and reading what he could, caring little for the lack of humanity he presented, because nobody would know.

"You will fear me now."

His left boot moved to her left wrist and his right boot atop her right wrist, and he crouched incredible close to her, uncomfortably close as he brought the blade horizontally between them and held it there, a barrier of good between these two clouded figures in the snow. He lowered it to her right side of the face and held it - repeating the process of cooking her skin, melting her flesh and inhaling the scent of burning he caused as he looked into her eyes.

It was probably nothing to her. and he placed his cold hand on the left of her bloodied and mangled jaw and fingered the crevices and bone.

"They will fear me now."

Connor killed the blade and the smell of her burnt skin wafted into the air as the snow fluttered gently around them in an otherwise now peaceful location.

Snatching her bloodied hair in his hand he lifted her head off the ground.

"They will," he hissed at her, hand shaking with bloodlust before placing her head back down...somewhat gently.

He took his weight off her, and stood back, catching his breath that had been held for the past few moments and took in the view around him.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

If there was one thing she still felt like everyone else, it was pain. Her body crunched in to the snow as his booted foot pressed down on her chest, falling in on itself to hold her until she stopped and he began to crush her. The crunch gave way to a snap as he kicked her face as she felt something give way. It wasn’t a break - she only knew it because the second his lightsaber touched her side she started shrieking. No, he must have dislocated the joint; she felt it rock and click as it worked against her agony, her screams escaping out of the hole on the side of what was left of a cavity that used to be her mouth.

She writhed underneath like an insect exposed to heat, arms and legs seizing underneath him as she struggled to escape. Every nerve ending screamed at her to spring her claws and slice his tendons, drag him to the ground and paint the snow with his insides. But this was part of it - letting him see what he was capable of. When he knelt down and looked in her eyes she saw sickness, darkness. (It feels good, doesn’t it? To hurt someone else the way you feel you’ve been hurt?) So instead she suffered. Because it would get her what she wanted.

The face was the worst part. Valiens’ wound had been quick, almost over before she’d even realized what happened. When Connor held the blade to her face she nearly lost consciousness, the sound of her flesh sizzling away next to her ear creaking around the edges of her sanity.

She didn’t realize it was over until she felt his fingers poking around bone. That pain was far away, nerve endings blissfully stunted to sensation in the wake of his torture. She reached with her tongue to lick at his fingers, a whistling laugh sobbing up through her raw throat.

“They will fear you,” she whispered in to his head. She thought of the people she’d gleaned from his memories in their past confrontations, their horror if they could see what he had just done, Sith or not. Not only had he acted out of anger but he had acted to cause another being pain just for the sake of causing pain. It was a horror, and as Connor dropped Matsu’s head back in to the snow she looked lazily around at the halo of snow created by her struggling. It was sprayed with small droplets of blood where her wounds hadn’t cauterized, and she in the center of her dreadful crater. She rolled over with a hiss of pain, pressing her wounded face in to the snow and letting out of a sigh at the frozen relief. Her wounded side was another story, and as she lifted herself from the ground she grabbed a fistful of snow and packed it against the scorched hole.

Agony was the path to power. After this, she would be close to perfect.

“When you are ready to see the truth, you know how to find me,” she said quietly, strain thick even in the voice she cast mentally. Reaching up, she gripped at her mangled jaw and took a deep breath, pushing it back with an audible pop-snap to hook back in to the joint.

Master Jedi Connor Harrison. Dread Sith Lord Connor Harrison. She was ever so good at patience.

[member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

As one would look upon a fatality they had caused intentionally, or how one would look upon a wounded animal they found in a field, Connor stood in the brazing chill and looked down at Matsu as she recovered. She lolled over, sorting her burns and disfigured jaw with her own strength and the snow on the ground.

He didn’t feel bad, or have a sudden pang of sorrow or regret. He wasn’t going to run away, or whisper a feeble apology to be lost in the wind. No, Connor stood and watched and knew she had let him have this, but it was still enjoyable.

Enjoyable.

Her words danced through his head, and he felt sorry for her there and then. Not for what he did, but more liked he saw the feeble girl she used to be; lost and alone in the snow.

Pulling his cloak tight across his body, he walked towards her, again showing signs that he had simply marked his territory and now owned her. What was he thinking? He wasn’t in the right frame of mind – but he wasn’t being challenged. He was feeling immortal and finally in control, like taming a wild Nexu.

"I know the truth. I just need to accept it."

He didn’t take her arm, or try to support her, for he knew that would be nothing of an insult. Connor wasn’t in control here at all; Matsu was. However, he didn’t fear standing beside the Sith as he would have done in the past.

"I will find you when the time is right," he said, looking over at her bloodied frame, "and I may not be alone if those I train follow me from the light. One day I will take back the Order than I should have lead from the start"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

His agreeance was the first true surprise she’d felt in years. It wasn’t that there was Sith in him - that had been obvious since the first time she’d seen him on the wasteland of the planet, the first time he’d come looking for some Sith artifact. He’d been young then, weak. If she’d known what he’d become she might not have dismissed him with such casual disdain. Now he bore dozens of her scars, and she bore hers. It was a perverse relationship.

No, the surprise was for the simple fact that he’d admitted it at all.

Everything with Connor Harrison felt like beating fists against a brick wall. It would deny you your truths and your lies, and it would leave you feeling like you shouldn’t have bothered. Sometimes the wall pushed back, furious in its attempts to prove someone wrong and sting with a quip. And yet when faced with something uncomfortable just once - just this once - there was no game or push-and-pull or shove and fight to their conversation. It made her wonder if one day he might not stand over the ashes of some planet with her, shape something in his image instead of fixing it for others.

She took a deep breath through her nose, the cold air stinging her lungs.

Taking the few steps through the deep snow between them, she put a hand on his chest. Beneath the armor she there were scars she’d left on him, just as scars from the burns of his fires dusted along her shoulders. All the ugly history between them, the hatred, mistrust, and threat - it would make her promise ring all the more sincere.

“And if that day comes Harrison, I will help you.”

Her palm slipped from his breastplate as she turned, limping through the snow with blood dotting the pristine white behind her as she disappeared in to the flakes to find a ship off the world.

[member="Connor Harrison"]​