Your Wings Might Melt

[Matsu Xiangu]

Asking after slaves was one of the more distasteful things she’d ever done in her life (at least to her own sensibilities – others would point to things more poisonous). But it was a means to an end she thought as she sat back from sending off the message (vague, careful despite sending it over secure channels), lacing her fingers together over her stomach, legs crossed, looking out over the traffic humming over the surface level of Coruscant.


Esteemed Zambrano –

It has come to my knowledge that you are one of the better individuals to seek when it comes to flesh. In light of this I wanted to inquire after something special – an individual with the Force. Age and gender do not matter to me. If you possess something along these lines I would be willing to pay accordingly with their potential. Upon confirmation coordinates to where we might meet will be sent to you. I hope this communication finds you well.

– Matsu Xiangu

[member="Sage Bane"] | [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]​

 

[Zambrano the Starweird]

Esteemed Zambrano –

It has come to my knowledge that you are one of the better individuals to seek when it comes to flesh. In light of this I wanted to inquire after something special – an individual with the Force. Age and gender do not matter to me. If you possess something along these lines I would be willing to pay accordingly with their potential. Upon confirmation coordinates to where we might meet will be sent to you. I hope this communication finds you well.

– Matsu Xiangu

Valued Matsu Xiangu -

You flatter me with your praise, and it appears that my reputation precedes me. I find it mossst interesting that you should contact me at this hour, as only but two days ago I had befriended just such an individual! We met upon a Shadowport, and as it happened we were both looking for the Captain - by the name of Urootor Kallos, I believe - and well, without getting too heavily in our shenanigans, he is a Jedi Padawan. Unfortunately, as you may have heard, my friends aren't very well in terms of healthy condition... I blame it on my diseases. For some reason he simply doesn't feel like walking, and often refuses to eat with me! Stubborn boy... or at least I think it is a boy. Perhaps it is a girl. No matter, this babbling is surely of no importance to you! I am under the assumption that this fits the description of whom you are looking for?

With Love - Zambrano the Hutt

The gastropod chuckled to himself as he finished the message he had received. Had it only been two days? Perhaps it had been a week already. Who can tell when you have experienced life for this long? At any rate, the events that had transpired on that unnamed Shadowport had long since past, Zambrano the Hutt had captured one mutilated padawan, and apparently a reputation as well! Of course, Zambrano was a Crime Lord who specialized in the transportation of bodies (as well as meat), but surely it was his party on Urootor's station that attracted such prestigious attention!

As he mused, the Hutt turned his head away from his computer, returning his attention to his humble guest. [member="Sage Bane"] would find himself in the usual situation: chained to the floor before the great Hutt upon his throne of corpses. At this point they had had the chance to decay, and the rotten stink permeated every orifice of every body in the room. Eventually it would have to be disposed of in exchange for new bodies, but it had been awhile since the last time his Chariot had made a stop with Zambrano being so busy with his friend. The slug just now had been offering the near-human a foot for the past thirty minutes and still he would not even take so much as a nibble!

No matter, he smiled through the entire exchange. His hands though were getting antsy, he would have to cut something soon.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Sage Bane]

As a former slave to two different Hutts of the Besadii clans of Nal Hutta, Sage thought he had seen it all in terms of Hutt depravities. However, compared to spending a few days on Zambrano the Hutt's sail barge, his experience with the Besadii slugs might have been almost a cakewalk. This was not to belittle his past tortures because, yes, the Besadii Hutts certainly did depraved things to their slaves. Despite their mistreatment though, they had cared for Sage, like a cherished, albeit much abused, pet. Sure he was whipped often and viciously, but he was rarely denied basic humans needs such as food, water, and exercise. In addition, when the Nal Hutta slugs weren't torturing him, they were usually sitting around smoking hookah pipes and plotting how to kill off rivals. Not lounging in a fething hall of horrors atop a throne of corpses, munching on severed limbs like they were Bantha jerky. No, this was not the usual situation. Zambrano the Hutt was a whole new type of monster.

Two long miserable days went by on Zambrano the Hutt's sail barge, and Sage wanted to literally stab himself in the eyes. Then not only would he be blind to the atrocities around him, but the young padawan would no longer be forced to stare at that blasted slug's fat, Sith-tattooed face for one brutal moment longer. However welcome that act would have been, it would unfortunately still leave his other senses which had their own assaults to deal with. Like the stench of rotting corpses and the sibilant words dripping from Zambrano's tongue.

A short chain tethered the young man from the collar around his neck to the throne room's floor which was filthy with dried blood, entrails, and slug slime. Cold comfort, the slug had let him keep his clothing on, but the fabric of his robe was crunchy with matted with vomit and blood which had soaked deeply into the threads, chafing against wounds that festered with infection.

At the moment, the Hutt was waving a severed foot in front of the starving padawan's face. His lips pressed together defiantly, Sage merely balked like a stubborn mule. When he was still strong enough to speak, the young man had flattered Zambrano who kept calling him a "friend" and a "guest," and Sage's Huttese compliments about the creature's power and eminence probably bought him a few precious hours of life. He had considered threatening the slug, dropping the name of his half-brother, who was a wealthy Outer Rim crime boss, but as he learned the hard way back in the shadow port, this particular Hutt didn't respond well to threats.

Luckily, his fluency in Huttese allowed Sage to learn a few details about his slug captor, for example, the creature's name, Zambrano. Whether or not these details would be useful to him, remained to be seen. As they sailed through the depths of space, one thing was for sure, if he ever made it off this kriffing ship alive, he wouldn't soon forget that name.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]

 

[Zambrano the Starweird]

Only slight disappointed in his friend for his lack of appetite, the Hutt merely frowned at the stubbornness, and then suddenly could not longer sate his withdrawal symptoms. He needed to cut something now, and no sooner had he felt that this that a dirty jagged dagger appeared in his slimy paw. Surely this would be frightening for Sage, as the gleam of this knife could just as soon slash open a dirty wound in his bicep as it would to mutilate a severed foot. He jabbed the blade upwards through the bottom of the foot, exiting out the top of the foot, with a jagged edge of the blade pushing up and snapping and splintering one of the bones like a thin toothpick. From the base of the new wound, trickles of cold old blood slowly descended over the dead flesh from the rusted and crimson blade's exit. Mostly unsatisfied, he removed the blade, snapping another bone, and then blade the sharper more serrated edge between the second and third toes from the big toe. He then proceeded to pull the blade back, bisecting the foot in half, slowly and deliberately so that he might hold a conversation with his friend.

"Friend, if you desire smaller bites, all you need to is ask! I do not know why you are so stubborn... you are all stubborn." The Hutt chuckled to himself as he was half way through the foot, the toes separated fully, exposing the bleeding torn muscles, and shatter bone and sinew pushed out of the way of the blade that destroyed it. The Hutt, thinking only of his dear guest, quickly tore through the soft flesh of the deadened foot, before quickly setting the blade aside as he reached to one of the remaining little toes, and just plain tearing it off. He tossed it over to Sage, but did not watch if he ate it, as in the next moment the Hutt swallowed half the foot with only a single, prolonged, sickening crunch. Zambrano didn't really know when he started eating humans... but it didn't really matter, no one knew how the Hutt still managed survive anyway.

Among other things, this was probably why the Hutt didn't comprehend the concept of sentient living rights.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"], [member="Sage Bane"]

Spoiler

EDIT: Sorry about the errors, quite tired, don't feel like fixing them right now. Maybe later

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

The answer came more swiftly than she could have hoped. Reading it brought back a familiar emotion, rage that did not come all at once but crawled up out of her chest, wrapping fingers around the rings of her trachea to scale her throat and sneak up in to her head. Everyone had a right to their destiny – Matsu believed that wholeheartedly, and even had she not had personal, if tangential, experience with slavery she would believe the same. It wasn’t the torture she imagined that set her blood boiling. She believed some – if not most – creatures human or otherwise were beneath her. But she also liked to give them the chance to prove it first, let them earn their punishment through weakness or failure – not merely because she’d paid credits for the privilege of owning something with a spirit. A fine line, to be sure. But one she walked with precision.

However what she read was also promising – she had hoped merely to turn someone’s pain to her advantage. True she would do them a kindness, she was not above that. But there was a deliciousness to the promise of corruption (a Jedi Padawan!) that had her sending off an answer almost as quickly as he’d replied.

Zambrano –

Perhaps your reputation precedes you, but it is clearly well-earned. A Jedi Padawan suits my needs perfectly. As far as his health, as long as he is not beyond repair it is of little consequence to me. If it’s amenable to you, price can be negotiated once you arrive – I would like to see him or her first. Attached you will find coordinates to where you can find me. If you would let me know when I can expect you, my people will be prepared for your landing.

– Matsu Xiangu

She was sure to include all the flattery and pomp she’d heard Hutts liked so much. She’d had little dealing with the species directly though she’d been in the presence of quite a few. Zambrano had a…reputation that she’d garnered from her quiet asking-around and she expected a sight like little else when he arrived.

_________________________________________________​

​

TWO DAYS LATER​

_________________________________________________​

The soft voice of one of her guards came softly across the room. “Lady Xiangu – the guests you are expecting have been cleared and will be landing momentarily.”

“Thank you,” she answered in kind, nodding as she lifted herself from behind her desk – a place she preferred far less than the battlefield or exploring some foreign planet, but credits must be made. She spent most of her time here on Coruscant, a planet as busy and loud as she was quiet. She found comfort in the way it never slept. Her apartments were on the surface level resting high, high above the streets below, an entire floor of the building sprawling and filled with every fine comfort imaginable, styled post-modern and lit by floor-to-ceiling windows composing the walls of every room. She’d come from money though she’d left that family behind and some habits died hard. She made her way through its hushed halls to meet with her guests on her private landing pad.

The wind whipped through her long, black hair as she stepped out on to the bridge to the landing pad. Two of her guards stepped back in to place in front of the doors once she’d exited, both female. Matsu liked employing women – she found them incredibly vicious, creative and uncompromising in their violence. Once she got to the edge of the bridge and a few steps out on to the pad she stopped, looking up to the skies as Zambrano’s ship banked towards her home. Clad in a simple, finely tailored dress and a pair of heels she supposed she looked nothing like a Sith Lord – a petite, demure (if impeccably styled) Atrisian woman, unassuming save for the black metal of her cybernetic arms.

But that was how she liked it.

[member="Sage Bane"] | [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]​

 

[Sage Bane]

Sage flinched when the rusty knife appeared in Zambrano’s fleshy paw, steeling himself for the inevitable bloodletting. Thankfully, the infernal slug merely used the blade to savage the dead foot the creature held, practically mangling it beyond recognition as a human body part. Sage turned his face away as the Hutt crunched down on bones, gristle and human meat. The stench coming out of the slug’s greedy maw was unbearable and it made Sage grimace. Once he heard an audible swallow, he turned back to see a severed toe landing with a sickening thunk nearby. Sage looked at it, and then back to the Hutt, but made no move to retrieve it as the Hutt would have wished. He was loathe to waste any more energy even speaking to the mountain of grey flesh before him. If there was any chance to still escape, he needed every ounce of strength, so he simply shook his head as if to say hell no he would not be eating that, but thanks for offering.

The young half-blood figured it was just a matter of time before Zambrano the Hutt got terminally bored and slaughtered him as he had the others, and sadly from the looks of it there were many others. When death finally came, it was sure to be whimsical, merciless, and harrowing. Thoughts of his twin sister suddenly flooded Sage’s brain. Their recent and fond reunion would be marred by his sudden disappearance, and Sayl would never even get closure about his death. He had to see his sister again somehow. Sage’s will to live was still in there, and it was aching to soar through his malnourished body, but its wings were still clipped. Despite himself, he felt his force powers roiling inside of him, feeding on his frustration over his bondage and his rage over his sister’s pain. The energy was different, heavier somehow. It dawned on him that the strange and foreign sensation might have been the dark side of the Force that master Rexus had warned him about and that realization was terrifying and seductive all at once. He calmed his breath and it was gone, the more neutral Force energy returning to his being. Closing his eyes as he retreated into the meditative state as he'd been taught, the Jedi padawan took some comfort in the fact that even though his body felt like it was fading, as if it were a half-remembered fever dream, the Force was still inside of him and very much alive.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]

 

[Zambrano the Starweird]

Zambrano –

Perhaps your reputation precedes you, but it is clearly well-earned. A Jedi Padawan suits my needs perfectly. As far as his health, as long as he is not beyond repair it is of little consequence to me. If it’s amenable to you, price can be negotiated once you arrive – I would like to see him or her first. Attached you will find coordinates to where you can find me. If you would let me know when I can expect you, my people will be prepared for your landing.

– Matsu Xiangu

Gracious Matsu -

Delivering the padawan to you is almost payment enough, as "money" is a concept I only vaguely understand, and it does not interest me greatly. I suffer no need for monetary compensation thanks to my well off upbringing, and as such I would prefer a friendly favor! To be completed at your discretion, of course! However, we can negotiate the terms as you have suggested if it makes you more comfortable, my friend. I will arrive in approximately two days, or so, I will send you a message the night prior to my arrival.

With Love - Zambrano the Hutt

Once more the Hutt smiled at the messaging device aboard his ship, as his attention a moment ago was drawn away from his feast and guest. Sage was still adamant in his refusal to eat... soon however, it would no longer be a choice. He was arranging a lovely date for his good friends, and he had to make sure everything was perfect. Clothing options too... would now change. The Hutt put down whatever it was he was eating, and removed the computer from view. He had two days to prepare, which was more than enough for what he was about to enact upon his lovely prize.

"Dear frieeeeend! You have a date in about two days! Isn't that exciting?" Slowly, almost deliberately, the gargantuan Hutt descended from his bloody throne, smeared in dirty gore, both from strangers and some from himself from the brutal fight that became of his appearance at the Shadowport. The Hutt did not hold back his smiles, he was too happy for his friend! His gleaming golden eyes never broke its gaze from Sage, with a grunt and the force, within his hand, the Hutt summoned a piece of Gamorrean remains. Perhaps the Hutt simply did not broaden his appetite enough, since it didn't occur to him that he was often trying to feed him the same species.

"Eating time..." He said without any affliction to his voice, which was all the more unsettling for what he did next. As he approached the possibly retreating Sage, the Hutt grasped the head of his slave, and squeezed at his jaw until it yielded under his grip. He force-fed him the flesh, holding him down physically despite the struggle, and at any point that he struggled too much, he would tighten the chain until he tried to gasp for breath. At some point in the midst of feeding, the Hutt indiscriminately without a shred of decency tore up the clothes on Sage's back. This almost certainly opened up wounds closed with contact to the fabric, coagulated together with blood. The festering wounds were now exposed to the rotten air, but it made no difference to the Hutts nostrils. His friend would need a shower or three, but the Hutt wasn't even sure if he had a shower aboard his Chariot... he supposed that would mean he would have to...

Improvise...

_________________________________________________​

​

TWO DAYS LATER​

_________________________________________________​

​

The Hutt Chariot descended through the atmosphere of the One Sith Capital: Coruscant. The tiny sailbarge gleamed in the sun as it slowly pierced through the air to locate the coordinates of Matsu's rendezvous, all the while the Hutt watched the clouds like a cat watching birds, and at his side a familiar figure rested at his side. It was induced of course, but all the while the Hutt noted that he enjoyed his company. It was difficult though, to keep his hands away. The scenery within the Chariot had changed somewhat... with the use of the word "change" being extremely... even petulantly loose in its definitions. His Throne was removed of most of the bodies, or at least the very old ones, and the gore was mostly scuffled to the corners of his ship. The lighting was still dark, and it was clearly visible what went on within here on a daily basis, for instance, there was no removing the stink... ever.

No longer capable of containing himself, the Hutt took the opportunity to awake his pet as soon as he saw the platform he would be landing on. He took the syringe and barbarically plunged the thing crudely into the recipients neck, which would startle him awake. The symptoms (not including what other symptoms were present from the anti-nourishing the Hutt subjected him to) would include a massive migraine, a throbbing throat, and a great amount of lethargy with enough neural stimulation to keep him up regardless how much he wanted to close his eyes. The Hutt wasted no time in moving on, his hands sated for the moment.

Zambrano exited his craft without ceremony, wafting his great polluting stink into the city air, and over powering it with death and decay. He stopped before the mistress that would accept his captive, towering over her with an insane girth. Crazy eyed, he leaned closer to the immaculate Sith Lady, his head throbbing from the pain her presence gave off... Matsu may even be capable of sensing the incorporeal miasma of the darkside that residing within his constantly dying body. He spat out his words in excitement.

"Matsu! Sssso nice to finally meet you in person, friend! How have you been?" He leaned back, and for a moment inspected his hand which contained a (mostly) cleaned whip, he held the posture of someone listening.

[member="Sage Bane"] [member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

When Zambrano descended from within his sail barge a thought shot across the forefront of Matsu’s mind without any hesitation: ‘I do not want this thing in my home.’ She was no stranger to death, to the gore that adorned his throne. She’d made her fair share of the same, had bathed in the blood of her enemies, led rituals unspeakable merely for her own pleasure. But blood and death and insides on her carpet were one thing. Easily removed. A memory of a nice night.

This Hutt’s scent would linger unpleasantly.

Perhaps she was merely letting her distaste for the state of the man chained to his throne color her judgment.

It took every ounce of her well-bred manners to stop her flinching when Zambrano leaned in close, eyes full of madness and breath even worse than the stench of filth and disease that wafted off him, but she managed. She felt the touch of the darkside on him, a surprise only due to his species, not his temperament. Somehow she managed to give him a smile, self-made fangs peeking out from beneath red lips in response to his animated greeting. “Zambrano – I’ve been quite well. It seems the same can be said for you, unless you always find yourself so surrounded by…” (what had he called them?) “…friends?”

Suddenly his honorific for her seemed less kind.

Her eyes shifted once more to the man with the syringe sticking out from his neck, skin raw and peeling, a tremor in his muscles. She took a deep breath. (It crawls, sharp little spider-legs up from her stomach where it’s birthed until it’s burrowed in her brainstem and she’s imagining all the things she could do to the space-slug, all the ways she could make him hurt for his disgusting habit. rip HIM O P E N, what if we did? jigsaw skull, smash at odd angles, a kaleidoscope of ivory in Dadaist form, slop out their brains and use their heads to drink the rest of this whiskey, everything smelling like copper, why don’t we?) But as soon as it’d started it was gone, a control her own Master had taught her all those years ago. She turned her eyes up to Zambrano again, sparing the ‘slave’ no more than a glance though perhaps he might have felt the smallest twitch as he, strangely, was its catalyst.

She waved one of her guards forward to intercept Sage. He would be led off somewhere to be properly showered, clothed, and then left in one of her sitting rooms with a square meal of real food to pass the time waiting for her arrival.

“He is worth owing you a favor, Zambrano,” she said, voice soft. It was untrue – owing this slug was the absolute last thing she wanted. A close second to the last thing she wanted was to invite him in, but she had to at least offer. Good business relations depended on it. “It would appear he needs a sanitizing and some new clothes however. You are free to join me in my conference room should you so desire to further discuss our terms.”

[member="Sage Bane"] | [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]​

 

[Sage Bane]

To say that Sage needed a bath was an understatement. Dried chunks of blood, gore and vomit were threaded through his unwashed hair. His ankle was most definitely infected and possibly gangrenous. Skin sagged over his ribcage, now visible through his pale, translucent skin. The padawan had been stripped of his Jedi robe and force fed rotten Gamorrean meat. It was food that his stomach wanted no part of digesting, and and it was quickly expelled, adding another patina of filth to his malnourished body. Then, there was the Hutt’s idea of a shower which was something that pure nightmares were made of.

The Force meditation that Sage practiced during his captivity was his main saving grace. While his body grew weaker, his resolve had grown stronger, and he was able to call upon the Force at will to replenish a modicum of dwindling energy. This control was something new for Sage, whose burgeoning Force powers had been previously unreliable.

It wasn’t a surprise when his chain was yanked by Zambrano’s chubby little mitts and he was forced to lethargically shuffle along with the slow-moving gastropod to a landing pad on what looked like Coruscant. After all, the Hutt wouldn’t stop babbling on about Sage’s “date” and the new “friend” he would be meeting. His assumption was that he was about to be sold to a new and equally horrible person. It certainly wasn’t his first time at the rodeo.

Heavy-lidded eyes barely glanced at the petite woman who stepped forward to greet the Hutt. A few details caught his eye, like a glimmer of fanged teeth poking out from behind blood red lips. She was physically beautiful, but Sage knew from experience that deceptively attractive creatures could also be the worst kinds of sadists and organ thieves. Even though her lips graced Zambrano with a smile, her tight jaw betrayed her words as she greeted him. It obviously wasn’t a pleasant exchange, for her anyway. Zambrano, however, seemed to be able to take pleasure out of virtually any situation. It was almost an enviable trait.

As his new Master’s female guards whisked him away, his body hummed with dull fear. However, Sage suspected that any Master would be better than Zambrano the Hutt, so along with that fear was a tiny burst of relief. The third emotion he felt was a gentle nudge of a long-forgotten emotion, hope. He found himself clinging to the simple wish that his new captor would underestimate him enough for him to gain an unexpectedly lethal upper hand, and he would soon be able wrest his freedom from between her fangs before they clamped down and bit him in two.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Zambrano the Hutt"]

 

[Zambrano the Starweird]

"I mean not to brag my dear, but rarely are any of us not surrounded by... friendsss." The Hutt's open hand mindlessly hovered above his body, as it trailed downward to ruffle the hair of a corpse leaning up against him, with milky dead eyes opened in a gaping mouthed permanent moan. The face was gaunt and slightly discolored, but it remained as one of the few least disfigured faces the Hutt had in his possession, before he went through house cleaning for his appearance with Matsu. "I consider everyone, my friend..." The lazy eyes drifted about, aimlessly absorbing the sight of the massive skyscrapers that made the landscape, yet his gaze did not seem to connect with Matsu's. He spoke to the Sith Lady, as if he had been speaking to himself, and his demeanor suggested that he knew little difference between the two behaviors.

How many dead or dying people had to withstand the serpents voice, speaking as equally to them for company as he spoke to himself, also for accompaniment. Did he even understand the difference between living and dead any more? He had seen so many die... and so many live, so many joys (natural and unnatural), and so many sadnesses. For a moment, the corpulent snake did not speak or move, only his eyes drifted as his face froze within its smile. For a moment, he thought he felt rays of sun warming upon his face, and something soft lying up to him, as he stroked her hair.

Suddenly he laughed and his gaze locked upon Matsu's... though still lazy... still dreary with delusion and sadistic desire. "I would love to visit the abodes of my friends! How nice it would be! Shall we go now? Lead me on..."

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

“I consider everyone my friend…”

And there was the truth of it, the confirmation that any courteous nickname he bestowed upon her in kindness was the same he lavished on those he treated worse than dogs. Spending her time with wolves was not something she was unused to but she’d already agreed to owe this one a favor. And she had no intentions of having her throat ripped out. She watched him drift, a sort of glaze easily visible on the huge eyes of a Hutt. Most of his species were immune to mind tricks, but she was one of the most practiced mentalists of her day and had no intention at the moment of making him do anything he didn’t want to. She merely wanted to understand. She reached out, trying to sense what he was thinking of, and was surprised to find a sort of…kindred spirit. (Enough death to stop seeing its meaning. A fascination, not someone else’s journey.)

But he came back and confirmed her worst nightmare. She was already going through her mental list of cleaners when she nodded and beckoned him forward. “Wonderful – are you hungry? I can have something made, though I’m sure your sailbarge is well-stocked,” she said, watching as the man she’d just ‘bought’ stumbled off to be cleaned and fed.

The halls of her post-modern apartments were more than large enough to accommodate her guest and his hovering platform – a blessing, as Matsu imagined the hands of the corpses dragging along her perfect white walls and felt a stab of obsessive-compulsive twinge that nearly made her explode. She selected a room off to the right, something with a wide floorplan that would allow him easier navigation without knocking things over. Moving over to a small sidetable, a glass bottle of Whyren’s Reserve left out for just such occasions. Though she wasn’t sure whether the Hutt could feel the effects of alcohol, let alone appreciate something as fine as what she was about to offer, it couldn’t hurt. Pouring them each two fingers, she took a deep breath before turning around and talking herself in to getting close enough to offer him a glass.

Feat accomplished, she took a seat on one of her pristine white couches. “So, what could someone of your means and contacts possibly need help with from someone like me?”

[member="Zambrano the Hutt"]​

 

[Zambrano the Starweird]

White. Pristine white. A facade. A falsehood. Nothing was so pure, or at least, nothing was so pure that it could prevent becoming dirtied. Zambrano had been pure once... once. When death took his virginity so long ago, it had been because he had grown old, accomplished, and at peace with himself... but as he observed the galaxy, he learned that he had never truly been at peace. It had been a lie. White. Pristine white. A facade. A falsehood. Nothing could be maintained at this purity. Upon the corruption of his legacy, a stain had appeared upon the whiteness of his observant soul. It was unfathomable, but nothing was untouchable. His Grandson had been an extension of himself, just as his own child had been, and through the darkness that, like a spear, pierced the heart of his offspring, so too was his soul grazed. Like a sickness, the Spirit of Chael had resisted the darkness for several years, doing what little he could to reverse the infection placed upon his descendant, and stop the Chaos of those he followed from destroying the world he had saved from death. He tried to clean the stain, but in so doing, it only spread further.

Such was Matsu's abode. Zambrano floated above the floor, yet at the same time the slime of his soul appeared to wither the whiteness of the room, simply by existing there. Of course, it was merely his shadow, but it was a massive shadow, the shadow of a hundred different lives, both big and small, powerful and meek, and they overlapped upon each other, spreading in no particular direction as well as every direction. The shadow was of his soul, twisted and sick, beyond recognition of what it once used to be. The stink peeled away what few colors remained in the rooms and hallways, and off-set the white purity. The gore of his throne, seemed to drip and stain the floor with each step his soul would take in entering the room. Oceans of blood falling without dropping. Hands gripping the walls without moving. Silent screams roaring.

Of course, this was all hyperbolic and metaphorical... but perhaps not.

"Hungry? But of course!" Without much reason to, the coiled whip came down and struck a pristine corpse upon his throne. Still coiled, the barbs of the whip pressed into the dead flesh like meat hooks, secreting their venom needlessly into unresponsive tissues filled with near-blackened cold liquid, as he pulled back chunks came with it and splatters of the sickly stuff misted into the air, tinting the room with the dark old blood. The Hutts eyes closed as he brought the weapon to his humongous lips, as he suckled away at the mess he had created upon his whip. Remember when it was described as mostly clean before? This would be the primary reason why, the Hutt had an appetite like few others, and a quite peculiar taste in "food". "Indeed I am always well in stock, but it would be rude of me to refuse offerings of kindness. Reciprocation is the key to happiness, after all." He was about to offer a taste of his whip to the woman, before kindly being interrupted with an offering of her own.

With a degree of perplexity, the Hutt clumsily accepted the drink from his hostess, only a few droplets spilling here and there as he brought the fine elixir ever closer to his bulbous fatty lips, slightly crusted with blood that had leaked from his mouth and quickly coagulated on his slimy skin. The bitter liquid trickled into him as Matsu requested to know he debt. As an arguably sane woman, it made sense that she should be so anxious to find out, but the complexities of her debt collector saw little use in prioritizing it in their social setting. He was utterly oblivious to the nature of his surroundings, and the seeping uncomfortable nature of the one who allowed him temporary residence. After many moments of relative silence, only noisy gulps and the whir of repulsors filling in the awkwardness of the pause, the Hutt tossed the glass "gently" to the side when all of the alcoholic beverage was either in his throat or over his body.

"Hmm? Ah yes... you owe me a favor." He said, as if it had been obvious that was all he wanted, as if it was clear what the favor he was asking for, was.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]