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The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
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The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 12th August 2012, 14:23
The Action V Salvage Vessel Storm Call. Hyperspace, Tion Cluster.
"Hey!" Chief Engineer Zilas yelled at a deckhand dragging a sheet of durasteel across the cargo hold floor with four shipmates. "Over there! Gods above! How many times do I got to tell you guys!" He roared, the master of his own little world. That's what he was, down here among the broken parts, coils of wire and plundered metals, he was the longest serving engineer and on a salvage ship that pretty much made him god.
He shook his head as he walked across the spacious hold, checking off items from the datapad in his hands as he inspected their haul. There was a loud clang behind him and he spun like an enraged rancor. His brown eyes spewed fire and his bald head flushed red with anger as he watched a hyper drive engine nacelle fall from a load lifter onto the metal grating.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS WHEN A HYPERDRIVE BLOWS UP!" His words practically boomed at them, sending daggers of dread into their guts. They shook their heads one by one and searched around sheepishly for an answer.
"IT CREATES A FRAKKING SINGULARITY! SO BE GORRAM CAREFUL!" Flecks of spit flew into the air and his eyes had a wild feral look to them, the deckhands were quite certain they would be taking space walk if he had his way.
"Chief Zilas, contact the bridge. I repeat Chief Zilas contact the bridge." Came the sound of the ships internal comms. Zilas cut each of them down with a stare that promised this wasn't over and then made his way to the main door of the cargo hold. His destination was a small intercom and with the press of a button he had established a line with the bridge some three floors above.
"Zilas."
"We're getting some odd fluctuations in hyperdrive read outs Chief." It was Captain Hanfur, a wet behind the ears twenty-two year old who had inherited the ship and the Salvage company from his old man six months ago. Zilas wasn't a fan, but he paid the bills. "Could you have a look and report back?"
There were a few choice responses Zilas wanted to give to that question but he swallowed the bile and simply said "Yes captain.". He wasn't sure what pissed him off more, the fact that he had to trek all the way down the length of the ship to the engine room or that they were blaming his fine tuned and well cared for machines. It was never the machines fault, it was always some dumb ass helmsman mucking up on their end.
The distance wasn't that great at all, comparatively speaking the Storm Call was only marginally larger than a stock freighter. He stood there for a moment, in the engine room, looking at the thrumming Hyperdrive that consumed a vast portion of the space before him. The readouts WERE a little off, he thought as he unhooked his analysis kit from the engine proper.
He took a step back and tapped the datapad against his chin as he considered what might be causing it. They were very minor anomalies to be sure, well within safety parameter's but it was a point of professional pride that every piece of equipment on board this vessel was bang on the optimum. There wasn't much he could do right now at any rate, performing hyperdrive maintenance while the contraption was running was @*+$ near suicide and he wasn't about to bet his technical prowess against his and everyone else's lives.
Zilas pocketed his datapad and slid his analysis probes into his waste belt and made to report back hid findings when there was a high pitched whine behind him and he turned slowly, a cold chill riding up his spine. The hyperdrive casing was sending out small wisps of smoke, the air filled with the smell of burning metals and plastics, and then with a snap hiss pop electric blue sparks shot from it in all directions.
The entire ship lurched forward as it came to a sudden and unexpected stop and Zilas was sent to and rolled across the floor. He fired curses into the ether as he picked himself up and fired yet more at the smouldering hyperdrive. It didn't take long for the Captains voice to come over the loud speaker.
"What happened! Chief, repor...what the hell is that..."
It came from beyond the blackness. Slowly it travelling onward, guided, it seemed, by an unseen hand. It was a starship that none had seen in thousands of years. She was battle worn and ravaged by time, her heavy armour scorched by ancient laser fire and punctured by wayward meteors. How this vessel had retained any of its former shape was as great a mystery as where she had come from.
Captain Hanfur held the receiver in one hand, his eyes wide and fixed on what lay beyond the bridge view ports. The ship moved ponderously ahead of them, it was like some tale told in cantinas across the stars and he heard more than one exclamation of 'Ghost ship!' from his bridge crew.
"Captain, Zilas down in the engine room. The hyperdrives packed in, what's happening up there?" The small voice on the end of the receiver seemed to snap Hanfur from his daze.
"Helmsman, full stop. Take us no closer." Hanfur commanded and then turned his attention to Zilas. "Cheif, what's the damage?"
The captain could hear grunts and faint groans of metal being shifted on the other side of the conversation then the Chief responded. "She's slag, completely mangled."
"What are our options?"
"Aside from prayer? We don't have anywhere near enough parts to tackle this mess."
"What if we found a derelict, could you scavenge what you needed from its systems?" The captain felt a darkness creep up his spine even as he considered his next course of action.
"Well sure, yeah. I somehow doubt ones just gonna float across our path in deep space though."
"You'd be surprised...."
* * *
The screams chased him. The shadows chased him. The nightmares in the dark were unrelenting. Zilas could see nothing but the terrible things that assailed him from all sides, hounding him, snapping their jaws at his heels. It wasn't far now, no, not far, it'll be over soon, soon, soon. We'll be okay soon, the escape pod is there. They won't hurt you there. You'll be safe, safe from the demons, safe from the shadows, safe from the fear. The escape pod was there, it was where he needed it to be, and with a scream that never seemed to end ripping the inside of his skull asunder he threw himself into the cramped space, hit the release button and curled up into a ball on the floor.
The pod shot from the stern side of the Storm Call with a burst of hydraulics and sailed away into the calm, quiet of the speckled black. Zilas cried, sobbing into his knees that were held tight to his chest, his body rocking back and forward. It was over, he was safe, he was safe....he was safe...
Ba-dum..
Zilas' eyes went wide in the gloom, his mouth opened as the terror gripped him.
Ba-dum....Ba-dum...Ba-dum...Ba-dumbadumbadumbadumbadumbadumbadum
The chief screamed. He screamed until his vocal cords ripped, he screamed until his teeth shattered but no one could hear, no one could hear the heartbeats in the dark.
* * *
"You ever hear the tale of the void ship?" The old man, like so many others in so many cantina's, began. He was a storyteller, a mythspinner, a recanter of legends. There was one to be found in pretty much every watering hole from Ord Mantell to Bakura and here on Bonadan was no different. Sal held his drink in one hand, the other resting on the knee of his black suit trousers with a ciggara held gently between fore and index finger.
"Can't say that I have old yin." He said politely, he wasn't in any hurry, his business here was done and now it was just a matter of heading back home.
"A terrible thing it was," The old drunk began, his voice like smashed rocks grating upon one another. "A ghost ship they say, from beyond the edges of known space. It rips unlucky souls from hyperspace and drives them mad. My cousin knew a man, who knew a guy who's uncle had found the only survivor of the Void Ship. In a terrible state he was, drifting for weeks in an escape pod, battered and mutilated he was...clawed the skin clean off his chest and everywhere in the escape pod he had written in his own blood 'Darkness beats, beats with the rhythm of the heart." He paused for dramatic effect and saw that it wasn't having any affect on the brown haired clone.
"And exactly how did this ship, if it existed, drive people insane?" Sal asked, taking a mouthful of whiskey from his glass.
"From what I was told and from what the men could get out of the survivor," He stopped and gulped down the rest of his ale, sliding the back of his sleeve across his silver beard before continuing. "The ship had a heart at its core, a terrible heart that held it together and broke the mind of anyone who set foot upon the ship. Black it was they said, filled with evil, the sound of its beating was like drums of hell in your head..."
Any other, normal, person would have simply shook their head and turned away from such a ludicrous story but Sal was not a normal person. If you discount the fact that he is technically a top secret Imperial biological weapon, and discount that he is a Master of the Force you are still left with the fact that his creator, his 'Father', was even greater than he. A Master of the Force and more specifically the Darkside. In his life he gathered many stories of old to him, he learned from many Masters, alive and dead, and all that wisdom, all that knowledge was passed on, genetically, to Sal.
Something stirred in his mind as he heard this tale, a gifted memory that he had never known existed sparked to life in his mind. It was an old tale, a forgotten tale, from the earliest memories of the Sith and the great Hyperspace War. It wasn't so much a factual record that lay in his memory, that Lord Omega had uncovered, more of a dark poem of the event.
"In sand and stone the Dark Lord lies.
Through stars his power flies.
An emanating melody consumes the path.
Its rhythm leaving naught but wrath."
"Well...shit..." Sal gasped as the cool voice of his Father recited the words in his mind. The old man looked at him expectantly, wiggling his glass. Surely the story had done it job and if that wasn't worth a a pint, then he wasn't sure what was. Norongachi's face became intense and with a wave of his hand he orderd the old man another round.
"Tell me," He began, the hard stare of his green eyes making the bearded pensioner uneasy. "Everything you know about this ship.."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Bonadan
Duro Duro Cantina
Tap. Tap... tap. The pads of gem adorned fingertips trolled the old teller's shoulder, "You're leaving out the best parts," she leaned in, placing a delicate... venomous kiss upon a wrinkled, sun starved cheek. Vod's neck stiffened visibly under the woman's affections, his eyes narrowing so much the whites of them disappearing all together.
"I was just getting to that," he said as if he were reminding her how it went, afflicted in turn by how gray her voice sounded. A curt nod followed and Anesia was whisked away, her vanilla and ruby skirts trailing behind her- the old man's voice on wind. But she held an ear to it; just in case the old bugger decided to change it. Full, wine tainted lips quirked into a smile- he knew something, that he wasn't sharing. Tonight may very well be the night that he'd spill, so the gypsy lady meandered back towards his table.
"I've changed my mind," three glasses were set before the small table; she plucked the previously used two away. One bulky mug from the table, the other from between the traveler's hand and tossed them into a passing server girl's bucket. "There are things you know naught of, Vod... I've seen it, I know," stems for fingers coiled about her own flute of Ambrosia before taking a small swallow of it.
"Oh, for Repulic's sake. Not this again, Lena."
It was too late and memories came flooding back.
"For instance, the Captain cabin's deck was not made of the darker Wroshry guts like most of the stories claim, but of Veshok. They were stained by the blood of it's victims." The old man stopped mid-motion in bringing his refilled mug up, the dark liquid at a partial tilt as seen by the clear container. Her pause was a bit more forlorn and her russet eyes seemed distant at the time.
---
"This will only hurt a little," the Master promised with a smile, before attaching herself to a made-willing subject, leaving a frail husk of a mistress behind to seemingly sleep amongst a bed of pillows. Gold and purple of various sizes and shapes framed her pretty porcelain face. She almost looked peaceful. It was strange, Anesia thought as she looked down at her own limp body with borrowed eyes and shared skin. It was strange, but nothing new she recalled and turned on her heel. The Void Ship was here, but it'd sooner be gone, if she let it.
This was it's second coming, and to what she believed, her last chance to observe.
To absorb the knowledge... the power.
No matter the cost, given the stories and the toll it would in no doubt take.
Which is why, she conveyed to Zena, the girl whom she was sharing a body with, I'm using you and not me, my dear.
This was very thought out, but even then, everything was still up in the air. No one really knew what would happen; to many of the stories that were real, came from cracked, corrupt minds so twisted, that deciphering everything in whole would take decades, if it were even possible. So far, it wasn't. There were two in her cells on Munto Codru and had been there for several years while she devised a scheme that would not only land her what she wanted, but did so with as little damage as possible to her being.
The visage she wore donned auburn curls that dropped just mid-back of the metal dyed trench coat dusting the ship’s ramp. Zena drifted up, tailored clothing gave when it needed to accommodate her stride. The shared persona was finally in the belly, and with curious eyes they both looked around. To both their surprise, it was clean. So clean in fact, it looked like it had just came from the distributor.
Further into this… perfect dark hell, the mirage began to peel away like window clings. At least to Anesia it did. She only found hours later that Zena had never witnessed the atrocity this ghost of a ship offered to the third eye. Not when she did, not until much later. The two were silent through their tour along the spine. It was not until they reached the area where emergency pods, given there were only two left out of what looked liked used to be ten, were set in place that they heard the screams.
At first they were soft, like whispers and concentrated in one area. They became louder, more unbearable, echoing off the metal interior by the minute and Zena found herself screaming, breaking free from the chains Anesia had upon her. It was short lived, though not of the Master’s doing in strength or power.
No, it was when the gray area, with it’s twinkling white-but blood splattered lights that arched across the room half a dozen times went out. The puppet had ran herself right into one of the two pods and landed in a sprawl against the red, sticky maggot covered deck. That was when Anesia assumed she figured out it was all tricks and what she’d originally seen was not what was really there.
Ba-dum… ba-dum… ba-dum…
---
“The ship sees,” her voice dropped an octave and she pulled the rest of the Ambrosia down her throat, “it knows.”
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal tensed as the new arrival appeared, planting a kiss upon the old drunks cheek. He looked her up and down, his gaze moving from the jet black hair that framed her tanned face to the flowing robes that hugged her figure in all the right places. Finally looked upon violet eyes that glimmered in the misty half light of the Cantina. She was beautiful, there was no doubt.
"I didn't even hear her approach...I didn't *FEEL* her approach..." He thought as the pair exchanged words. He wasn't referring to any extrasensory gift of the Force, no. He was, at his core, a soldier and was created for just that purpose. His survival instinct was honed and refined in the forges of countless battles among the embers of a hundred worlds. "You're rusty, that needs to change.."
As quickly as she appeared, she was gone again and Sal returned his attention to Vod. The old man seemed just as taken aback as Norongachi by the brief interruption to his tale. He cleared his throat and took a swig of ale and inhaled as if to speak.
"I've changed my mind," She said upon her sudden returned, except this time she brought a currency that ensured her interruption was forgiven by both parties. Sal took up the fresh Whiskey with a tilt of his glass in thanks and said nothing more. "There are things you know naught of, Vod...I've seen it, I know."
The clones attention became more focused with this revelation, his drink almost forgotten as his ears strained to snatch every word from the air. His anticipation was almost wasted upon her mundane explanation of the Captains taste in decoration. Then she said it, words that were eerily familiar..
-------
The city lights of Etti IV, Corporate Sector Authority Capital, glimmered at the Sith Lord. The lighting in his penthouse apartment, a mere stones throw from his place of work, the Crystal Spire of Authority Central, was dulled. Only the light from a desk lamp provided any substantial illumination of the datapad he held in his pale hands. The scars that criss crossed his face were wrinkled in concentration as he absorbed the text provided by his contact at the College of Historical Studies on Taris. It was but one of thousands of transcripts from dig sites and ancient ruins across the Galaxy. On their own they meant little, if one did not have the canny understanding, but when they were together and one could see recurring elements.
"In sand and stone the Dark Lord lies." Omega began, his voice was smooth and baritone. "Through stars his power flies, an emanating melody consumes the path, its rhythm leaving naught but wrath." It wasn't comprehensive but the mystery and the context appealed to him on a personal level.
He placed that particular piece aside and picked up another. A partial fragment once again, teased together from Sith scripts scattered across the ancient empires worlds. It told of a Sith of great power and his return to the great dark beyond the veil, his earthly power scattered to the moon and stars.
"Interesting..." The Sith Lord said with a lopsided smirk. "They took out his heart and other organs before he was interned, or entombed as was the custom of the time."
"I can't understand why, what possible reasoning does that serve beyond the religious aspects of course and what possible power could a disembodied heart hold?" The speaker had stood quietly in the gloom of the open plan apparent, lingering near the doorway ready to warn or strike should his Master be interrupted.
"There is much you do not understand Sigma," Omega responded, his emerald eyes rising up from his works, his gaze smouldering with an inner power. "The Force by its very nature is an energy. When energy of any magnitude is harnessed, focused, and channelled through a conduit it leaves an impression that will take eons to dissipate, if it ever dissipates at all. You know there are places in the universe where this is true. There are many great Darkside nexus' where such energy has seeped into the tangible world through direct or indirect means. A sentient body is no different. The ancient Lords of the Sith were unparalleled in their mastery of the Darkside, they were living conduits for such energies." The Dark Lord finished and waited for some show of understanding.
Sigma had only begun his first tentative steps along the path Darth Omega had laid out for him and if he had learned anything from his first lessons with the Jedi, sometimes one had to speak plainly. "If you remove the detonator from a bomb, does it cease to be a bomb?"
"Of course not Master."
"And what do the Sith crave above all else?"
"Power.
"And what do they fear above all else?"
"Losing that power." The student recited flawlessly, from the words of Darth Sidious himself.
"Not even in Death could such a thing come to pass." The Sith Lord said with an icy smile and turned his gaze back to his research. Sigma would realize in time the lesson there, if he did not then he was not worthy of anything more.
"The darkness sees." Omega read aloud from another text, this one recounting from a sentient who had witnessed a black vessel some two hundred years prior. "The darkness knows."
-------
Sal's mind drifted back from the memory. He hated the intense ones, where it was almost like he were Omega, where he could feel his excitement, his anger, his sadness. His eyes narrowed briefly upon the woman Vod had called Lena and inside him apprehension stirred.
"Just who the hell are you..." He thought and keeping up his mask of curiosity addressed Vod. "So what happened to this survivor, if he existed at all." There was no harm than sprinkling some pessimism onto the proceedings.
"Died, of course. You don't suffer that kind of tormet and go on your merry way." The storyteller said with a shrug of his shoulders. Sal couldn't help but silently disagree, he knew more than his share who had gone over the edge and come back with a smile.
"Where is all this rubbish supposed to have taken place? I mean, every story has a beginning right?" So with confirmation received it was time to fill in as many of the blanks as he could from dear old Vod.
"Hey, far fetched it might be but rubbish it ain't I tell you." He said, with faux offence and sloshed yet more Ale down his gullet as he had a brief think. "Lianna, yeah it was Lianna. My cousin was working out there for a haulage company contracted to Sienar Technologies. Thats where he first heard about it, told me and anyone else who would listen when he came home. Bloody loud mouth." He was oblivious to the hypocrisy, as most like him were.
"Wow, way out there eh?" Sal mused, already plotting the fastest course to the Tion Cluster in his head and then noted that he hadn't introduced himself. "The names Sal by the way and the next rounds definitely on me." He said with a smile before turning an amused look on Lena. "So you seen this ship, Lena? How come you aren't a stark raving nutter?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Duro Duro cantina was filling up fast- the treasure chest of a certain golden sunrise closing for the day and giving way for the curtain of night to fall. With it came thumps from a dozen pair of workman's' boots, beggars feet, and the heel clicks and trinket bell anklets from courtesans from the Ruo High district come to quench the thirst of a many travelers on their dime. A time, a night, a price. Nothing for free.
One could see the other women in the place cling to their men a little harder, keeping their words a little softer as if it mattered. The inky night made for a many possibilities. At least for most people, most ways. It didn't bother her for various reasons. Lena merely stole a glance to each of the free women as they entered as if memorizing all their faces. To this, she received abrupt looks away, but not even a nose up or a shoulder roll of fur her way.
The darkness in her smiled and she turned, pretending as if it were just their own insecurities. The ones those types never had; they slept with Kings.
"They duna like ya, Lena. Ha ha," Vod laughed heartily and washed it away with the rest of his ale.
And why should they, she spat inwardly, but batted her lashes innocently enough. "I wonder why," sadness flipped a trick off her tongue and she sighed like she cared.
Pointer finger finding it's way about the rim of her glass, she watched the handsome stranger through his reflection there. Seemingly in a daze- which would be perfectly normal, given the topic of discussion. Something is not right, she thought. He's fishing, she concluded and brought the Ambrosia back up to finish it off.
"Stark raving mad... well, that depends on your definition of mad," she said honestly, eyeing the waiter first and gesturing for another round. Lena smiled then, just a half-tug of her lips from the right side though, "How do you know I'm not?"
It was all Cheshire; from the height of her cheekbones, to the hint of secrecy behind the half-mast gaze she offered, "Besides," led on the gypsy, "it is just a tale, is it not, Sal?"
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The noise level rose with each new body over the threshold, soon they were practically surrounded on all sides by parched patrons of the Duro Duro. Sal gave a disinterested glance at the occasional newcomer and nothing more. He was far more interested in the company of his table, everything else could burn to ash for all he cared. Being as he was, a clone of a powerful Force user but more than that, that having every thought, every memory of his template in his mind, he was often worried if some of the Old Mans ambition, his desires, had bled over. Right now he was beginning to wonder if his desire to find this ship, and its contents, did not stem from Lord Omega...
"A fair point." He responded with a smile, noting the slim finger gliding along the rim of her glass. "And a silly one at that Lena." Norongachi finished, still grinning. The waiter appeared through the crowd with their fresh drinks and Sal slid a few credits onto his tray.
"It isn't often I'm in such interesting company. So drink up Vod, its your lucky night! The drinks are on me." He clapped the old man on the shoulder, almost knocking the glass from his thin wrinkled hands. He turned his attention to Lena again, holding her gaze. There was definitely something more here, something other than chance at work.
"So what brings you to-" Sal's eyes seemed drawn over her shoulder to a twelve strong group of miners all talking loudly amongst themselves. A flash of green eyes, scars upon his face and that smirk, the very smirk that Sal himself was well known for and then he was gone. Sal didn't realize it but he had leapt from his seat, his palms slamming onto the table and scattering his drink to the floor. He searched frantically among the faces but there was no sign of him...it was as if he had never been, just phantom conjured by too much Whiskey.
"He's dead, you saw him die." Sal sat back down, shaken and disturbed by what he had seen. He noticed the mess and the strange look Vod was giving him. "I thought I saw an old girlfriend," His lips parted into an embarrassed grin. "Left without a word and broke my heart."
"Don't they always?" The old man chuckled and the remembered Lena. "Present company excluded, of course." He ended with a wink, that got a smile from the clone.
"What was I saying?" Sal asked and then remembered. "Yeah! So what brought you to the Tingel Arm?"
"Hey!" Chief Engineer Zilas yelled at a deckhand dragging a sheet of durasteel across the cargo hold floor with four shipmates. "Over there! Gods above! How many times do I got to tell you guys!" He roared, the master of his own little world. That's what he was, down here among the broken parts, coils of wire and plundered metals, he was the longest serving engineer and on a salvage ship that pretty much made him god.
He shook his head as he walked across the spacious hold, checking off items from the datapad in his hands as he inspected their haul. There was a loud clang behind him and he spun like an enraged rancor. His brown eyes spewed fire and his bald head flushed red with anger as he watched a hyper drive engine nacelle fall from a load lifter onto the metal grating.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS WHEN A HYPERDRIVE BLOWS UP!" His words practically boomed at them, sending daggers of dread into their guts. They shook their heads one by one and searched around sheepishly for an answer.
"IT CREATES A FRAKKING SINGULARITY! SO BE GORRAM CAREFUL!" Flecks of spit flew into the air and his eyes had a wild feral look to them, the deckhands were quite certain they would be taking space walk if he had his way.
"Chief Zilas, contact the bridge. I repeat Chief Zilas contact the bridge." Came the sound of the ships internal comms. Zilas cut each of them down with a stare that promised this wasn't over and then made his way to the main door of the cargo hold. His destination was a small intercom and with the press of a button he had established a line with the bridge some three floors above.
"Zilas."
"We're getting some odd fluctuations in hyperdrive read outs Chief." It was Captain Hanfur, a wet behind the ears twenty-two year old who had inherited the ship and the Salvage company from his old man six months ago. Zilas wasn't a fan, but he paid the bills. "Could you have a look and report back?"
There were a few choice responses Zilas wanted to give to that question but he swallowed the bile and simply said "Yes captain.". He wasn't sure what pissed him off more, the fact that he had to trek all the way down the length of the ship to the engine room or that they were blaming his fine tuned and well cared for machines. It was never the machines fault, it was always some dumb ass helmsman mucking up on their end.
The distance wasn't that great at all, comparatively speaking the Storm Call was only marginally larger than a stock freighter. He stood there for a moment, in the engine room, looking at the thrumming Hyperdrive that consumed a vast portion of the space before him. The readouts WERE a little off, he thought as he unhooked his analysis kit from the engine proper.
He took a step back and tapped the datapad against his chin as he considered what might be causing it. They were very minor anomalies to be sure, well within safety parameter's but it was a point of professional pride that every piece of equipment on board this vessel was bang on the optimum. There wasn't much he could do right now at any rate, performing hyperdrive maintenance while the contraption was running was @*+$ near suicide and he wasn't about to bet his technical prowess against his and everyone else's lives.
Zilas pocketed his datapad and slid his analysis probes into his waste belt and made to report back hid findings when there was a high pitched whine behind him and he turned slowly, a cold chill riding up his spine. The hyperdrive casing was sending out small wisps of smoke, the air filled with the smell of burning metals and plastics, and then with a snap hiss pop electric blue sparks shot from it in all directions.
The entire ship lurched forward as it came to a sudden and unexpected stop and Zilas was sent to and rolled across the floor. He fired curses into the ether as he picked himself up and fired yet more at the smouldering hyperdrive. It didn't take long for the Captains voice to come over the loud speaker.
"What happened! Chief, repor...what the hell is that..."
It came from beyond the blackness. Slowly it travelling onward, guided, it seemed, by an unseen hand. It was a starship that none had seen in thousands of years. She was battle worn and ravaged by time, her heavy armour scorched by ancient laser fire and punctured by wayward meteors. How this vessel had retained any of its former shape was as great a mystery as where she had come from.
Captain Hanfur held the receiver in one hand, his eyes wide and fixed on what lay beyond the bridge view ports. The ship moved ponderously ahead of them, it was like some tale told in cantinas across the stars and he heard more than one exclamation of 'Ghost ship!' from his bridge crew.
"Captain, Zilas down in the engine room. The hyperdrives packed in, what's happening up there?" The small voice on the end of the receiver seemed to snap Hanfur from his daze.
"Helmsman, full stop. Take us no closer." Hanfur commanded and then turned his attention to Zilas. "Cheif, what's the damage?"
The captain could hear grunts and faint groans of metal being shifted on the other side of the conversation then the Chief responded. "She's slag, completely mangled."
"What are our options?"
"Aside from prayer? We don't have anywhere near enough parts to tackle this mess."
"What if we found a derelict, could you scavenge what you needed from its systems?" The captain felt a darkness creep up his spine even as he considered his next course of action.
"Well sure, yeah. I somehow doubt ones just gonna float across our path in deep space though."
"You'd be surprised...."
* * *
The screams chased him. The shadows chased him. The nightmares in the dark were unrelenting. Zilas could see nothing but the terrible things that assailed him from all sides, hounding him, snapping their jaws at his heels. It wasn't far now, no, not far, it'll be over soon, soon, soon. We'll be okay soon, the escape pod is there. They won't hurt you there. You'll be safe, safe from the demons, safe from the shadows, safe from the fear. The escape pod was there, it was where he needed it to be, and with a scream that never seemed to end ripping the inside of his skull asunder he threw himself into the cramped space, hit the release button and curled up into a ball on the floor.
The pod shot from the stern side of the Storm Call with a burst of hydraulics and sailed away into the calm, quiet of the speckled black. Zilas cried, sobbing into his knees that were held tight to his chest, his body rocking back and forward. It was over, he was safe, he was safe....he was safe...
Ba-dum..
Zilas' eyes went wide in the gloom, his mouth opened as the terror gripped him.
Ba-dum....Ba-dum...Ba-dum...Ba-dumbadumbadumbadumbadumbadumbadum
The chief screamed. He screamed until his vocal cords ripped, he screamed until his teeth shattered but no one could hear, no one could hear the heartbeats in the dark.
* * *
"You ever hear the tale of the void ship?" The old man, like so many others in so many cantina's, began. He was a storyteller, a mythspinner, a recanter of legends. There was one to be found in pretty much every watering hole from Ord Mantell to Bakura and here on Bonadan was no different. Sal held his drink in one hand, the other resting on the knee of his black suit trousers with a ciggara held gently between fore and index finger.
"Can't say that I have old yin." He said politely, he wasn't in any hurry, his business here was done and now it was just a matter of heading back home.
"A terrible thing it was," The old drunk began, his voice like smashed rocks grating upon one another. "A ghost ship they say, from beyond the edges of known space. It rips unlucky souls from hyperspace and drives them mad. My cousin knew a man, who knew a guy who's uncle had found the only survivor of the Void Ship. In a terrible state he was, drifting for weeks in an escape pod, battered and mutilated he was...clawed the skin clean off his chest and everywhere in the escape pod he had written in his own blood 'Darkness beats, beats with the rhythm of the heart." He paused for dramatic effect and saw that it wasn't having any affect on the brown haired clone.
"And exactly how did this ship, if it existed, drive people insane?" Sal asked, taking a mouthful of whiskey from his glass.
"From what I was told and from what the men could get out of the survivor," He stopped and gulped down the rest of his ale, sliding the back of his sleeve across his silver beard before continuing. "The ship had a heart at its core, a terrible heart that held it together and broke the mind of anyone who set foot upon the ship. Black it was they said, filled with evil, the sound of its beating was like drums of hell in your head..."
Any other, normal, person would have simply shook their head and turned away from such a ludicrous story but Sal was not a normal person. If you discount the fact that he is technically a top secret Imperial biological weapon, and discount that he is a Master of the Force you are still left with the fact that his creator, his 'Father', was even greater than he. A Master of the Force and more specifically the Darkside. In his life he gathered many stories of old to him, he learned from many Masters, alive and dead, and all that wisdom, all that knowledge was passed on, genetically, to Sal.
Something stirred in his mind as he heard this tale, a gifted memory that he had never known existed sparked to life in his mind. It was an old tale, a forgotten tale, from the earliest memories of the Sith and the great Hyperspace War. It wasn't so much a factual record that lay in his memory, that Lord Omega had uncovered, more of a dark poem of the event.
"In sand and stone the Dark Lord lies.
Through stars his power flies.
An emanating melody consumes the path.
Its rhythm leaving naught but wrath."
"Well...shit..." Sal gasped as the cool voice of his Father recited the words in his mind. The old man looked at him expectantly, wiggling his glass. Surely the story had done it job and if that wasn't worth a a pint, then he wasn't sure what was. Norongachi's face became intense and with a wave of his hand he orderd the old man another round.
"Tell me," He began, the hard stare of his green eyes making the bearded pensioner uneasy. "Everything you know about this ship.."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Bonadan
Duro Duro Cantina
Tap. Tap... tap. The pads of gem adorned fingertips trolled the old teller's shoulder, "You're leaving out the best parts," she leaned in, placing a delicate... venomous kiss upon a wrinkled, sun starved cheek. Vod's neck stiffened visibly under the woman's affections, his eyes narrowing so much the whites of them disappearing all together.
"I was just getting to that," he said as if he were reminding her how it went, afflicted in turn by how gray her voice sounded. A curt nod followed and Anesia was whisked away, her vanilla and ruby skirts trailing behind her- the old man's voice on wind. But she held an ear to it; just in case the old bugger decided to change it. Full, wine tainted lips quirked into a smile- he knew something, that he wasn't sharing. Tonight may very well be the night that he'd spill, so the gypsy lady meandered back towards his table.
"I've changed my mind," three glasses were set before the small table; she plucked the previously used two away. One bulky mug from the table, the other from between the traveler's hand and tossed them into a passing server girl's bucket. "There are things you know naught of, Vod... I've seen it, I know," stems for fingers coiled about her own flute of Ambrosia before taking a small swallow of it.
"Oh, for Repulic's sake. Not this again, Lena."
It was too late and memories came flooding back.
"For instance, the Captain cabin's deck was not made of the darker Wroshry guts like most of the stories claim, but of Veshok. They were stained by the blood of it's victims." The old man stopped mid-motion in bringing his refilled mug up, the dark liquid at a partial tilt as seen by the clear container. Her pause was a bit more forlorn and her russet eyes seemed distant at the time.
---
"This will only hurt a little," the Master promised with a smile, before attaching herself to a made-willing subject, leaving a frail husk of a mistress behind to seemingly sleep amongst a bed of pillows. Gold and purple of various sizes and shapes framed her pretty porcelain face. She almost looked peaceful. It was strange, Anesia thought as she looked down at her own limp body with borrowed eyes and shared skin. It was strange, but nothing new she recalled and turned on her heel. The Void Ship was here, but it'd sooner be gone, if she let it.
This was it's second coming, and to what she believed, her last chance to observe.
To absorb the knowledge... the power.
No matter the cost, given the stories and the toll it would in no doubt take.
Which is why, she conveyed to Zena, the girl whom she was sharing a body with, I'm using you and not me, my dear.
This was very thought out, but even then, everything was still up in the air. No one really knew what would happen; to many of the stories that were real, came from cracked, corrupt minds so twisted, that deciphering everything in whole would take decades, if it were even possible. So far, it wasn't. There were two in her cells on Munto Codru and had been there for several years while she devised a scheme that would not only land her what she wanted, but did so with as little damage as possible to her being.
The visage she wore donned auburn curls that dropped just mid-back of the metal dyed trench coat dusting the ship’s ramp. Zena drifted up, tailored clothing gave when it needed to accommodate her stride. The shared persona was finally in the belly, and with curious eyes they both looked around. To both their surprise, it was clean. So clean in fact, it looked like it had just came from the distributor.
Further into this… perfect dark hell, the mirage began to peel away like window clings. At least to Anesia it did. She only found hours later that Zena had never witnessed the atrocity this ghost of a ship offered to the third eye. Not when she did, not until much later. The two were silent through their tour along the spine. It was not until they reached the area where emergency pods, given there were only two left out of what looked liked used to be ten, were set in place that they heard the screams.
At first they were soft, like whispers and concentrated in one area. They became louder, more unbearable, echoing off the metal interior by the minute and Zena found herself screaming, breaking free from the chains Anesia had upon her. It was short lived, though not of the Master’s doing in strength or power.
No, it was when the gray area, with it’s twinkling white-but blood splattered lights that arched across the room half a dozen times went out. The puppet had ran herself right into one of the two pods and landed in a sprawl against the red, sticky maggot covered deck. That was when Anesia assumed she figured out it was all tricks and what she’d originally seen was not what was really there.
Ba-dum… ba-dum… ba-dum…
---
“The ship sees,” her voice dropped an octave and she pulled the rest of the Ambrosia down her throat, “it knows.”
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal tensed as the new arrival appeared, planting a kiss upon the old drunks cheek. He looked her up and down, his gaze moving from the jet black hair that framed her tanned face to the flowing robes that hugged her figure in all the right places. Finally looked upon violet eyes that glimmered in the misty half light of the Cantina. She was beautiful, there was no doubt.
"I didn't even hear her approach...I didn't *FEEL* her approach..." He thought as the pair exchanged words. He wasn't referring to any extrasensory gift of the Force, no. He was, at his core, a soldier and was created for just that purpose. His survival instinct was honed and refined in the forges of countless battles among the embers of a hundred worlds. "You're rusty, that needs to change.."
As quickly as she appeared, she was gone again and Sal returned his attention to Vod. The old man seemed just as taken aback as Norongachi by the brief interruption to his tale. He cleared his throat and took a swig of ale and inhaled as if to speak.
"I've changed my mind," She said upon her sudden returned, except this time she brought a currency that ensured her interruption was forgiven by both parties. Sal took up the fresh Whiskey with a tilt of his glass in thanks and said nothing more. "There are things you know naught of, Vod...I've seen it, I know."
The clones attention became more focused with this revelation, his drink almost forgotten as his ears strained to snatch every word from the air. His anticipation was almost wasted upon her mundane explanation of the Captains taste in decoration. Then she said it, words that were eerily familiar..
-------
The city lights of Etti IV, Corporate Sector Authority Capital, glimmered at the Sith Lord. The lighting in his penthouse apartment, a mere stones throw from his place of work, the Crystal Spire of Authority Central, was dulled. Only the light from a desk lamp provided any substantial illumination of the datapad he held in his pale hands. The scars that criss crossed his face were wrinkled in concentration as he absorbed the text provided by his contact at the College of Historical Studies on Taris. It was but one of thousands of transcripts from dig sites and ancient ruins across the Galaxy. On their own they meant little, if one did not have the canny understanding, but when they were together and one could see recurring elements.
"In sand and stone the Dark Lord lies." Omega began, his voice was smooth and baritone. "Through stars his power flies, an emanating melody consumes the path, its rhythm leaving naught but wrath." It wasn't comprehensive but the mystery and the context appealed to him on a personal level.
He placed that particular piece aside and picked up another. A partial fragment once again, teased together from Sith scripts scattered across the ancient empires worlds. It told of a Sith of great power and his return to the great dark beyond the veil, his earthly power scattered to the moon and stars.
"Interesting..." The Sith Lord said with a lopsided smirk. "They took out his heart and other organs before he was interned, or entombed as was the custom of the time."
"I can't understand why, what possible reasoning does that serve beyond the religious aspects of course and what possible power could a disembodied heart hold?" The speaker had stood quietly in the gloom of the open plan apparent, lingering near the doorway ready to warn or strike should his Master be interrupted.
"There is much you do not understand Sigma," Omega responded, his emerald eyes rising up from his works, his gaze smouldering with an inner power. "The Force by its very nature is an energy. When energy of any magnitude is harnessed, focused, and channelled through a conduit it leaves an impression that will take eons to dissipate, if it ever dissipates at all. You know there are places in the universe where this is true. There are many great Darkside nexus' where such energy has seeped into the tangible world through direct or indirect means. A sentient body is no different. The ancient Lords of the Sith were unparalleled in their mastery of the Darkside, they were living conduits for such energies." The Dark Lord finished and waited for some show of understanding.
Sigma had only begun his first tentative steps along the path Darth Omega had laid out for him and if he had learned anything from his first lessons with the Jedi, sometimes one had to speak plainly. "If you remove the detonator from a bomb, does it cease to be a bomb?"
"Of course not Master."
"And what do the Sith crave above all else?"
"Power.
"And what do they fear above all else?"
"Losing that power." The student recited flawlessly, from the words of Darth Sidious himself.
"Not even in Death could such a thing come to pass." The Sith Lord said with an icy smile and turned his gaze back to his research. Sigma would realize in time the lesson there, if he did not then he was not worthy of anything more.
"The darkness sees." Omega read aloud from another text, this one recounting from a sentient who had witnessed a black vessel some two hundred years prior. "The darkness knows."
-------
Sal's mind drifted back from the memory. He hated the intense ones, where it was almost like he were Omega, where he could feel his excitement, his anger, his sadness. His eyes narrowed briefly upon the woman Vod had called Lena and inside him apprehension stirred.
"Just who the hell are you..." He thought and keeping up his mask of curiosity addressed Vod. "So what happened to this survivor, if he existed at all." There was no harm than sprinkling some pessimism onto the proceedings.
"Died, of course. You don't suffer that kind of tormet and go on your merry way." The storyteller said with a shrug of his shoulders. Sal couldn't help but silently disagree, he knew more than his share who had gone over the edge and come back with a smile.
"Where is all this rubbish supposed to have taken place? I mean, every story has a beginning right?" So with confirmation received it was time to fill in as many of the blanks as he could from dear old Vod.
"Hey, far fetched it might be but rubbish it ain't I tell you." He said, with faux offence and sloshed yet more Ale down his gullet as he had a brief think. "Lianna, yeah it was Lianna. My cousin was working out there for a haulage company contracted to Sienar Technologies. Thats where he first heard about it, told me and anyone else who would listen when he came home. Bloody loud mouth." He was oblivious to the hypocrisy, as most like him were.
"Wow, way out there eh?" Sal mused, already plotting the fastest course to the Tion Cluster in his head and then noted that he hadn't introduced himself. "The names Sal by the way and the next rounds definitely on me." He said with a smile before turning an amused look on Lena. "So you seen this ship, Lena? How come you aren't a stark raving nutter?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Duro Duro cantina was filling up fast- the treasure chest of a certain golden sunrise closing for the day and giving way for the curtain of night to fall. With it came thumps from a dozen pair of workman's' boots, beggars feet, and the heel clicks and trinket bell anklets from courtesans from the Ruo High district come to quench the thirst of a many travelers on their dime. A time, a night, a price. Nothing for free.
One could see the other women in the place cling to their men a little harder, keeping their words a little softer as if it mattered. The inky night made for a many possibilities. At least for most people, most ways. It didn't bother her for various reasons. Lena merely stole a glance to each of the free women as they entered as if memorizing all their faces. To this, she received abrupt looks away, but not even a nose up or a shoulder roll of fur her way.
The darkness in her smiled and she turned, pretending as if it were just their own insecurities. The ones those types never had; they slept with Kings.
"They duna like ya, Lena. Ha ha," Vod laughed heartily and washed it away with the rest of his ale.
And why should they, she spat inwardly, but batted her lashes innocently enough. "I wonder why," sadness flipped a trick off her tongue and she sighed like she cared.
Pointer finger finding it's way about the rim of her glass, she watched the handsome stranger through his reflection there. Seemingly in a daze- which would be perfectly normal, given the topic of discussion. Something is not right, she thought. He's fishing, she concluded and brought the Ambrosia back up to finish it off.
"Stark raving mad... well, that depends on your definition of mad," she said honestly, eyeing the waiter first and gesturing for another round. Lena smiled then, just a half-tug of her lips from the right side though, "How do you know I'm not?"
It was all Cheshire; from the height of her cheekbones, to the hint of secrecy behind the half-mast gaze she offered, "Besides," led on the gypsy, "it is just a tale, is it not, Sal?"
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The noise level rose with each new body over the threshold, soon they were practically surrounded on all sides by parched patrons of the Duro Duro. Sal gave a disinterested glance at the occasional newcomer and nothing more. He was far more interested in the company of his table, everything else could burn to ash for all he cared. Being as he was, a clone of a powerful Force user but more than that, that having every thought, every memory of his template in his mind, he was often worried if some of the Old Mans ambition, his desires, had bled over. Right now he was beginning to wonder if his desire to find this ship, and its contents, did not stem from Lord Omega...
"A fair point." He responded with a smile, noting the slim finger gliding along the rim of her glass. "And a silly one at that Lena." Norongachi finished, still grinning. The waiter appeared through the crowd with their fresh drinks and Sal slid a few credits onto his tray.
"It isn't often I'm in such interesting company. So drink up Vod, its your lucky night! The drinks are on me." He clapped the old man on the shoulder, almost knocking the glass from his thin wrinkled hands. He turned his attention to Lena again, holding her gaze. There was definitely something more here, something other than chance at work.
"So what brings you to-" Sal's eyes seemed drawn over her shoulder to a twelve strong group of miners all talking loudly amongst themselves. A flash of green eyes, scars upon his face and that smirk, the very smirk that Sal himself was well known for and then he was gone. Sal didn't realize it but he had leapt from his seat, his palms slamming onto the table and scattering his drink to the floor. He searched frantically among the faces but there was no sign of him...it was as if he had never been, just phantom conjured by too much Whiskey.
"He's dead, you saw him die." Sal sat back down, shaken and disturbed by what he had seen. He noticed the mess and the strange look Vod was giving him. "I thought I saw an old girlfriend," His lips parted into an embarrassed grin. "Left without a word and broke my heart."
"Don't they always?" The old man chuckled and the remembered Lena. "Present company excluded, of course." He ended with a wink, that got a smile from the clone.
"What was I saying?" Sal asked and then remembered. "Yeah! So what brought you to the Tingel Arm?"
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 12th August 2012, 14:46
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
I saw you screaming. It wasn't you, but I saw you screaming.
The chance that, even though Anesia had closed herself off, their locking of eyes showed a preview of just what was going through her mind was not exactly impossible in her dream [nightmare] entranced state. She had held his like a new found prize, and even in that instant, the stars could have replaced the twin pools of a normal liquid bronze hue set between a small bird-like nose. Onyx with flecks of white gems widened, her gaze automatically, if not curiously following his. Liquor rained from above, everything slowed and then a flash of jade.
Black.
---
The scene so readily available... the one playing in her head now, was when Zena had finally picked herself up from the slimy blood mopped deck and managed to make it to one of the three panoramic windows offered by the void ship. If you could call it a window, but not really be able to see through it, but having it make you feel as if you were losing sight by trying to see past the macabre of black, brown and red smeared across it like stained glass.
No one can hear you. No one can hear you.
Looking closer, paying more attention, the crescents that seemed painted were actually broken fingernails, the red beneath... a mere trail-a last resort of trying to escape, but only managing to let the madness seep in through fresh-cracked wounds. With Zena's dirty, manicured hands, she traced them, the last remnants of whoever was here and followed their journey away from the view port in a streak of muddled maroon.
"You're crazy. YOU ARE CRAZY! We are not, I am not going to seek out whatever it is that was here! You can't make me, Master!" She was screaming out loud, her eyes so wide, you'd think they would have popped out, or a vein would have busted.
In the same way she forced herself in, she made the girl walk, one step at a time that seemed to take forever. Anesia never commented, only reluctantly moved forward seeking out evil. Seeking it out willingly. Though, no one knew for sure if the Sith Master would have still done it in her own body. What was the price for power exactly? Who would pay?
Why?
POWER, it said with a voice of silk... being shredded. COME. POWER.
With no reason other than her own vanity, Anesia stopped. The command became louder, the need to press forward and follow became stronger. It was as if she needed it to survive. To breathe.
NO, she pushed back.
POWER.
Her being rocked back and she had to use her hands to steady herself by grasping the walls on either side. The Sith Master laughed, throwing her head back and this time it was her own vocals that were released instead of Zena's. His breath, Sadow's danced along her nape and she shuddered. A very feline smile spread across her lips and she pushed back at his power with her own... testing the waters. The response was a growl so low the ship vibrated under her feet.
GET OUT.
The smile deepened. "No," came a practiced purr. "Let's play."
Ghost hands wrapped around her neck, and even though Anesia herself was not suffocating, she now realized that she had to protect Zena for now. For long enough. How do you fight what you cannot see?
Yes, how can you? It laughed. He laughed.
She screamed, and to everybody's surprise, even her own, static silence was all that was offered for as many as ten whole minutes. Her eyes streaked back and forth in search... in search of something unable to be seen. It had grabbed her then, from under her arms when she least expected it, dragging her down a black hallway where no light was spared and the small objects scraping her legs, the Sith could only pretend to know what they were. The struggle she gave, she also gave up. There is no point in it, she thought. Save my strength.
There was nothing but an endless nothing and a wave passed over her causing nightmare after nightmare to fill the time. It seemed he was generous in that.
She had woke up to a name; one she had only heard once before. It was even in the same voice.
ANANDA.
Terror consumed her and Anesia shook violently enough to black out.
Scratching and screaming. Hopeless.
Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum. ba-dumba-dumba-dum-ba-dum.
---
Glass still in hand, contents half-filled and at a tilt to be drank, wrist slightly flicked… lips parted and paused. She blinked finally, “Bad taste in women,” Lena winked, casually nodding her head towards the miners behind her, then casting a knowing smile, “eh?”
The woman in cream and wine leaned forward, leaving such a short distance between Sal and herself, “A new life. It’s not often you get those,” answered the mistress, pout so close he could feel cool breath on every dropped word.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The unease wouldn't leave him. He looked into those eyes and saw nothing, a slither of secret humour and a distance as if her mind were elsewhere, but nothing else. It were as if she had utterly sheilded her soul from view, not an emotion to be found that he could glean. The Old Man could do that, utterly detatch himself from everything. Ruthless, with a mind of steel.
Sal didn't move as she slinked in closer and he saw Vod's bushy grey brows rise at the proximity out of the corner of his eye. He held her eyes as if looking away would spell the end of all creation.
"Always" He lifted the glass to his lips and topped the remainder of his whiskey onto his eagerly awaiting tongue and took it in like a breath. "You'd be surpirsed, Lena." A knowing smile of his own traced across his lips briefly and then the local band who had been setting up against the leftmost wall struck up a tune, the crowd went wild and the noise rose to unbearable levels.
"Thats my cue to get on home!" Sal yelled over the noise. "Take care of yourself Vod and thanks for the stories." He threw some credits onto the table and stood, checking the chrono on his wrist for effect. He had delayed too long, dark things stirred in the universe...he just wasn't sure if they were connected or not. It was too much of a coincidence that he had seen *HIM* here, after learning what he had. Norongachi looked to the seductive Lena and stooped down so his lips almost grazed her ear.
"I'll see you around Lena, don't get caught up in any silly stories..." With that he made his way to the door and the cool night air beyond, one last look over his shoulder at the beauty he had left behind and he was over the threshhold. There was definately something, niggling at his guts, but whatever it was it mattered little now.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The feel of breath on her neck stilled her- eyes shutting for less than seconds. "The cat always catches the mouse, you know," she paused, "always. In those stories you speak of..." Funny thing was, she didn't know if she was the prey or the food in this turn of events. The chase is what made it fun though, she thought and tilted her head as if it would make a difference. There she went, getting all caught up in the possibilities. Lena watched him dance out of sight and smiled briefly.
Thin digits grasped Vod's shoulder and the woman leaned in to whisper, "See if any more of the like come in... gather what information they've got."
"Aye, Lena. Though I doubt we'll fina 'noth like that 'en. Say, where ya headed off ta in sucha hurry?" replied the old coot wearily. Lena game him a light smile and pointed to the dock outside the cantina. The graying man nodded.
Into the crowd, she slipped, bumping elbows here, sharing secrets there. "I managed to get it all in the drink before the one that... well, was wasted," their server said. Her server. The smile she paid him was dark and delightful. "You never cease to amaze me, Jer. Never." The tips of her fingers grazed his knuckles and she kissed his brow.
"Keep an eye on old Vod there... you know those types. They'll turn on you as soon as they suspect you're not looking."
She stole out into the night, pulling her cloak close. Unable to rely on... the Force and signatures, Anesia had to do it the old fashioned way. Kind of. He had smelled of metal and musk... of whiskey, the enchantress remembered. Sal had not left no more than five minutes prior. She had spotted a few similar subjects... but the posture was wrong, the scent was off. The eyes not nearly as alive. Not quite enough madness, she decided. Nor the tailor as good to fit a suit.
So she floated, seemingly without care, chancing not a glance for too long at anything in particular. The same violent green gaze caught her eye once more from the corner, and with practiced steps, Anesia ignored it and took herself to his backside. It, afterall, was not what she was after. But, where it was (because she could not adequately describe what 'he' was), Sal she assumed would be close, perhaps not by choice. He would be around- and for some reason, she'd stake her life on it. Wasn't just happenstance.
Glittered gaze surveyed the area until she spotted, then tailed him. Bingo.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The cool night air did little to quell the fire in his mind, the desire to chase this ghost story to the very end and beyond. It was perhaps a whim that made him so utterly hell bent on finding the Voidship. He had little inclination of what he would do when he finally got there, if it was there at all. What could he do with a powerful artefact of a Sith Lord long since past, what uses could he make of it? Three dozen came into his mind instantly, but one stood out from the others.
Sal did not really notice it at first, as he walked deep in thought, but his body had begun to tingle. It was barely noticeable but it had grown steadily with each step and Sal had to stop, flexing his hand wondering what the frell was going on. His leg went limp under him and he stumbled to the side leaning against the wall of a residential apartment block. He could hear his heart thundering in his chest, could hear every breath like it where a hurricane in his ears and the world before his eyes began to blur and trail. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to try and shift this strange feeling.
"Going somewhere?"
The face was so close when he opened his eyes that Sal moved back with a start, lost his footing and slid down onto his rump, his spine pressed against the cold stone. The street seemed to melt away, the background shifted to metal and darkness. The cold green eyes of Omega looking down upon him with that cold smirk.
What was this!? What was happening!?
"To get that peace, to find that neutrality you'll have to fight for it and fight hard. There's another paradox for you Eryk and one even you can't refute. Whether its by words or weapons, faith or politics, there will always be a battle to fight and lives lost in the pursuit of this elusive peace we want. Eventually you will have no choice but to take the hard road, the one soaked in blood and strewn with corpses. When it happens dear Jedi i hope to any bloody god that's listening that everything you hold dear hasn't been destroyed, everyone you love hasn't been trampled under foot while you deliberated on the morality of taking action. Whether you would be corrupted by meeting force with force, blow for blow..."
"Would so many lives have stained these hands if I had stayed..."
Memories, memories given form. They danced before his waking eyes and Sal could only watch, gripped by the stream of conversations, feelings and faces long since past.
"Why Emah..." Salem asked, his hand clutching the blaster wound in his gut.
"Its my job Vice Prex, nothing more..."
Merge is dead...
It was an end that should never have come, if i was there he would have lived...
"To be where I am, where Omega was, takes a specific mind, a specific view of the world and what makes it tick."
"You have to be able to place yourself outside the realms of good and evil, right and wrong, light and dark and the thousands of other fraking words that have been drummed into your head since you came popping out yer mothers womb. You have to break the chains society has placed upon you, shed the fear and doubt and with an iron clad certainty proclaim to the universe that the course you have taken is the right one. Evil is a word used to describe events and actions that they don't agree with, good is a word used to describe actions that please us. They are all words and words carry a power, people will die for words, kill for words. You have to stop thinking in words....can you do it?"
"Its all in your head, love"
"Its always been in their heads, the Jedi and the Sith. The Force doesn't give a +!*% if you obliterate a sun, it doesn't care if you do so to save a billion lives or just for kicks. Its all up here, your perceptions of your actions and just how much you care about the perceptions of others. Thats what separates those who have fallen and returned to the land of the fraking sane and those who can never come back. They convinced themselves that their actions are so fraking diabolical that no matter what they did they could never possibly attone for those actions.
"Your orders?"
"Burn it." She murmered out in a harsh whisper. "Burn it all."
"As you wish..." Was all he said and in the dull light, he heard the screams again, screams of the fallen, screams of the rejected subjects...his brothers, his family, his blood. Massacred and tortured and their bodies burned upon a pyre but it was more than just Talta, it was every loss that Salem Norongachi had ever witnessed. The Destruction of Nedjiv, the battle over Etti IV, The droid rebellion in the Corporate Capital City, the fight on the frozen plains of Zoist, all of it ran through his mind and everywhere he saw blood.
Red, red was the anger, crimson fire burning away at his self control, smouldering the chains that kept his power in check but it couldn't last and as Ti and Mao made their exit the flood gates burst, the river of emotion became a torrent, a tidal wave. He looked at his hands in the darkness and without a thought the fire ignited in his palms.
"Then all my power and influence is yours, Unit 0547, in return, I ask only for you and your people to live their lives to their content. Your existence in itself invites change. With change comes chaos, and with chaos comes bloodshed. Whereever you go, the banshee shall sing your praise and your seat sits upon a mountain of cadavers. Your life may soon come to an end, but your legacy shall live on."
"Kill me..."
"How can you ask this of me, TiCara?" His voice almost broke but he held his tone steady and quiet. "Haven't we lost enough already?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"SHUT UP!" Sal screamed with his hands clutching his head, his breath coming in rapid ragged drags. The curtain of invisibility that had shielded his presence was gone in his madness. A hover car parked by the side of the road caught the brunt of a telekinetic burst and flipped into the air as if a giant had thrown it.
The clone grew quiet, the feelings were passing, the memories fading back into the dark vault from whence they came. He thought he was holding it together, he thought he was doing okay but he was wrong. Nothing was okay, there was no holding THIS together and certainly no point pretending that he was a happy, functioning, member of society.
He stood, unsteadily, and held to the wall in case he was struck again. It was poison, or a drug, this much he knew. Where it had come from did not take a genius, he had only been in a position at the cantina for it to be administered. Was it Vod? No the old man was little more than lackey material if anything at all.
Lena...
He still couldn't detach that feeling of unease she stirred in him. If she were the cause then the timing was far to coincidental. She didn't want him to find that ship and by his very nature, that made him want to find it all the more. He pushed off from the wall and internalized the Force within his body, casting it like the filtration device throughout his blood stream to catch and purge the toxin from his cells. Now that he knew it was there, he wouldn't have to fear it any longer.
The starport awaited, then Lianna...then glory.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"Noooooooo........" it was that voice, because there always was a voice that screamed in the instance before a collision. Her knees hit the cobblestone walk-a-way.
The fact that there was no actual collision had nothing to do with it; it draws the illusion of sheer, unadulterated peril. Of fear, if even it is not your own. The state of mind a onlooker feels- the helplessness that captivates and festers in the very backs of their skull. You can do nothing but watch as everything burns, your insides withering in your weakness. Should have. Could have. Never tried.
Ash falls in soft, sheer gray popcorn form and...
... she dances as if it were snow, in circles around the yard.
You will not win, my mistress.
A calm, pleased tumble of words entered her mind. It entered even as her form wept until she was pressed against the alley wall, nails filing down, scraping her hands. Chocolate curls came crashing in against her milk-white face, all the color had ceased. The only presence of a struggle shown was in her eyes; where dark gold and violet flickered back and forth with the blink of sooty black lashes.
I will take away your prize like you took mine.
Steph.
Zenima.
There was a pause, defeat crept up her throat, threatening to choke her. Anesia swallowed and used her nails to pull herself up. "Jerimiah," the master spoke his name lowly, fighting the urge to spit a half-dozen spells out of habit. It was no use; she knew. He was no where near. The feeling was down in the marrow. Her own poison spiraling swimming in her veins and she struggled to keep her footing. Pale white lids were having a hard time staying open.
If it was one thing Anesia was, it was determined. Beauty and power aside. When she wanted something, she would ruin- ANNIHILATE whatever got in her way.
From the ground she rose, using a store's back wall to lean against and catching Sal's backside again. Her head tilted, sizing him up a moment before coming to a realization. Lena ventured closer, eyes narrowing, ears practically lurching the distance to hear what he was screaming. When he turned, she swore he was speaking to her. Screaming at her. She could have placed bets, if it wasn't for the small detail... that she forgot in her own moments of hallucination.
Not me. Not me.
The amazonian inspired woman stepped away quickly and for the moment, blended with the crowd. She watched from under a curtain of lashes. How much did Jer give him? Too much. It wasn't supposed to do all that. Her little creation was going to pay for this.
Finally, her friend seemed to gain some control over his situation. His eyes no longer looked lost, she reflected. "Going somewhere," a bronze head leaned past a couple walking in front of him, "Sal?" The face she wore seemed curious, if not a little frightened. Cheeks flushed undertones of peach, eyes gone a little wide. Cream colored skirts stained in blood that continued to soak in what with her clutching them with the gashes on her palms.
I saw you screaming. It wasn't you, but I saw you screaming.
The chance that, even though Anesia had closed herself off, their locking of eyes showed a preview of just what was going through her mind was not exactly impossible in her dream [nightmare] entranced state. She had held his like a new found prize, and even in that instant, the stars could have replaced the twin pools of a normal liquid bronze hue set between a small bird-like nose. Onyx with flecks of white gems widened, her gaze automatically, if not curiously following his. Liquor rained from above, everything slowed and then a flash of jade.
Black.
---
The scene so readily available... the one playing in her head now, was when Zena had finally picked herself up from the slimy blood mopped deck and managed to make it to one of the three panoramic windows offered by the void ship. If you could call it a window, but not really be able to see through it, but having it make you feel as if you were losing sight by trying to see past the macabre of black, brown and red smeared across it like stained glass.
No one can hear you. No one can hear you.
Looking closer, paying more attention, the crescents that seemed painted were actually broken fingernails, the red beneath... a mere trail-a last resort of trying to escape, but only managing to let the madness seep in through fresh-cracked wounds. With Zena's dirty, manicured hands, she traced them, the last remnants of whoever was here and followed their journey away from the view port in a streak of muddled maroon.
"You're crazy. YOU ARE CRAZY! We are not, I am not going to seek out whatever it is that was here! You can't make me, Master!" She was screaming out loud, her eyes so wide, you'd think they would have popped out, or a vein would have busted.
In the same way she forced herself in, she made the girl walk, one step at a time that seemed to take forever. Anesia never commented, only reluctantly moved forward seeking out evil. Seeking it out willingly. Though, no one knew for sure if the Sith Master would have still done it in her own body. What was the price for power exactly? Who would pay?
Why?
POWER, it said with a voice of silk... being shredded. COME. POWER.
With no reason other than her own vanity, Anesia stopped. The command became louder, the need to press forward and follow became stronger. It was as if she needed it to survive. To breathe.
NO, she pushed back.
POWER.
Her being rocked back and she had to use her hands to steady herself by grasping the walls on either side. The Sith Master laughed, throwing her head back and this time it was her own vocals that were released instead of Zena's. His breath, Sadow's danced along her nape and she shuddered. A very feline smile spread across her lips and she pushed back at his power with her own... testing the waters. The response was a growl so low the ship vibrated under her feet.
GET OUT.
The smile deepened. "No," came a practiced purr. "Let's play."
Ghost hands wrapped around her neck, and even though Anesia herself was not suffocating, she now realized that she had to protect Zena for now. For long enough. How do you fight what you cannot see?
Yes, how can you? It laughed. He laughed.
She screamed, and to everybody's surprise, even her own, static silence was all that was offered for as many as ten whole minutes. Her eyes streaked back and forth in search... in search of something unable to be seen. It had grabbed her then, from under her arms when she least expected it, dragging her down a black hallway where no light was spared and the small objects scraping her legs, the Sith could only pretend to know what they were. The struggle she gave, she also gave up. There is no point in it, she thought. Save my strength.
There was nothing but an endless nothing and a wave passed over her causing nightmare after nightmare to fill the time. It seemed he was generous in that.
She had woke up to a name; one she had only heard once before. It was even in the same voice.
ANANDA.
Terror consumed her and Anesia shook violently enough to black out.
Scratching and screaming. Hopeless.
Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum. ba-dumba-dumba-dum-ba-dum.
---
Glass still in hand, contents half-filled and at a tilt to be drank, wrist slightly flicked… lips parted and paused. She blinked finally, “Bad taste in women,” Lena winked, casually nodding her head towards the miners behind her, then casting a knowing smile, “eh?”
The woman in cream and wine leaned forward, leaving such a short distance between Sal and herself, “A new life. It’s not often you get those,” answered the mistress, pout so close he could feel cool breath on every dropped word.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The unease wouldn't leave him. He looked into those eyes and saw nothing, a slither of secret humour and a distance as if her mind were elsewhere, but nothing else. It were as if she had utterly sheilded her soul from view, not an emotion to be found that he could glean. The Old Man could do that, utterly detatch himself from everything. Ruthless, with a mind of steel.
Sal didn't move as she slinked in closer and he saw Vod's bushy grey brows rise at the proximity out of the corner of his eye. He held her eyes as if looking away would spell the end of all creation.
"Always" He lifted the glass to his lips and topped the remainder of his whiskey onto his eagerly awaiting tongue and took it in like a breath. "You'd be surpirsed, Lena." A knowing smile of his own traced across his lips briefly and then the local band who had been setting up against the leftmost wall struck up a tune, the crowd went wild and the noise rose to unbearable levels.
"Thats my cue to get on home!" Sal yelled over the noise. "Take care of yourself Vod and thanks for the stories." He threw some credits onto the table and stood, checking the chrono on his wrist for effect. He had delayed too long, dark things stirred in the universe...he just wasn't sure if they were connected or not. It was too much of a coincidence that he had seen *HIM* here, after learning what he had. Norongachi looked to the seductive Lena and stooped down so his lips almost grazed her ear.
"I'll see you around Lena, don't get caught up in any silly stories..." With that he made his way to the door and the cool night air beyond, one last look over his shoulder at the beauty he had left behind and he was over the threshhold. There was definately something, niggling at his guts, but whatever it was it mattered little now.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The feel of breath on her neck stilled her- eyes shutting for less than seconds. "The cat always catches the mouse, you know," she paused, "always. In those stories you speak of..." Funny thing was, she didn't know if she was the prey or the food in this turn of events. The chase is what made it fun though, she thought and tilted her head as if it would make a difference. There she went, getting all caught up in the possibilities. Lena watched him dance out of sight and smiled briefly.
Thin digits grasped Vod's shoulder and the woman leaned in to whisper, "See if any more of the like come in... gather what information they've got."
"Aye, Lena. Though I doubt we'll fina 'noth like that 'en. Say, where ya headed off ta in sucha hurry?" replied the old coot wearily. Lena game him a light smile and pointed to the dock outside the cantina. The graying man nodded.
Into the crowd, she slipped, bumping elbows here, sharing secrets there. "I managed to get it all in the drink before the one that... well, was wasted," their server said. Her server. The smile she paid him was dark and delightful. "You never cease to amaze me, Jer. Never." The tips of her fingers grazed his knuckles and she kissed his brow.
"Keep an eye on old Vod there... you know those types. They'll turn on you as soon as they suspect you're not looking."
She stole out into the night, pulling her cloak close. Unable to rely on... the Force and signatures, Anesia had to do it the old fashioned way. Kind of. He had smelled of metal and musk... of whiskey, the enchantress remembered. Sal had not left no more than five minutes prior. She had spotted a few similar subjects... but the posture was wrong, the scent was off. The eyes not nearly as alive. Not quite enough madness, she decided. Nor the tailor as good to fit a suit.
So she floated, seemingly without care, chancing not a glance for too long at anything in particular. The same violent green gaze caught her eye once more from the corner, and with practiced steps, Anesia ignored it and took herself to his backside. It, afterall, was not what she was after. But, where it was (because she could not adequately describe what 'he' was), Sal she assumed would be close, perhaps not by choice. He would be around- and for some reason, she'd stake her life on it. Wasn't just happenstance.
Glittered gaze surveyed the area until she spotted, then tailed him. Bingo.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The cool night air did little to quell the fire in his mind, the desire to chase this ghost story to the very end and beyond. It was perhaps a whim that made him so utterly hell bent on finding the Voidship. He had little inclination of what he would do when he finally got there, if it was there at all. What could he do with a powerful artefact of a Sith Lord long since past, what uses could he make of it? Three dozen came into his mind instantly, but one stood out from the others.
Sal did not really notice it at first, as he walked deep in thought, but his body had begun to tingle. It was barely noticeable but it had grown steadily with each step and Sal had to stop, flexing his hand wondering what the frell was going on. His leg went limp under him and he stumbled to the side leaning against the wall of a residential apartment block. He could hear his heart thundering in his chest, could hear every breath like it where a hurricane in his ears and the world before his eyes began to blur and trail. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to try and shift this strange feeling.
"Going somewhere?"
The face was so close when he opened his eyes that Sal moved back with a start, lost his footing and slid down onto his rump, his spine pressed against the cold stone. The street seemed to melt away, the background shifted to metal and darkness. The cold green eyes of Omega looking down upon him with that cold smirk.
What was this!? What was happening!?
"To get that peace, to find that neutrality you'll have to fight for it and fight hard. There's another paradox for you Eryk and one even you can't refute. Whether its by words or weapons, faith or politics, there will always be a battle to fight and lives lost in the pursuit of this elusive peace we want. Eventually you will have no choice but to take the hard road, the one soaked in blood and strewn with corpses. When it happens dear Jedi i hope to any bloody god that's listening that everything you hold dear hasn't been destroyed, everyone you love hasn't been trampled under foot while you deliberated on the morality of taking action. Whether you would be corrupted by meeting force with force, blow for blow..."
"Would so many lives have stained these hands if I had stayed..."
Memories, memories given form. They danced before his waking eyes and Sal could only watch, gripped by the stream of conversations, feelings and faces long since past.
"Why Emah..." Salem asked, his hand clutching the blaster wound in his gut.
"Its my job Vice Prex, nothing more..."
Merge is dead...
It was an end that should never have come, if i was there he would have lived...
"To be where I am, where Omega was, takes a specific mind, a specific view of the world and what makes it tick."
"You have to be able to place yourself outside the realms of good and evil, right and wrong, light and dark and the thousands of other fraking words that have been drummed into your head since you came popping out yer mothers womb. You have to break the chains society has placed upon you, shed the fear and doubt and with an iron clad certainty proclaim to the universe that the course you have taken is the right one. Evil is a word used to describe events and actions that they don't agree with, good is a word used to describe actions that please us. They are all words and words carry a power, people will die for words, kill for words. You have to stop thinking in words....can you do it?"
"Its all in your head, love"
"Its always been in their heads, the Jedi and the Sith. The Force doesn't give a +!*% if you obliterate a sun, it doesn't care if you do so to save a billion lives or just for kicks. Its all up here, your perceptions of your actions and just how much you care about the perceptions of others. Thats what separates those who have fallen and returned to the land of the fraking sane and those who can never come back. They convinced themselves that their actions are so fraking diabolical that no matter what they did they could never possibly attone for those actions.
"Your orders?"
"Burn it." She murmered out in a harsh whisper. "Burn it all."
"As you wish..." Was all he said and in the dull light, he heard the screams again, screams of the fallen, screams of the rejected subjects...his brothers, his family, his blood. Massacred and tortured and their bodies burned upon a pyre but it was more than just Talta, it was every loss that Salem Norongachi had ever witnessed. The Destruction of Nedjiv, the battle over Etti IV, The droid rebellion in the Corporate Capital City, the fight on the frozen plains of Zoist, all of it ran through his mind and everywhere he saw blood.
Red, red was the anger, crimson fire burning away at his self control, smouldering the chains that kept his power in check but it couldn't last and as Ti and Mao made their exit the flood gates burst, the river of emotion became a torrent, a tidal wave. He looked at his hands in the darkness and without a thought the fire ignited in his palms.
"Then all my power and influence is yours, Unit 0547, in return, I ask only for you and your people to live their lives to their content. Your existence in itself invites change. With change comes chaos, and with chaos comes bloodshed. Whereever you go, the banshee shall sing your praise and your seat sits upon a mountain of cadavers. Your life may soon come to an end, but your legacy shall live on."
"Kill me..."
"How can you ask this of me, TiCara?" His voice almost broke but he held his tone steady and quiet. "Haven't we lost enough already?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"Going somewhere?"
"SHUT UP!" Sal screamed with his hands clutching his head, his breath coming in rapid ragged drags. The curtain of invisibility that had shielded his presence was gone in his madness. A hover car parked by the side of the road caught the brunt of a telekinetic burst and flipped into the air as if a giant had thrown it.
The clone grew quiet, the feelings were passing, the memories fading back into the dark vault from whence they came. He thought he was holding it together, he thought he was doing okay but he was wrong. Nothing was okay, there was no holding THIS together and certainly no point pretending that he was a happy, functioning, member of society.
He stood, unsteadily, and held to the wall in case he was struck again. It was poison, or a drug, this much he knew. Where it had come from did not take a genius, he had only been in a position at the cantina for it to be administered. Was it Vod? No the old man was little more than lackey material if anything at all.
Lena...
He still couldn't detach that feeling of unease she stirred in him. If she were the cause then the timing was far to coincidental. She didn't want him to find that ship and by his very nature, that made him want to find it all the more. He pushed off from the wall and internalized the Force within his body, casting it like the filtration device throughout his blood stream to catch and purge the toxin from his cells. Now that he knew it was there, he wouldn't have to fear it any longer.
The starport awaited, then Lianna...then glory.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"Noooooooo........" it was that voice, because there always was a voice that screamed in the instance before a collision. Her knees hit the cobblestone walk-a-way.
The fact that there was no actual collision had nothing to do with it; it draws the illusion of sheer, unadulterated peril. Of fear, if even it is not your own. The state of mind a onlooker feels- the helplessness that captivates and festers in the very backs of their skull. You can do nothing but watch as everything burns, your insides withering in your weakness. Should have. Could have. Never tried.
Ash falls in soft, sheer gray popcorn form and...
... she dances as if it were snow, in circles around the yard.
You will not win, my mistress.
A calm, pleased tumble of words entered her mind. It entered even as her form wept until she was pressed against the alley wall, nails filing down, scraping her hands. Chocolate curls came crashing in against her milk-white face, all the color had ceased. The only presence of a struggle shown was in her eyes; where dark gold and violet flickered back and forth with the blink of sooty black lashes.
I will take away your prize like you took mine.
Steph.
Zenima.
There was a pause, defeat crept up her throat, threatening to choke her. Anesia swallowed and used her nails to pull herself up. "Jerimiah," the master spoke his name lowly, fighting the urge to spit a half-dozen spells out of habit. It was no use; she knew. He was no where near. The feeling was down in the marrow. Her own poison spiraling swimming in her veins and she struggled to keep her footing. Pale white lids were having a hard time staying open.
If it was one thing Anesia was, it was determined. Beauty and power aside. When she wanted something, she would ruin- ANNIHILATE whatever got in her way.
From the ground she rose, using a store's back wall to lean against and catching Sal's backside again. Her head tilted, sizing him up a moment before coming to a realization. Lena ventured closer, eyes narrowing, ears practically lurching the distance to hear what he was screaming. When he turned, she swore he was speaking to her. Screaming at her. She could have placed bets, if it wasn't for the small detail... that she forgot in her own moments of hallucination.
Not me. Not me.
The amazonian inspired woman stepped away quickly and for the moment, blended with the crowd. She watched from under a curtain of lashes. How much did Jer give him? Too much. It wasn't supposed to do all that. Her little creation was going to pay for this.
Finally, her friend seemed to gain some control over his situation. His eyes no longer looked lost, she reflected. "Going somewhere," a bronze head leaned past a couple walking in front of him, "Sal?" The face she wore seemed curious, if not a little frightened. Cheeks flushed undertones of peach, eyes gone a little wide. Cream colored skirts stained in blood that continued to soak in what with her clutching them with the gashes on her palms.
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:33
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal flinched as he heard those two words again and faltered for half a step, a dug behind him bumped into the back of his legs and cursed him in Huttese. He continued walking, coming alongside Lena, remaining silence until he was completely certain he was in full control of his own mind, that his cleansing was having the desired effect.
"Home, its been a long day." Turning and flashing her a smile, the starport drawing nearer with every step. "Did you get tired of Vods old stories?"
Pleasantries, he was good at those. You didn't spend half your life, Omega's life, in Corporate boardrooms with the most vile creatures to ever dawn a tailor fitted suit and not know when to keep a smile, to keep your words sweet and amicable. It would be wrong to assign any foul play towards this woman without proof, he thought, and until that came to light there wasn't anything to do but carry on regardless. She wouldn't get in his way because she didn't have a choice in the matter. The Norongachi's always got what they wanted and that wasn't about to change.
"You seem to have done yourself a mischief." He said, looking down at the slowly spreading patch of red across her immaculate clothing.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The great pretender. Always a bouquet of secrets behind her smiles and other intentions other than the ones she so readily revealed. Truth was her needle and thread though; so laced in there- there was still honesty. "If you had any the idea of how many times I have heard them," she admitted, side-glancing at him. "Tired doesn't begin to cover it, but it allows him to somehow rest easier the night away after he has told it."
Perhaps it was the flash of teeth, or maybe it was how he avoided, but met the conversation full on at the same time. Maybe it was because of what she saw. How she saw. Him. Raw. Sal might has well of been naked, repenting every sin before her and Anesia knew from experience that it was not exactly something that happened frequently. What she had witnessed, she was never supposed to. "I always have a choice," she whispered, hearing herself say for no other reason but to answer a demon.
"Oh," Lena recovered, snaking her hands around to her backside, hiding them, "the crowd got a little crazy back there. It's nothing a little salve won't fix." She hit him with a smile. "So where is home?" asked the woman nervously, glancing around briefly for the flash of green eyes again.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The crowd was beginning to spread out as they exited main street onto the long wide road that ran the length of the starport and Sal cut across the road when the traffic slowed. Sal could only smirk, if it wasn't for his earlier episode he might have found her act of charity endearing but as it stood he trusted her even less than he had before.
"There are few who remember the old stories," He began, coming to a stop at the west entrance to the starport. "It saddens me that such imaginative tales fall into obscurity so easily." He could just make out the top of the ebon hulled firespray several rows deep amongst the dormant starcraft. Sal looked back the way they had come, the dark memories slipping across his mind for a brief moment.
"It did get a bit crazy, didn't it?" Was his response and then with a warm smile said his farewells. "Well this is me, the gypsy that I am."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"Gypsy you are not," she spoke, not looking at him, but at the madness behind them. It left a red carpet to right where they stood. Lena had whirled then, as subtle... nimble as a ballerina, the tips of her fingers brushing off remnants of debris from his shoulder. "The devil you are," the palest of purple peered up from under long, thick lashes finally meeting his own eyes.
Hand dropping, then coupled with her other that donned the same crimson gloved look; the blood had since dried. She had just seemed to remember it again and made a noise resembling a sigh. "You'd leave me out here alone, on this night?" Her head shook and dark chocolate curls bounced, the lady smiled only briefly on his behalf.
"Gentleman you are not," a symphony of laughter filled the air between them just as she turned away; often husky in the way it spiraled into the ears of man.
As she walked away from him, she pulled her robes around her tighter to fend off the cold breeze of the night- less not to invite the demons to bed. "If they were just stories," Lena turned to glance at him, ghosts flitting across her face and just as quickly that she had given him her eyes, she bestowed them back to what lied ahead. Lost to the dark. Becoming as one with it as always.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The eccentricities of the woman never seemed to stop as she spun as light and lithe as a dancer. He kept his smile even at the mention of devils but behind his gaze he questioned what she had seen back there on the street, what she had felt, and if perhaps there was more to that word than mere playfulness.
The clones gaze fell to the dark crimson that had solidified on her small hands and ignoring her words then he took them up in his own and examined the deep wounds on each palm. There was tenderness in his touch but such things can be falsified with practice. His attention moved up into the violet stars that glistened in the artificial light he wondered just how long he could play this game, how long he could test wit and cunning against her. It was a chance he was willing to take, she knew more than she was letting on.
"I have had little opportunity to act as one, Lena." He said with a smile as she moved from him and then the tale of Vod was mentioned again and her eyes seemed to lose focus as if her mind were in some far away land that he could not see.
"Every story has an element of truth," The clone said and then with a sweep of his hand toward the starport added. "But we'll talk of such things when I have you cleaned up."
Sal flinched as he heard those two words again and faltered for half a step, a dug behind him bumped into the back of his legs and cursed him in Huttese. He continued walking, coming alongside Lena, remaining silence until he was completely certain he was in full control of his own mind, that his cleansing was having the desired effect.
"Home, its been a long day." Turning and flashing her a smile, the starport drawing nearer with every step. "Did you get tired of Vods old stories?"
Pleasantries, he was good at those. You didn't spend half your life, Omega's life, in Corporate boardrooms with the most vile creatures to ever dawn a tailor fitted suit and not know when to keep a smile, to keep your words sweet and amicable. It would be wrong to assign any foul play towards this woman without proof, he thought, and until that came to light there wasn't anything to do but carry on regardless. She wouldn't get in his way because she didn't have a choice in the matter. The Norongachi's always got what they wanted and that wasn't about to change.
"You seem to have done yourself a mischief." He said, looking down at the slowly spreading patch of red across her immaculate clothing.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The great pretender. Always a bouquet of secrets behind her smiles and other intentions other than the ones she so readily revealed. Truth was her needle and thread though; so laced in there- there was still honesty. "If you had any the idea of how many times I have heard them," she admitted, side-glancing at him. "Tired doesn't begin to cover it, but it allows him to somehow rest easier the night away after he has told it."
Perhaps it was the flash of teeth, or maybe it was how he avoided, but met the conversation full on at the same time. Maybe it was because of what she saw. How she saw. Him. Raw. Sal might has well of been naked, repenting every sin before her and Anesia knew from experience that it was not exactly something that happened frequently. What she had witnessed, she was never supposed to. "I always have a choice," she whispered, hearing herself say for no other reason but to answer a demon.
"Oh," Lena recovered, snaking her hands around to her backside, hiding them, "the crowd got a little crazy back there. It's nothing a little salve won't fix." She hit him with a smile. "So where is home?" asked the woman nervously, glancing around briefly for the flash of green eyes again.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The crowd was beginning to spread out as they exited main street onto the long wide road that ran the length of the starport and Sal cut across the road when the traffic slowed. Sal could only smirk, if it wasn't for his earlier episode he might have found her act of charity endearing but as it stood he trusted her even less than he had before.
"There are few who remember the old stories," He began, coming to a stop at the west entrance to the starport. "It saddens me that such imaginative tales fall into obscurity so easily." He could just make out the top of the ebon hulled firespray several rows deep amongst the dormant starcraft. Sal looked back the way they had come, the dark memories slipping across his mind for a brief moment.
"It did get a bit crazy, didn't it?" Was his response and then with a warm smile said his farewells. "Well this is me, the gypsy that I am."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"Gypsy you are not," she spoke, not looking at him, but at the madness behind them. It left a red carpet to right where they stood. Lena had whirled then, as subtle... nimble as a ballerina, the tips of her fingers brushing off remnants of debris from his shoulder. "The devil you are," the palest of purple peered up from under long, thick lashes finally meeting his own eyes.
Hand dropping, then coupled with her other that donned the same crimson gloved look; the blood had since dried. She had just seemed to remember it again and made a noise resembling a sigh. "You'd leave me out here alone, on this night?" Her head shook and dark chocolate curls bounced, the lady smiled only briefly on his behalf.
"Gentleman you are not," a symphony of laughter filled the air between them just as she turned away; often husky in the way it spiraled into the ears of man.
As she walked away from him, she pulled her robes around her tighter to fend off the cold breeze of the night- less not to invite the demons to bed. "If they were just stories," Lena turned to glance at him, ghosts flitting across her face and just as quickly that she had given him her eyes, she bestowed them back to what lied ahead. Lost to the dark. Becoming as one with it as always.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The eccentricities of the woman never seemed to stop as she spun as light and lithe as a dancer. He kept his smile even at the mention of devils but behind his gaze he questioned what she had seen back there on the street, what she had felt, and if perhaps there was more to that word than mere playfulness.
The clones gaze fell to the dark crimson that had solidified on her small hands and ignoring her words then he took them up in his own and examined the deep wounds on each palm. There was tenderness in his touch but such things can be falsified with practice. His attention moved up into the violet stars that glistened in the artificial light he wondered just how long he could play this game, how long he could test wit and cunning against her. It was a chance he was willing to take, she knew more than she was letting on.
"I have had little opportunity to act as one, Lena." He said with a smile as she moved from him and then the tale of Vod was mentioned again and her eyes seemed to lose focus as if her mind were in some far away land that he could not see.
"Every story has an element of truth," The clone said and then with a sweep of his hand toward the starport added. "But we'll talk of such things when I have you cleaned up."
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:37
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Be still, she told herself. Mentally, Lena was squirming under his touch; on the outside she seemed calmer really. Breath as steady as it could ever have been, every ounce of her being trying to control the pheromones; which in reality was the very reason she wished he hadn't touched her hands. "You've had all the opportunity this night," replied the woman while intertwining her fingers together and keeping them from him, but left the topic alone after that. She was watching him though, curiosity nearly getting the best of her.
To not take the offer would have been stupid, but Lena stood there contemplating in a daze. Every bit of two or three minutes passed, thin dark brow arching when she came to a decision. "How thoughtful," she managed slowly, side glancing. "After you, Sal," and it was barely a whisper.
The sith kept her distance as much as one could without becoming painfully obvious when they headed in the direction of the starport. Don't touch me, she prayed to whatever gods that would listen.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
A smile played across his lips and they entered the starport. It was well lit and overhead the stars winked at the pair, while around them ships slumbered in their bays. Sal's ship was located twelve bays deep and four to the right and his boots resounded loudly upon the paved duracrete before he spotted the dark shape of his Firespray patrol ship Blackheart.
He approached the rear of the ship and with quick nimble fingers keyed the access code into a small panel to the left of the ramp. It hissed down and ground itself before Sal lead her inside the lightened interior. He turned left by the entrance and lead her to a small prefab room in which lay a bar by the far wall, a sofa with a table in front of it and to the right a refresher station.
"I have a medkit around here somewhere but before that, go clean yourself off." He said pointing toward the refresher and then he strode across the room to a cabinet set to the right of the bar. He found the medkit tucked away on a shelf and pulled it out, placing it on the varnished wooden bartop.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
As if his fingers were enchanted, she watched silently as they worked to gain entrance to his ship. It was the small details that captured her interest; the way his mouth quirked, even how he held the medkit. "So used to ordering people about, Sal?" she managed in the middle of an attempt at cleaning herself off. Anesia had stopped mid-motion, realizing that she had followed his command without argument- no matter how innocent it may have came across. Inwardly, the Master shook her head so as to not make it too noticeable that she didn't like the fact of it.
It was not until she looked up; the reflection telling her only what she did not want to believe. Cheeks were flushed a dark pink, pupils dilated among feathery lashes. She took a steadying breath, grasping the sink with thin, jeweled fingers. Even they too were marked in life blood. Could be worse, Anesia noted and pulled out a small velvet pouch, unzipping it. There she began plucking the jewelry off and stowing them away in it. Once unadorned, the bag was sealed up and tucked away in one of the various pockets the cloak had to offer.
Pale violets took a gander around now, sweeping the area she was confined to. No personal effects, lips quirked at the thought. "You're in dire need of a ..." the cloak fell from her shoulders and was promptly hung over her arm, "decorator, Mr. Norongachi." It was a boring room, she'd concluded finally, and had no character. There was not a trace of this man here, not even his scent clung to anything. It was a stab in the dark, but she could almost bet this was a place on the ship he quite literally never visited. She imagined the place where he did dwell and a library came to mind; a healthy assortment of knowledge upon parchment. Perhaps a large, dark desk that had seen hours... days upon days of use, a trinket here and there from travels to reflect on where he has been; there never truly was a home- not in the way most would think.
Not for him anyways. Not for her. Sal did not seem the type to solely depend on technology as a way of knowing; he looked at the broader spectrum where everything and anything could be useful at some point. Or at least, that's what she thought. "I suppose it has a certain appeal to it," Lena's voice offered lightly, rounding the couch. She had managed to swipe the medkit when she came to the bar, only carrying it a safer distance away from him, then proceeded to open it. Elbows leaned into the varnished woodwork and fingers went to removing the things she needed and placing them to the side.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal stood at the bar holding up bottles of various alcohols and examining their labels with a serious look about his features."It becomes second nature, after awhile." He called out with no hint of apology and selected a bottle of Adummari crystal fire. The perfectly clear liquid seemed to catch and refract the overhead lighting so that if one held it in the proper way small rainbows appeared to leap from it.
"Its a ship Lena, It takes me from A to B nothing more." He said, barely looking up when she reappeared and took the medkit. "But what we could use, are some drinks." Was all he said on the subject of decoration and then with a raise of a dark eyebrow and a coy smirk set two glasses beside the Crystal Fire. "Join me?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"I'm sure," she replied, not mentioning to which she referred. Careful to not reopen her wounds, only the sides of her fingers aided in twisting off the top of the salve. The pinkie of each gathering a small amount for each palm, then swiping gently as to not disturb the torn skin. Lena followed with small bandages and deftly put the contents back up. "Here. Thanks," the medkit was offered back to him, a ghost smile there, then gone.
I shouldn't. "Only if you say please," she teased, eyeing the contents, then lifting the bottle. It rolled around nimbly in her hands so she could watch the colors bounce around the room. Clearly she had it before, just couldn't place when exactly. Lena set it back beside the two glasses and raised an already naturally arched brow.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal took the medkit and slid it onto the bar top and unscrewed the top from the Crystal Fire. He moved round to the far side of the table and poured half a glass for each of them and went the rest of the way and sat down on the sofa. A hand reached and he leaned forward, placing two fingers on the rim of a glass he slowly slid it toward her. His body moved with the motion and soon he was a few inches from meeting her lips with his own.
"Please?" He said quietly with a flicker of a smile on the edge of his mouth and then lifted the glass from the table and offered it to her. It was a dangerous game he was playing, one that Omega would have revelled in and in many ways he did too but what Omega lacked, he did not- conscience, no matter how jaded. That could prove to be his undoing, in this game of wits.
Be still, she told herself. Mentally, Lena was squirming under his touch; on the outside she seemed calmer really. Breath as steady as it could ever have been, every ounce of her being trying to control the pheromones; which in reality was the very reason she wished he hadn't touched her hands. "You've had all the opportunity this night," replied the woman while intertwining her fingers together and keeping them from him, but left the topic alone after that. She was watching him though, curiosity nearly getting the best of her.
To not take the offer would have been stupid, but Lena stood there contemplating in a daze. Every bit of two or three minutes passed, thin dark brow arching when she came to a decision. "How thoughtful," she managed slowly, side glancing. "After you, Sal," and it was barely a whisper.
The sith kept her distance as much as one could without becoming painfully obvious when they headed in the direction of the starport. Don't touch me, she prayed to whatever gods that would listen.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
A smile played across his lips and they entered the starport. It was well lit and overhead the stars winked at the pair, while around them ships slumbered in their bays. Sal's ship was located twelve bays deep and four to the right and his boots resounded loudly upon the paved duracrete before he spotted the dark shape of his Firespray patrol ship Blackheart.
He approached the rear of the ship and with quick nimble fingers keyed the access code into a small panel to the left of the ramp. It hissed down and ground itself before Sal lead her inside the lightened interior. He turned left by the entrance and lead her to a small prefab room in which lay a bar by the far wall, a sofa with a table in front of it and to the right a refresher station.
"I have a medkit around here somewhere but before that, go clean yourself off." He said pointing toward the refresher and then he strode across the room to a cabinet set to the right of the bar. He found the medkit tucked away on a shelf and pulled it out, placing it on the varnished wooden bartop.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
As if his fingers were enchanted, she watched silently as they worked to gain entrance to his ship. It was the small details that captured her interest; the way his mouth quirked, even how he held the medkit. "So used to ordering people about, Sal?" she managed in the middle of an attempt at cleaning herself off. Anesia had stopped mid-motion, realizing that she had followed his command without argument- no matter how innocent it may have came across. Inwardly, the Master shook her head so as to not make it too noticeable that she didn't like the fact of it.
It was not until she looked up; the reflection telling her only what she did not want to believe. Cheeks were flushed a dark pink, pupils dilated among feathery lashes. She took a steadying breath, grasping the sink with thin, jeweled fingers. Even they too were marked in life blood. Could be worse, Anesia noted and pulled out a small velvet pouch, unzipping it. There she began plucking the jewelry off and stowing them away in it. Once unadorned, the bag was sealed up and tucked away in one of the various pockets the cloak had to offer.
Pale violets took a gander around now, sweeping the area she was confined to. No personal effects, lips quirked at the thought. "You're in dire need of a ..." the cloak fell from her shoulders and was promptly hung over her arm, "decorator, Mr. Norongachi." It was a boring room, she'd concluded finally, and had no character. There was not a trace of this man here, not even his scent clung to anything. It was a stab in the dark, but she could almost bet this was a place on the ship he quite literally never visited. She imagined the place where he did dwell and a library came to mind; a healthy assortment of knowledge upon parchment. Perhaps a large, dark desk that had seen hours... days upon days of use, a trinket here and there from travels to reflect on where he has been; there never truly was a home- not in the way most would think.
Not for him anyways. Not for her. Sal did not seem the type to solely depend on technology as a way of knowing; he looked at the broader spectrum where everything and anything could be useful at some point. Or at least, that's what she thought. "I suppose it has a certain appeal to it," Lena's voice offered lightly, rounding the couch. She had managed to swipe the medkit when she came to the bar, only carrying it a safer distance away from him, then proceeded to open it. Elbows leaned into the varnished woodwork and fingers went to removing the things she needed and placing them to the side.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal stood at the bar holding up bottles of various alcohols and examining their labels with a serious look about his features."It becomes second nature, after awhile." He called out with no hint of apology and selected a bottle of Adummari crystal fire. The perfectly clear liquid seemed to catch and refract the overhead lighting so that if one held it in the proper way small rainbows appeared to leap from it.
"Its a ship Lena, It takes me from A to B nothing more." He said, barely looking up when she reappeared and took the medkit. "But what we could use, are some drinks." Was all he said on the subject of decoration and then with a raise of a dark eyebrow and a coy smirk set two glasses beside the Crystal Fire. "Join me?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
"I'm sure," she replied, not mentioning to which she referred. Careful to not reopen her wounds, only the sides of her fingers aided in twisting off the top of the salve. The pinkie of each gathering a small amount for each palm, then swiping gently as to not disturb the torn skin. Lena followed with small bandages and deftly put the contents back up. "Here. Thanks," the medkit was offered back to him, a ghost smile there, then gone.
I shouldn't. "Only if you say please," she teased, eyeing the contents, then lifting the bottle. It rolled around nimbly in her hands so she could watch the colors bounce around the room. Clearly she had it before, just couldn't place when exactly. Lena set it back beside the two glasses and raised an already naturally arched brow.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal took the medkit and slid it onto the bar top and unscrewed the top from the Crystal Fire. He moved round to the far side of the table and poured half a glass for each of them and went the rest of the way and sat down on the sofa. A hand reached and he leaned forward, placing two fingers on the rim of a glass he slowly slid it toward her. His body moved with the motion and soon he was a few inches from meeting her lips with his own.
"Please?" He said quietly with a flicker of a smile on the edge of his mouth and then lifted the glass from the table and offered it to her. It was a dangerous game he was playing, one that Omega would have revelled in and in many ways he did too but what Omega lacked, he did not- conscience, no matter how jaded. That could prove to be his undoing, in this game of wits.
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:43
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Whispers... they caused shivers, but all she reflected was a long bat of lashes. His scent- that male aroma curling up her nostrils. A smile was drawn upon her features, but quick and light as to not give away a thing. Fingers danced upon the glass before relieving him of it, cradling it in the softness of her palm. "Thank you," she said under her breath, studying him with those eyes.
"So what is it you do, Mr. Norongachi," Anesia paused, swirling the contents of the Adummari Crystal Fire so it depicted a small storm within the glass, "really?"
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal smiled and relaxed back into the dark fabric of the sofa, sliding one arm along its back. He took his first mouthful of the clear liquid and savoured the light and refreshing tastes that tantalized his tongue. He honestly didn't know how to answer that question now. If she'd asked him five years ago the answer was simple; He was a general, a soldier, a leader. Now what was he? Just one more soul amongst a galaxy of souls. It was a depressing thought, to have risen so high and lose it all with the push of a button...
"Whatever I need to," Sal said, in all seriousness. "Whatever I need to, Lena."
He took another drink and then leaned forward, placing the glass back on the table, before flicking a finger toward the small console by the bar. The merest slither of telekinetic energy reached out and turned it on, immediately music began to play. It was soft and melodic at first, then the bass came in and the fast and ripping Hapan harps that sent shivers up the spine. It was one of his favourites that the DJ's at The Ninth Gate played on a nightly basis; Child of the Emperor- Chain me to a Supernova.
He wasn't worried now about her realizing he was a force user, he'd already destroyed that illusion by smashing a hovercar across the street in his little outburst. The song played out in the background barely loud enough to be heard:
"Feel the heat!
Burn with me!
It feels like the galaxies are on fire..."
He'd always liked those lyrics, it said a lot really about the state of affairs on a daily basis but more than that it reminded him of Mao. The Galaxy literally felt like it were about to melt whenever he was with her. He picked up his glass again and took another drink, whever she was he hoped that she was giving them hell.
"So!" He said finally. "What do you do?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A trickle of amusement befell a painted face, "So, who is she?" Lena's head tilted, wrist flicking to send some of the contents fleeting down her throat. The song, while not the same as most of the tantra voodoo beats Remy had gotten her used to, it gave off the same effect. Emotions were riding low key on the air- she could smell it; Zeltron that she was. Force Master that she was. Of course it didn't help that she was a woman and knowing these things were irrefutable. She couldn't get away with it, not even if she tried.
It was for the best she supposed, this intermittent sound that put a stop to the flow of things. Amazing how what one really wants floats to the surface naturally- at the most inconvenient and conducive of times; where time was the middle man and space, thought and feelings meant little to nothing in the equation. Convivial atmosphere drenched now with trivia. Lena melted into the sofa, "I shouldn't have asked," she admitted softly, taking another pull from the glass.
The awkward silence she threw herself into caused her to lose what could have been seconds into minutes of thought, while blindly looking into the fire. "Everything," managed the woman, seemingly tranced as she was. Fingers imitating turning the volume up from a distance- the twisted melody beating louder in to her ears.
Drive the devil out.
But the velvet dark is so...
...comforting.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal's tensed for a split second before he forced himself to relax and let the music surge across his body. She had read his body language without effort and that only made him reconsider his position, if she were that intuitive then the odds of successfully gaining whatever information she held were significantly smaller.
"But you did." He responded with a smile that quickly melted when the Force gave a shudder. Where there had been nothing there was now a blazing sun, spiralling flares into the flow of energy, shining bright and dark all at once. The volume grew n the background, its dials manipulated in much the same way he had just done and his gaze locked onto her like a targeting computers scopes.
"That's interesting..." He said as a hand reached out and cast intangible fingers of power that silenced the playback. "It seems an odd moment to tip your hand...Lena.."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The look she gave him was knowing, haunting- then she looked away with her violet eyes, and it was almost as if a veil hid her expression. No, a mask. Because in that moment, she seemed to slide away, slip into another skin. Long black lashes had met with the creamy white flesh when the windows of the soul closed briefly. I did, wisps of her voice rode the imaginary line of telepathy straight to him.
Another word, another paragraph... the ink seemed never-ending and then it stopped. Yet, there was still story to be told, shared. Sometimes though, there were some reflections not ever the Sith Master could face.
"What is the use in pretending?" offered the woman, pale wisdom only a touch away and then she grasped his hand like it were natural to do so or the only thing left to do. Lena had looked at him now, golden brown eyes with their flecks of electric lavender surrounding the irises with an unwavering stare.
Silence, how it spoke louder than any of the music could have.
Whispers... they caused shivers, but all she reflected was a long bat of lashes. His scent- that male aroma curling up her nostrils. A smile was drawn upon her features, but quick and light as to not give away a thing. Fingers danced upon the glass before relieving him of it, cradling it in the softness of her palm. "Thank you," she said under her breath, studying him with those eyes.
"So what is it you do, Mr. Norongachi," Anesia paused, swirling the contents of the Adummari Crystal Fire so it depicted a small storm within the glass, "really?"
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal smiled and relaxed back into the dark fabric of the sofa, sliding one arm along its back. He took his first mouthful of the clear liquid and savoured the light and refreshing tastes that tantalized his tongue. He honestly didn't know how to answer that question now. If she'd asked him five years ago the answer was simple; He was a general, a soldier, a leader. Now what was he? Just one more soul amongst a galaxy of souls. It was a depressing thought, to have risen so high and lose it all with the push of a button...
"Whatever I need to," Sal said, in all seriousness. "Whatever I need to, Lena."
He took another drink and then leaned forward, placing the glass back on the table, before flicking a finger toward the small console by the bar. The merest slither of telekinetic energy reached out and turned it on, immediately music began to play. It was soft and melodic at first, then the bass came in and the fast and ripping Hapan harps that sent shivers up the spine. It was one of his favourites that the DJ's at The Ninth Gate played on a nightly basis; Child of the Emperor- Chain me to a Supernova.
He wasn't worried now about her realizing he was a force user, he'd already destroyed that illusion by smashing a hovercar across the street in his little outburst. The song played out in the background barely loud enough to be heard:
"Feel the heat!
Burn with me!
It feels like the galaxies are on fire..."
He'd always liked those lyrics, it said a lot really about the state of affairs on a daily basis but more than that it reminded him of Mao. The Galaxy literally felt like it were about to melt whenever he was with her. He picked up his glass again and took another drink, whever she was he hoped that she was giving them hell.
"So!" He said finally. "What do you do?"
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A trickle of amusement befell a painted face, "So, who is she?" Lena's head tilted, wrist flicking to send some of the contents fleeting down her throat. The song, while not the same as most of the tantra voodoo beats Remy had gotten her used to, it gave off the same effect. Emotions were riding low key on the air- she could smell it; Zeltron that she was. Force Master that she was. Of course it didn't help that she was a woman and knowing these things were irrefutable. She couldn't get away with it, not even if she tried.
It was for the best she supposed, this intermittent sound that put a stop to the flow of things. Amazing how what one really wants floats to the surface naturally- at the most inconvenient and conducive of times; where time was the middle man and space, thought and feelings meant little to nothing in the equation. Convivial atmosphere drenched now with trivia. Lena melted into the sofa, "I shouldn't have asked," she admitted softly, taking another pull from the glass.
The awkward silence she threw herself into caused her to lose what could have been seconds into minutes of thought, while blindly looking into the fire. "Everything," managed the woman, seemingly tranced as she was. Fingers imitating turning the volume up from a distance- the twisted melody beating louder in to her ears.
Drive the devil out.
But the velvet dark is so...
...comforting.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal's tensed for a split second before he forced himself to relax and let the music surge across his body. She had read his body language without effort and that only made him reconsider his position, if she were that intuitive then the odds of successfully gaining whatever information she held were significantly smaller.
"But you did." He responded with a smile that quickly melted when the Force gave a shudder. Where there had been nothing there was now a blazing sun, spiralling flares into the flow of energy, shining bright and dark all at once. The volume grew n the background, its dials manipulated in much the same way he had just done and his gaze locked onto her like a targeting computers scopes.
"That's interesting..." He said as a hand reached out and cast intangible fingers of power that silenced the playback. "It seems an odd moment to tip your hand...Lena.."
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
The look she gave him was knowing, haunting- then she looked away with her violet eyes, and it was almost as if a veil hid her expression. No, a mask. Because in that moment, she seemed to slide away, slip into another skin. Long black lashes had met with the creamy white flesh when the windows of the soul closed briefly. I did, wisps of her voice rode the imaginary line of telepathy straight to him.
Another word, another paragraph... the ink seemed never-ending and then it stopped. Yet, there was still story to be told, shared. Sometimes though, there were some reflections not ever the Sith Master could face.
"What is the use in pretending?" offered the woman, pale wisdom only a touch away and then she grasped his hand like it were natural to do so or the only thing left to do. Lena had looked at him now, golden brown eyes with their flecks of electric lavender surrounding the irises with an unwavering stare.
Silence, how it spoke louder than any of the music could have.
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:46
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
They shared a look, a momentary union that needed no words, and Norongachi felt that charge slide up his spine like her immaculate nails were skimming the surface of his skin, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and almost bringing a shiver. A mental whisper reached him and he could almost feel her breath upon his ear, the tone it carried, the raw and tantalizing feelings dripping from those two words brought a smile to his lips.
"Yeah," Those emerald eyes seemed to burn, the green shining with a brilliance of a super nova as he looked at her, to the way her jaw curved just so, the plumpness of her lips and the light that danced across her eyes. "Why pretend..."
The feelings that constantly struggled within him were silenced in a heartbeat with pure unadulterated lust. He didn't care any more, he'd been alone for too long never feeling the touch of a woman, that connection that you can only gain from the meeting of feelings, because of a ghost from a past long behind him and best forgotten. It was easy in the holo-vids for the hero to stay true to his love and never falter...but Sal was no hero, he was a man...he was only human...
Her hand slid into his and that feeling gripped his gut, squeezed it for all it was worth, and banished any notion of turning back. A heart beat...two...three of a green and violet gaze, then like a nashtah unleashed upon its prey his hand moved up and cupped the side of her face. The distance was so short between them that his lips found hers in less than a second and pressed down hard, his hand slipping in amongst her hair and entangling fingers amongst those dark locks.
Give me damnation...in a kiss..
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A kiss you'll have...
It crawled down deep inside; the inky pillars of desire and power that befell his throat, dripped along his lips. All in all to be swept up at the curl of a pink tongue and shoved back in with the press of her mouth to his. With a hunger that resided within- set free by the safest of touches, she had managed to grasp his collar and drag him to press against the curves of her physique. Claiming his space... marking him in a most primal way. Basic. Animal. Instinct. Her teeth had skated and nipped down to the hollow of his neck- the softness of wet tiers followed the path back up scouring his devil mouth again.
Lust perfumed the air.
There had been no way escaping, even as she clawed from with in, battling her own will. It was what she was... what he was offering and Anesia gave in. Fell to the depths of oblivion and stared at the blackness she so readily drank in. Green... green was all she seen. It had for coupled seconds devoured the dark--the woman in her sighed, lips still intertwined with his. The dark beauty let her hands drop until she could grasp his shoulders, hold him close and feel the heat. Sal's hands, she realized moreso now, as nimble fingers caressed her cheek. They were calloused, worn... hard. Oh, and she had welcomed them without thought.
As once before, their breath was no longer one, but shared as she broke from him. Her own brushing against the skin of freshly kissed lips. Mouth a purposeful blushing red, just a smidgen apart. The fluttering of lashes opened her eyes so that she was staring up into a emerald heaven. "Sal..." managed the Sith in a husky tone that surprised her; it was a whisper that was expected.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The fever was upon him, his breath quick and shallow, his pulse quickening with each flicker of his tongue, with each parry of hers. The blood flowed faster and faster in his veins, his heart beating a powerful rhythm of passion that threatened to shatter his rib cage, to strike him dead with its fury, and he gave himself to the thoughtless maelstrom of the physical.
His body flowed with her pull and he found his hard body pressed against her, his free hand an explorer in a brave new world, a pioneer in a land he had never explored. Fingers played down her arm, her side, firm and gentle all at once and then across her hip. His hand moved down further to her thigh as her lips found his neck and he exhaled with a growl of pleasure, and it stopped there. The whatever gentleness there had been in his touch evaporated in a burst of animal instinct that pulled her leg up and pressed it to his hip while his other hand pulled her head back and they fell prone onto the sofa with Sal, firmly, on top.
The wanting of their lips never seemed to falter and for what felt like an eternity Sal lost all rhyme or reason to the sins of the flesh before a flicker of instinct made him change his tack and he let his mouth slide gently from hers, his bottom lip just barely touching her skin, teasing the micro-hairs and very three beats or so planting a gentle, soft, kiss upon her pale skin. All the while his hand slid up her spine, neatly trimmed nails pushed through the fabric of her clothing, riding the ridges of her spine up to between her shoulder blades...and then he dragged them back down as hard as he could.
With a renewed vigour his lips clashed with hers and he was pretty certain that he was about to tremble apart with the lust he felt, with this dangerous and utterly devastating woman, and this was what he needed. He needed to lose it all in one uncomplicated, untainted, moment of selfishness...
She pushed back against him, with force, and then broke off the contact and he found himself staring into a face just as empowered as his own, tinged with passion and flushed with lust. He could barely contain the creature that paced behind his gaze, the jade monster wanted her again, it wanted all of her...
"Lena.." He said with a lopsided smirk, his eyes never leaving hers.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A dip of long, thin fingers and they were treading the center of his dress shirt, the feeling of fine linen just under her tips. Off... Soon... The spell of a gaze never wavered, not even as the buttons popped away- just enough to firmly grip either side of the attire and to see a v of olive skin. Rolling her digits into his collar, even as she was nestled beneath this powerful, sound frame. Lena had remembered swallowing his growl and the way that it fed, enticed, fueled such a small flame into a wild fire. It was a wonder she had stilled for as long as she had; breath coming in warm, sweet waves. Yes, but it was slow, shallow because his hands were still there. Still everywhere and nowhere.
She pushed against his power, a pitter patter of strokes and her mouth was against his, but at the corner. Whispers... yes, tantalizing decadence from her tongue- a pull from teeth at his bottom lip. "You have to earn this position," and she turned, twisting with the side not so entangled with his, using his weight against him to land her on top. Nothing but legs, toned thighs captured his waist, skirts tore in the heat of exploration; lean, amazonian frame draped over him, hovering like some forbidden fruit. Lace here, silk there- capturing, molding, accentuating curves. Soft, coils of golden brown fell, tickling his face and exposed flesh with the ends and providing a sort of curtain to a showcased bosom set in a corset.
With a wanton bravado that she could no longer ignore, Lena had embraced his lips once more, fervently. "So, earn it," commanding as the words were, they fell softly from her lips. Some how someway, she had felt the capability in his adventure, yearned for it even. Her hands had flew to his wrists, shackling them with in her own flesh prison above his head before venturing down along his arms in lingering, long touches and a drag of her nails. Control was slipping, her touches more intense. "Sal..." breath at his neck, licking just under the curve of his ear.
The woman was destructive- even if that meant letting him tear her down, just so she could rebuild herself.
...Sal.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Norongachi barely registered the top three buttons of his shirt dislodge themselves under the guidance of deft, dexterous, fingers. All his attention, all his focus, was upon her face, her lips...the cacophony of primal emotions dancing just behind her eyes, threatening to leap from the violet surface and blast the flesh from his bones. How long the quiet before the storm played out Sal couldn't say...it felt like an eternity, waiting for that reunion of soft lips- of flesh and skin.
He nudged her head upwards and buried his face in her neck, lips and tongue caressed the soft flesh there, sliding across the alabaster skin. Slow kisses, the fuse being lit for the inevitable eruption of passion that they both knew was on the horizon. She whispered to him, like a devil in his ear, the words sent shivers across his face, made the hairs upon his neck stand on end. Then the momentum shifted and he found himself looking up into those smouldering eyes, all too aware of the powerful, toned, legs pressed snugly at his side...the heat from her body atop his.
He met her affections greedily, hungrily, as if his very life depended upon it. He couldn't answer her command, her taunt, if he opened his mouth to speak there would be nothing but a primal growl, a snarl from that beast within that wanted it all, it wanted it now. The nails upon his arms started a chain reaction across his skin and tremors met shock waves that elicited a low baritone moan of pleasure, his eyes closing for a moment to better enjoy the sensation.
"Sal..." He heard like a sirens call and his eyes flew open, her lips an inch away. He grabbed her, one hand cradling the back of her head, and forced them together in a carnal union, the other slipped to his side and pushed them both upwards, as his touch moved down her cheek, a single finger dancing lightly down the curve of her neck, lips clashing and tongues meeting. When they were both upright, her breasts pressed tight to his chest, his hand stopped upon her shoulder while the other moved across the surface of one perfectly smooth, lithe, leg. It moved across her calf, over the knee, up the thing, under the torn skirt where it found the exposed flesh of her hip and then with the speed of a viper it shot out to meet its counterpart at her chest.
Norongachi broke contact with her lips in a heartbeat and with a soldiers strength his hands gripped the front of her clothing and ripped them asunder, exposing the supple flash beneath. He waited no longer than the space between seconds before he found her mouth again, his hands playing across her curves and down the perfectly exposed skin, and rested each on her hips, grinding his body against her rhythmically with the beat of their kisses.
"You earn it..." He whispered.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
It was hot, it was venom. A toxic display of need, like they were starving. Mouth had never felt so deprived in between his breaks to scour the rest of her body. Her fingers dipped low, searching for unexplored flesh and the moments that it took, she found herself finishing the job of removing his shirt. Lena's hands were like silk, ever roaming the expanse of his chest, numbly moving over the scars with long strokes from her fingertips. She had taken it as her duty to pay more attention to those; slender movie-star made frame slinking down his so her mouth could make a playground out of it. Light, gentle flicks of her tongue iced his throat, a hand snaking up to tilt his head back- thumb slicked back and forth of his predator mouth. Dangerous... the devil has got you.
Where her hands had ceased to deliver on the soldier's healed wounds, a perfect moist pout had began a flutter of kisses- teeth and tongue divulging themselves betwixt each and every one. Lena was devoted to him falling blind in her hell, screaming so loud her name that it'd invoke the eldest of demon souls. Awaken the gods. Her decent was tedious, dark... forbidden and his fingers threaded through a mass of dark tresses; a beckoning she rose to almost immediately. Delighted in just that, lips colliding for a moment more to taste the satisfaction on his breath. The want and desire to be in her and without anyone, anything else. But I like his fire...
There was nothing to hinder... not stockings, nor knickers- his lap was free of any garment he might have placed there the morning of; Lena had seen to this. Half mast glowing eyes following him, pulling him in with shared desire. Sal's own followed her, his hands seeming to know just where to go; splaying around her rib cage, then up to cup supple breasts. His body in perfect time with hers when she rose, giving him the view of her back, then bending her knees so she might nestle between his legs- ankles crossed just behind his bottom. Her back was arched, head just barely in the crook of his neck when she shivered-shuddered, enveloping him entirely, slowly.
"Can I keep you..." soft, alluring, liquid sex into his ear.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Hands paid tribute to her body and gave form to his passion as a shuddering exhalation escaped his lips. Green eyes closed to the world and savoured the moment, riding the high of euphoria, of utopia they were creating in the moment. Synchronized movements exacted the most from their union, two bodies melded into one that was so far beyond the troubles of the galaxy, so removed from their own agendas and fears...it was pure, it was perfect and then she spoke in his ear.
"Only for tonight..." He whispered.
Tonight, the world is yours..
Two Months Ago: Vibre-class Assault Cruiser Sonnet, Lianna System.
If captain Janiis had learned one lesson since joining the Lianna Defense Fleet, it was that you do not fuck your superiors daughter. If he hadn't committed that singular act of stupidity and lust he would be sitting pretty at HQ with a pretty assistant at his beck and call. Now where was he? On this piece of space junk patrolling the back arse of the system. It wouldn't have been so bad if they actually got some excitement once in awhile but for eight months, nada...not so much as a smuggler.
"Grid Sector twelve clear, reporting to HQ. Commencing patrol of thirteen." Janiis just nodded at the report, his head resting upon his hand. It was the same bantha crap day in, day out, with no sign of it ending. If it weren't for the ample stock of alcohol in storage he might have taken a bite out of his sidearm long before now.
"Well chaps..." He said standing from his chair and adjusting the jacket of his uniform. "I think I'll turn in."
"Sir," It was the comm officer. "We're picking up a weak distress signal."
"Contact on sensors. Scanning.." Sensor Officer this time and Janiis stopped, utterly bored. "An escape pod, one life form aboard."
"Move to intercept and get a tractor beam on it." He said with a sigh.
What the med-team and the Captain found in that escape pod was a sight they never wished to again. The stench from the cramped space was rancid, its floor and walls stained with blood and excrement. In amongst it was a singular occupant, his flesh flayed, his face torn and ripped. One eye hung limp from its socket staring blindly into nothingness, his teeth were shattered and broken, and one hand only had ragged nubs where his fingers hand been. He cried and whimpered as the circular iris had swished open, cringed away from the light. Gods he was so thin, like too much skin stretched over his skeleton. He was soiled and dirty, as if he had been living in this pod for months, years.
"Sir, I'm chief medic Falon," The doctor was on his haunches, peering into the pod with Janiis, two security officers, and the rest of his medical team behind him trying not to wretch at the smell. "Can you hear me? We're here to help, you're safe now." The older man, in his late sixties, shuffled forward while trying not to think of the squaller he was going into.
"No one is going to hurt yo-" The occupant moved like a predator, from his pathetic, wounded, position on his back he had some how launched himself forward into Falon, bowling them out of the escape pod and into the light of the hanger bay scattering Janiis and those gathered in the confusion. The doctor regained his senses and found himself on his back with the occupant onto of him. Blood and saliva dripped from the gaping holes in his cheeks, his breath hot and foul upon his face which was frighteningly close. One blue eye darted in its socket, tears welling up from its ducts and sliding down the tarnished skin. The fingerless hand and the other were gripping the sides of his head and he couldn't look away from the sight, he wouldn't let him.
"Ca-can you hear it?" The voice was hoarse, like his vocal cords had been dragged across razor wire and it was almost pleading, begging. Falon never got a chance to answer as the sentient sat bolt upright without warning, his hands flying to his head and a scream ripping from his lungs that shattered any semblance of calm Falon may have had left. The crazed madman darted off him with an inhuman speed, screaming across the hanger bay, tripping and falling but never stopping until he ran head first into a bulkhead with a sickening 'crack' of bone meeting metal. His emancipated body slid to the floor and no one seemed to know what to do, they were stunned, standing with mouths agape, staring at the his back.
The silence that played out amongst them seemed to stretch on forever, the prone body never moved and the cold fear of what had just transpired seemed to delay any actions they might take to address the situation. Falon seemed to be the only one with any of his faculties about him as he shakily got onto his feet, his heart thundering in his chest, his face a sickly white. He motioned to his medical droid and took wary steps toward the perfectly still body at the base of the bulkhead.
"Is-is he dead?" It was the Captain, just as shaken as the rest, his eyes fixed upon the body.
"I can't tell..." The doctor was half a dozen paces away when they got their answer. The man sat up like his body were on a string and slapped blood soaked hands onto the matte grey surface of the bulkhead and without prompt drew his head back and hurled it against the metal. There was a fresh spray of blood and that same stomach churning sound of bone and metal. Again his head hit the bulk head, and again and again. The furious speed of his madness only seemed to increase with every impact and perhaps seventeen collisions had occurred before Falon reached him and bodily dragged him kicking and screaming from the bulkhead. The Doctor used all his strength to pin him to the floor and barked at the security officers to hold him.
"M-my gods!" Janiis whispered, his hand rising to his mouth as he looked down upon the caved skull, the fragile bones contorted and pushing through the skin of his forehead.
The security officers had him by leg and shoulders but even then he struggled, he spoke in gibberish, howling like an animal and Falon reached into his medical droids chest compartment and extracted his field kit, placing it on the floor beside him he took out a syringe and a sedative and plunged the silvery dart into the mans left and pressed the plunger. It took several seconds but the flailing began to lessen, the screaming died down and then his body was still, almost peaceful, after all that commotion.
"Get him on a stretcher." Falon sighed visibly sagging with relief. The security officers moved aside as two medics and the droid took up positions around the mans body, preparing to slide him onto a stretcher. The next two seconds were all limbs and movement, no noise came from him this time but the two medics and the droid found themselves thrown aside with phenomenal strength and a claw like hand snatched a scalpel from Falons field kit. The hand gripped it with intent and slammed its honed blade into his chest without a thought.
Falon's eyes grew wide as he watched with dumb fascination as the man twisted and carved his own flesh, cutting strips away so fast it was hard to follow. Right down to the bone he went, as beyond, the blood pooling across his hand and onto the floor, flicking into the air with each manic flick of the surgical tool and then he dropped it and laughed...he sobbed..he cackled. The hand pushed into the fist sized holed he had cut away and Falon had no idea how he knew what was coming...but he did...
"I...JUST...WANT...IT...TO...STOP!" The man cried and yanked his hand from his chest. He fell over where he sat and in his hand, giving its final beats, was his own heart...
* * *
"Here..." Falon said, handing the Captain a glass of brandy. He sat down on the seat across from him, his own face matching that of Janiis' harrowed expression. He lifted the glass of pale red liquid and noted the shake that still lingered there before taking a sip of his drink. They had said nothing since Falon had brought the unconscious captain to the med-bay, the rest of the crew on the deck an hour ago were given leave of their duties...none of them could seem to get past what they had witnessed.
"Thank you Doctor..." Janiis just stared into the liquid as if it were hypnotic, his eyes glazed and far away. He was in shock, he'd seen it before with soldiers over the years. He just never expected to have witnessed the reason why in his lifetime.
"The lieutenant comm'd down, they've flushed the body into space.All the blood work came back negative for contagion..." Even Falon was relieved at that last bit of news. Jannis simply nodded, still not really here. "I'm taking you off duty for the rest of the week Captain, the rest of them too...you could all do with some R&R."
"How...can someone do that to themselves Doc?" The question wasn't unexpected, he had been asking himself that since it had happened.
"I don't know Captain, I honestly don't..." Falon downed the rest of his drink in a gulp and tried to banish the images from his mind before looking up at Janiis. "I'll prescribe you some sedatives, try and get some sleep."
* * *
Sleep did not come easy for Janiis, he tossed and turned in his bed, on the cusp of oblivion even with the aid of the sedatives. The scene in the hanger bay would not stop its playback, it was on a constant loop as his subconscious tried vainly to understand what it had beheld. The grotesque face of that passenger swam to the surface again, the icy blue eye seemed to look directly into his soul and although he knew it was a dream, fear gripped him.
The noise seemed to be distant, that scream that was utterly inhuman he had heard, that had driven icy shards of terror into his gut grew in volume and the man was running toward him, his mutilated hands clawing the air trying to reach him...he was so close and Janiis couldn't move, he was stuck to the spot, and he just kept screaming and the noise grew so loud he thought his head might burst, two more steeps and he would have him and then...
The Captain's eyes flickered open and he jumped up and darted his gaze around the darkness of his quarters. He felt his blood thundering beneath his skin, his head was pounding from the adrenaline and his mind was only just rising from the fog of sleep. There was a noise, just barely audible, coming from the corridor and with lethargic steps he found himself drawn to the door. A hand rose as if with a will of its own to the release switch and it slid open to a world of noise. Voices, voices upon voices. Dozens upon dozens. All blending into one long and uninterrupted scream that filled every hallway, every room, every duct and service hatch. The Captain stumbled backwards away from the noise, tripped over his own feet in an effort to escape and landed upon his back, hard.
"Its just a dream...its just a dream." He whimpered to the darkness, his eyes screwed shut, his hands over his ears.
Ba-dum....
Ba-dum...
BA-DUM.....
They shared a look, a momentary union that needed no words, and Norongachi felt that charge slide up his spine like her immaculate nails were skimming the surface of his skin, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and almost bringing a shiver. A mental whisper reached him and he could almost feel her breath upon his ear, the tone it carried, the raw and tantalizing feelings dripping from those two words brought a smile to his lips.
"Yeah," Those emerald eyes seemed to burn, the green shining with a brilliance of a super nova as he looked at her, to the way her jaw curved just so, the plumpness of her lips and the light that danced across her eyes. "Why pretend..."
The feelings that constantly struggled within him were silenced in a heartbeat with pure unadulterated lust. He didn't care any more, he'd been alone for too long never feeling the touch of a woman, that connection that you can only gain from the meeting of feelings, because of a ghost from a past long behind him and best forgotten. It was easy in the holo-vids for the hero to stay true to his love and never falter...but Sal was no hero, he was a man...he was only human...
Her hand slid into his and that feeling gripped his gut, squeezed it for all it was worth, and banished any notion of turning back. A heart beat...two...three of a green and violet gaze, then like a nashtah unleashed upon its prey his hand moved up and cupped the side of her face. The distance was so short between them that his lips found hers in less than a second and pressed down hard, his hand slipping in amongst her hair and entangling fingers amongst those dark locks.
Give me damnation...in a kiss..
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A kiss you'll have...
It crawled down deep inside; the inky pillars of desire and power that befell his throat, dripped along his lips. All in all to be swept up at the curl of a pink tongue and shoved back in with the press of her mouth to his. With a hunger that resided within- set free by the safest of touches, she had managed to grasp his collar and drag him to press against the curves of her physique. Claiming his space... marking him in a most primal way. Basic. Animal. Instinct. Her teeth had skated and nipped down to the hollow of his neck- the softness of wet tiers followed the path back up scouring his devil mouth again.
Lust perfumed the air.
There had been no way escaping, even as she clawed from with in, battling her own will. It was what she was... what he was offering and Anesia gave in. Fell to the depths of oblivion and stared at the blackness she so readily drank in. Green... green was all she seen. It had for coupled seconds devoured the dark--the woman in her sighed, lips still intertwined with his. The dark beauty let her hands drop until she could grasp his shoulders, hold him close and feel the heat. Sal's hands, she realized moreso now, as nimble fingers caressed her cheek. They were calloused, worn... hard. Oh, and she had welcomed them without thought.
As once before, their breath was no longer one, but shared as she broke from him. Her own brushing against the skin of freshly kissed lips. Mouth a purposeful blushing red, just a smidgen apart. The fluttering of lashes opened her eyes so that she was staring up into a emerald heaven. "Sal..." managed the Sith in a husky tone that surprised her; it was a whisper that was expected.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
The fever was upon him, his breath quick and shallow, his pulse quickening with each flicker of his tongue, with each parry of hers. The blood flowed faster and faster in his veins, his heart beating a powerful rhythm of passion that threatened to shatter his rib cage, to strike him dead with its fury, and he gave himself to the thoughtless maelstrom of the physical.
His body flowed with her pull and he found his hard body pressed against her, his free hand an explorer in a brave new world, a pioneer in a land he had never explored. Fingers played down her arm, her side, firm and gentle all at once and then across her hip. His hand moved down further to her thigh as her lips found his neck and he exhaled with a growl of pleasure, and it stopped there. The whatever gentleness there had been in his touch evaporated in a burst of animal instinct that pulled her leg up and pressed it to his hip while his other hand pulled her head back and they fell prone onto the sofa with Sal, firmly, on top.
The wanting of their lips never seemed to falter and for what felt like an eternity Sal lost all rhyme or reason to the sins of the flesh before a flicker of instinct made him change his tack and he let his mouth slide gently from hers, his bottom lip just barely touching her skin, teasing the micro-hairs and very three beats or so planting a gentle, soft, kiss upon her pale skin. All the while his hand slid up her spine, neatly trimmed nails pushed through the fabric of her clothing, riding the ridges of her spine up to between her shoulder blades...and then he dragged them back down as hard as he could.
With a renewed vigour his lips clashed with hers and he was pretty certain that he was about to tremble apart with the lust he felt, with this dangerous and utterly devastating woman, and this was what he needed. He needed to lose it all in one uncomplicated, untainted, moment of selfishness...
She pushed back against him, with force, and then broke off the contact and he found himself staring into a face just as empowered as his own, tinged with passion and flushed with lust. He could barely contain the creature that paced behind his gaze, the jade monster wanted her again, it wanted all of her...
"Lena.." He said with a lopsided smirk, his eyes never leaving hers.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
A dip of long, thin fingers and they were treading the center of his dress shirt, the feeling of fine linen just under her tips. Off... Soon... The spell of a gaze never wavered, not even as the buttons popped away- just enough to firmly grip either side of the attire and to see a v of olive skin. Rolling her digits into his collar, even as she was nestled beneath this powerful, sound frame. Lena had remembered swallowing his growl and the way that it fed, enticed, fueled such a small flame into a wild fire. It was a wonder she had stilled for as long as she had; breath coming in warm, sweet waves. Yes, but it was slow, shallow because his hands were still there. Still everywhere and nowhere.
She pushed against his power, a pitter patter of strokes and her mouth was against his, but at the corner. Whispers... yes, tantalizing decadence from her tongue- a pull from teeth at his bottom lip. "You have to earn this position," and she turned, twisting with the side not so entangled with his, using his weight against him to land her on top. Nothing but legs, toned thighs captured his waist, skirts tore in the heat of exploration; lean, amazonian frame draped over him, hovering like some forbidden fruit. Lace here, silk there- capturing, molding, accentuating curves. Soft, coils of golden brown fell, tickling his face and exposed flesh with the ends and providing a sort of curtain to a showcased bosom set in a corset.
With a wanton bravado that she could no longer ignore, Lena had embraced his lips once more, fervently. "So, earn it," commanding as the words were, they fell softly from her lips. Some how someway, she had felt the capability in his adventure, yearned for it even. Her hands had flew to his wrists, shackling them with in her own flesh prison above his head before venturing down along his arms in lingering, long touches and a drag of her nails. Control was slipping, her touches more intense. "Sal..." breath at his neck, licking just under the curve of his ear.
The woman was destructive- even if that meant letting him tear her down, just so she could rebuild herself.
...Sal.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Norongachi barely registered the top three buttons of his shirt dislodge themselves under the guidance of deft, dexterous, fingers. All his attention, all his focus, was upon her face, her lips...the cacophony of primal emotions dancing just behind her eyes, threatening to leap from the violet surface and blast the flesh from his bones. How long the quiet before the storm played out Sal couldn't say...it felt like an eternity, waiting for that reunion of soft lips- of flesh and skin.
He nudged her head upwards and buried his face in her neck, lips and tongue caressed the soft flesh there, sliding across the alabaster skin. Slow kisses, the fuse being lit for the inevitable eruption of passion that they both knew was on the horizon. She whispered to him, like a devil in his ear, the words sent shivers across his face, made the hairs upon his neck stand on end. Then the momentum shifted and he found himself looking up into those smouldering eyes, all too aware of the powerful, toned, legs pressed snugly at his side...the heat from her body atop his.
He met her affections greedily, hungrily, as if his very life depended upon it. He couldn't answer her command, her taunt, if he opened his mouth to speak there would be nothing but a primal growl, a snarl from that beast within that wanted it all, it wanted it now. The nails upon his arms started a chain reaction across his skin and tremors met shock waves that elicited a low baritone moan of pleasure, his eyes closing for a moment to better enjoy the sensation.
"Sal..." He heard like a sirens call and his eyes flew open, her lips an inch away. He grabbed her, one hand cradling the back of her head, and forced them together in a carnal union, the other slipped to his side and pushed them both upwards, as his touch moved down her cheek, a single finger dancing lightly down the curve of her neck, lips clashing and tongues meeting. When they were both upright, her breasts pressed tight to his chest, his hand stopped upon her shoulder while the other moved across the surface of one perfectly smooth, lithe, leg. It moved across her calf, over the knee, up the thing, under the torn skirt where it found the exposed flesh of her hip and then with the speed of a viper it shot out to meet its counterpart at her chest.
Norongachi broke contact with her lips in a heartbeat and with a soldiers strength his hands gripped the front of her clothing and ripped them asunder, exposing the supple flash beneath. He waited no longer than the space between seconds before he found her mouth again, his hands playing across her curves and down the perfectly exposed skin, and rested each on her hips, grinding his body against her rhythmically with the beat of their kisses.
"You earn it..." He whispered.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
It was hot, it was venom. A toxic display of need, like they were starving. Mouth had never felt so deprived in between his breaks to scour the rest of her body. Her fingers dipped low, searching for unexplored flesh and the moments that it took, she found herself finishing the job of removing his shirt. Lena's hands were like silk, ever roaming the expanse of his chest, numbly moving over the scars with long strokes from her fingertips. She had taken it as her duty to pay more attention to those; slender movie-star made frame slinking down his so her mouth could make a playground out of it. Light, gentle flicks of her tongue iced his throat, a hand snaking up to tilt his head back- thumb slicked back and forth of his predator mouth. Dangerous... the devil has got you.
Where her hands had ceased to deliver on the soldier's healed wounds, a perfect moist pout had began a flutter of kisses- teeth and tongue divulging themselves betwixt each and every one. Lena was devoted to him falling blind in her hell, screaming so loud her name that it'd invoke the eldest of demon souls. Awaken the gods. Her decent was tedious, dark... forbidden and his fingers threaded through a mass of dark tresses; a beckoning she rose to almost immediately. Delighted in just that, lips colliding for a moment more to taste the satisfaction on his breath. The want and desire to be in her and without anyone, anything else. But I like his fire...
There was nothing to hinder... not stockings, nor knickers- his lap was free of any garment he might have placed there the morning of; Lena had seen to this. Half mast glowing eyes following him, pulling him in with shared desire. Sal's own followed her, his hands seeming to know just where to go; splaying around her rib cage, then up to cup supple breasts. His body in perfect time with hers when she rose, giving him the view of her back, then bending her knees so she might nestle between his legs- ankles crossed just behind his bottom. Her back was arched, head just barely in the crook of his neck when she shivered-shuddered, enveloping him entirely, slowly.
"Can I keep you..." soft, alluring, liquid sex into his ear.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Hands paid tribute to her body and gave form to his passion as a shuddering exhalation escaped his lips. Green eyes closed to the world and savoured the moment, riding the high of euphoria, of utopia they were creating in the moment. Synchronized movements exacted the most from their union, two bodies melded into one that was so far beyond the troubles of the galaxy, so removed from their own agendas and fears...it was pure, it was perfect and then she spoke in his ear.
"Only for tonight..." He whispered.
Tonight, the world is yours..
Two Months Ago: Vibre-class Assault Cruiser Sonnet, Lianna System.
If captain Janiis had learned one lesson since joining the Lianna Defense Fleet, it was that you do not fuck your superiors daughter. If he hadn't committed that singular act of stupidity and lust he would be sitting pretty at HQ with a pretty assistant at his beck and call. Now where was he? On this piece of space junk patrolling the back arse of the system. It wouldn't have been so bad if they actually got some excitement once in awhile but for eight months, nada...not so much as a smuggler.
"Grid Sector twelve clear, reporting to HQ. Commencing patrol of thirteen." Janiis just nodded at the report, his head resting upon his hand. It was the same bantha crap day in, day out, with no sign of it ending. If it weren't for the ample stock of alcohol in storage he might have taken a bite out of his sidearm long before now.
"Well chaps..." He said standing from his chair and adjusting the jacket of his uniform. "I think I'll turn in."
"Sir," It was the comm officer. "We're picking up a weak distress signal."
"Contact on sensors. Scanning.." Sensor Officer this time and Janiis stopped, utterly bored. "An escape pod, one life form aboard."
"Move to intercept and get a tractor beam on it." He said with a sigh.
What the med-team and the Captain found in that escape pod was a sight they never wished to again. The stench from the cramped space was rancid, its floor and walls stained with blood and excrement. In amongst it was a singular occupant, his flesh flayed, his face torn and ripped. One eye hung limp from its socket staring blindly into nothingness, his teeth were shattered and broken, and one hand only had ragged nubs where his fingers hand been. He cried and whimpered as the circular iris had swished open, cringed away from the light. Gods he was so thin, like too much skin stretched over his skeleton. He was soiled and dirty, as if he had been living in this pod for months, years.
"Sir, I'm chief medic Falon," The doctor was on his haunches, peering into the pod with Janiis, two security officers, and the rest of his medical team behind him trying not to wretch at the smell. "Can you hear me? We're here to help, you're safe now." The older man, in his late sixties, shuffled forward while trying not to think of the squaller he was going into.
"No one is going to hurt yo-" The occupant moved like a predator, from his pathetic, wounded, position on his back he had some how launched himself forward into Falon, bowling them out of the escape pod and into the light of the hanger bay scattering Janiis and those gathered in the confusion. The doctor regained his senses and found himself on his back with the occupant onto of him. Blood and saliva dripped from the gaping holes in his cheeks, his breath hot and foul upon his face which was frighteningly close. One blue eye darted in its socket, tears welling up from its ducts and sliding down the tarnished skin. The fingerless hand and the other were gripping the sides of his head and he couldn't look away from the sight, he wouldn't let him.
"Ca-can you hear it?" The voice was hoarse, like his vocal cords had been dragged across razor wire and it was almost pleading, begging. Falon never got a chance to answer as the sentient sat bolt upright without warning, his hands flying to his head and a scream ripping from his lungs that shattered any semblance of calm Falon may have had left. The crazed madman darted off him with an inhuman speed, screaming across the hanger bay, tripping and falling but never stopping until he ran head first into a bulkhead with a sickening 'crack' of bone meeting metal. His emancipated body slid to the floor and no one seemed to know what to do, they were stunned, standing with mouths agape, staring at the his back.
The silence that played out amongst them seemed to stretch on forever, the prone body never moved and the cold fear of what had just transpired seemed to delay any actions they might take to address the situation. Falon seemed to be the only one with any of his faculties about him as he shakily got onto his feet, his heart thundering in his chest, his face a sickly white. He motioned to his medical droid and took wary steps toward the perfectly still body at the base of the bulkhead.
"Is-is he dead?" It was the Captain, just as shaken as the rest, his eyes fixed upon the body.
"I can't tell..." The doctor was half a dozen paces away when they got their answer. The man sat up like his body were on a string and slapped blood soaked hands onto the matte grey surface of the bulkhead and without prompt drew his head back and hurled it against the metal. There was a fresh spray of blood and that same stomach churning sound of bone and metal. Again his head hit the bulk head, and again and again. The furious speed of his madness only seemed to increase with every impact and perhaps seventeen collisions had occurred before Falon reached him and bodily dragged him kicking and screaming from the bulkhead. The Doctor used all his strength to pin him to the floor and barked at the security officers to hold him.
"M-my gods!" Janiis whispered, his hand rising to his mouth as he looked down upon the caved skull, the fragile bones contorted and pushing through the skin of his forehead.
The security officers had him by leg and shoulders but even then he struggled, he spoke in gibberish, howling like an animal and Falon reached into his medical droids chest compartment and extracted his field kit, placing it on the floor beside him he took out a syringe and a sedative and plunged the silvery dart into the mans left and pressed the plunger. It took several seconds but the flailing began to lessen, the screaming died down and then his body was still, almost peaceful, after all that commotion.
"Get him on a stretcher." Falon sighed visibly sagging with relief. The security officers moved aside as two medics and the droid took up positions around the mans body, preparing to slide him onto a stretcher. The next two seconds were all limbs and movement, no noise came from him this time but the two medics and the droid found themselves thrown aside with phenomenal strength and a claw like hand snatched a scalpel from Falons field kit. The hand gripped it with intent and slammed its honed blade into his chest without a thought.
Falon's eyes grew wide as he watched with dumb fascination as the man twisted and carved his own flesh, cutting strips away so fast it was hard to follow. Right down to the bone he went, as beyond, the blood pooling across his hand and onto the floor, flicking into the air with each manic flick of the surgical tool and then he dropped it and laughed...he sobbed..he cackled. The hand pushed into the fist sized holed he had cut away and Falon had no idea how he knew what was coming...but he did...
"I...JUST...WANT...IT...TO...STOP!" The man cried and yanked his hand from his chest. He fell over where he sat and in his hand, giving its final beats, was his own heart...
* * *
"Here..." Falon said, handing the Captain a glass of brandy. He sat down on the seat across from him, his own face matching that of Janiis' harrowed expression. He lifted the glass of pale red liquid and noted the shake that still lingered there before taking a sip of his drink. They had said nothing since Falon had brought the unconscious captain to the med-bay, the rest of the crew on the deck an hour ago were given leave of their duties...none of them could seem to get past what they had witnessed.
"Thank you Doctor..." Janiis just stared into the liquid as if it were hypnotic, his eyes glazed and far away. He was in shock, he'd seen it before with soldiers over the years. He just never expected to have witnessed the reason why in his lifetime.
"The lieutenant comm'd down, they've flushed the body into space.All the blood work came back negative for contagion..." Even Falon was relieved at that last bit of news. Jannis simply nodded, still not really here. "I'm taking you off duty for the rest of the week Captain, the rest of them too...you could all do with some R&R."
"How...can someone do that to themselves Doc?" The question wasn't unexpected, he had been asking himself that since it had happened.
"I don't know Captain, I honestly don't..." Falon downed the rest of his drink in a gulp and tried to banish the images from his mind before looking up at Janiis. "I'll prescribe you some sedatives, try and get some sleep."
* * *
Sleep did not come easy for Janiis, he tossed and turned in his bed, on the cusp of oblivion even with the aid of the sedatives. The scene in the hanger bay would not stop its playback, it was on a constant loop as his subconscious tried vainly to understand what it had beheld. The grotesque face of that passenger swam to the surface again, the icy blue eye seemed to look directly into his soul and although he knew it was a dream, fear gripped him.
The noise seemed to be distant, that scream that was utterly inhuman he had heard, that had driven icy shards of terror into his gut grew in volume and the man was running toward him, his mutilated hands clawing the air trying to reach him...he was so close and Janiis couldn't move, he was stuck to the spot, and he just kept screaming and the noise grew so loud he thought his head might burst, two more steeps and he would have him and then...
The Captain's eyes flickered open and he jumped up and darted his gaze around the darkness of his quarters. He felt his blood thundering beneath his skin, his head was pounding from the adrenaline and his mind was only just rising from the fog of sleep. There was a noise, just barely audible, coming from the corridor and with lethargic steps he found himself drawn to the door. A hand rose as if with a will of its own to the release switch and it slid open to a world of noise. Voices, voices upon voices. Dozens upon dozens. All blending into one long and uninterrupted scream that filled every hallway, every room, every duct and service hatch. The Captain stumbled backwards away from the noise, tripped over his own feet in an effort to escape and landed upon his back, hard.
"Its just a dream...its just a dream." He whimpered to the darkness, his eyes screwed shut, his hands over his ears.
Ba-dum....
Ba-dum...
BA-DUM.....
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:48
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Only for forever. "That's all I need..." whispered the dark wonder. Abandoning words for the escape of his mouth again, her power spiraling down his throat in soft sputters of moans and idle, abated breath. Lena had usurped his thoughts and drank on them like fine wine, inky fingers walking up his spine then danced down along his sides. The rhythm of her hips slowed- an offering to his mind, pushing him to touch her there and how. A steady streaming fantasy would have erupted, sweetly dripping drops of rapture as the key on a map of her body. She was the madness, leaving you on the never ending cusp of fantasy and wanting.
All peril and suffering, but a kiss away- something akin to a catastrophic blast and disintegration of a star. Everything you knew before now being lost among the galaxy never to be found again whilst satin skin and fervent desire comforted every corner and crevice and delved still further seeking darkness. However, it was not gone. Never gone and always able to creep up on you at the most inconvenient of times. That drive, reminder from your name on her salty, ravenous tongue- nails combing down your soul on a cold, dark night.
Tonight, your world is mine. The galaxy, forever at my fingertips...
--
"Won't you stay longer," the voice said, a feeling of distress piquing through the higher notes, "I have much more to show you."
Rage was bleeding through on her puppet's face and Anesia was budding with venom, seething in fear. You will not have me, she screamed, using the threads of the Force as a line of vocals.
"Oh, but I will," velvet soft, demanding... like he was licking her from the inside out. "In every way imaginable. Then, I will discard you like the rest after I've had my fill..." he laughed then and she could feel the vibrations from it in her core. This once slumbering devil was hungry and she wasn't ready to be anyone's meal. "Don't worry, precious. My hunger knows no bounds, It will be an eternity before I've had enough."
If it were possible to turn the shade of clear to disappear, she would have in that moment. Not because she felt uncomfortable- but because deep down in her bones, further still to her soul, Anesia knew he would do just that. It would go beyond classical torment and she'd be a slave.
"No."
Just as the tendrils of darkness went to lap at her, she pulled back causing the girl to turn. Footfalls seemed ghostly in their own right, resounding off the hollowness that was the corridor and echoing back. They might as well have been in a cavern where twists and turns stretched into what seemed like nothingness and the expanse seemed limitless. Close your eyes! See through this!
But she couldn't and Anesia was scratching to get out. Faster!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Coldness crept like liquid, a steady streaming shower of evil that promised death. A persistent push with devilish hands- that lovers caress you craved, he used it against you until you were a puddle. Already jumping from the cliff and embracing his lies, forgetting who you are, were, or what you could have been. Death had ensnared you. Not her though. Not yet. Too much was at stake and she rushed him, essence streaking past, then through his power, leaving Zena's body... her shell behind. Being as unexpected as it was, it slammed through this being's barriers and kept going. A flash of purple never came, she never looked back.
--
The tumbling, long drawn out caresses, lip stick smearing kisses, the two hand ended up on the floor. Her back was arched while still poised atop his lap, small hands gripping just above his knees- full frontal view exposed and at the mercy of practiced, creative hands... under the study of calculating, wild green eyes.
--
How she had actually escaped, boggled her mind. She had slammed into her slack frame with such a force, the wallpaper behind the headboard curled, the sheets ripped and she looked as if she had gone through traffic a couple times over. Clinging to anything, everything inside, she opted to push what happened aside; or tried, with her eyes still shut- slumber perhaps seconds away. Anesia felt herself falling into dream. "Auto-pilot," she said exhausted, a wreck, "take us home." Munto Codru.
This had not lasted for nearly as long as she wished.
The lady awoke, startled at young breath swarming above her head, not quite adept digits around her throat. "Zena."
"You left me there! You heartless sot!" Her fists rained down in time, she was so furious she didn't realize what she had been beating on was pillows and her master had indeed moved to avoid violence. Had it of been Anesia, she probably would have been a bloody pulp by now. The Sith Master just stood back, watched. "Are you finished yet?"
It was not right- and by it, I mean... sot was not in Zena's vocabulary. That small detail had the dark headed woman's skin crawling. Her apprentice was not that strong either; had she of been, Anesia would have not been able to exert complete control over her mind and body. The girls eyes just shot to her, anger written all over her swollen face. "Well, are you okay?" She led on, still on her toes.
"Of course I'm not!" Zena's voice belched out.
"Okay," shrugged the master, throwing a bit of pity in her gaze, "I'm going to go get us a couple glasses and we're going to talk about what the feck that was and what we are going to do about it. Just have a seat, rest a minute." Easy girl. Anesia tried as best as she could to keep her heart rate down, her breath even while moving away from the girl and skirting into the other room.
She really had went to get a drink. The top was off the bottle and she was shaking while she was pouring it.
Vile, evil incarnate stench filled her nostrils- heart in her chest- ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum -there was no controlling it now.
PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...
--
With long-stemmed legs, Lena stood, taut frame stretching while she sighed. A finger crooked, then swiped his dress shirt from the end table it had landed on. "We should probably get off ground," she said darkly, slipping the garment on and buttoning it half-way, "Sal." She wasn't done yet. Not by any means.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal's mind was buzzing with static, no thoughts, no feelings, just a warm blanket of nothing had enveloped him. He'd utterly forgot what that felt like and made a vow in that moment to make up for the time he'd lost in his self imposed exile. He watched Anesia get up, her bare skin catching the light in all the right ways and drawing his eye.
An arm lay under his head while the other held a cigarrette between fore and index finger, casting wisps of a blueish grey hue into the musky atmosphere. She slipped on his discarded shirt and turned her coy gaze upon his naked form, he would be remiss to say that he wasn't sad to see that exquisitely crafted body veiled to him.
"Of course," He said with a smile and for a minute his essence dipped into the Force, it passed through the floor into into the mass of wiring and cables and streamed along the mass of connections. The floor beneath them gave a subtle rumbled as the ships ion engines came to life under his will. If they could see the cockpit control board they would have seen it lighten, the navigational computer preping them for take off and the hyper space coordinated for Lianna scroll across the screen. There was a feeling of motion and the Blackheart set off on its course controlled as it were, by a ghost in the machine. He had trained this particular skill for two years in the unknown regions in preparation to pilot the behemoth Star Destroyer back into the known galaxy. A ship as large as a Firespray was childs play- it required little, if any, thought.
"Now that's taken care of..." A mischievous smirk tugged at the corner of his lips and his cigarrette laden hand pointed to her chest, to where the top button lay, and slowly traced a line down to the bottom of the shirt. Flickers of telekinetic energy leaped from his fingers and popped each button in turn, causing the white fabric to fall aside. If he needed to say anything more, she wasn't the woman he thought her to be.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
So very still, and even though her fingers would have twitched with the desire to touch him, she shoved at it with control and instead watched his inky digit with unwavering copper eyes. The last button was discarded and she blinked- need flowing in an endless stream to her tips, even as she plucked the cigarette from his mouth and inhaled the smoke so carelessly swirling between the two of them. Anesia's other hand rested flat upon his naked chest... raked her nails down a time or two before stilling, and in the same fashion he so used upon his blouse she donned, power fled from her palm. Only from her, it was like a soft caress and she pushed, walking him until his back was against the wall. The shirt billowed as if there were a wind in the cabin- the after effects of his power pushing against hers, but not quite enough to reveal anything other than cleavage.
It was in that instant, she placed his cigarette between the vindication of her plump, pink lips. She smiled then, half way as to not disturb that nasty little habit decor fringed upon her tiers. The gray-blue hue the smoke had offered before had changed, been tainted to a more surreal purple as it rolled from her mouth to his after a draw or two.
Her crimson stiletto slid between both of his feet, lithe frame plastered against his. She drew the cigarette away from her lips, watched as it was led to the ashtray through ghost tendrils of the Force where it then rested. "Now that that is taken care of," reiterated from a softer, supple voice.
Bottom lip was snugly pulled in, nipped by pretty white teeth- she looked almost innocent when she stared up at him. So innocent that when her lips met his ablaze, the comfort in the heat would take his aback. Passion throttled the essence swimming about her aura, her hands fleeting to find Sal's, then pinning them behind his own head. Perhaps she was fiendish for the control, or perhaps she was testing his.
The Darkside wrapped around them in ribbons resembling silk, masking discord and instead offering a promise of desire like you'd never felt. Lena had altered the playing board, dipping into his mind and unraveling what she must. While her hands worked with practiced gratuity to his body, her lips had fed his, pouring essence and desire with each tender lap of her devilish tongue. She drove him back to the point of feeling famished and starved with need- filling his head with such promiscuous, devoted imagery, then taking it away. Giving it back. Taking it away. Moans echoing in his ear.
A single finger befell his lips, moved just past his chin and she took a couple steps back and her hand resumed position along side her. The other, well... the bottle of Crystal Fire were in it's clutches and being brought up for a deep swallow. Anesia watched him as various colors bounced around the room from under a veil of dark lashes. Never wavering and then... the lights went out.
Only for forever. "That's all I need..." whispered the dark wonder. Abandoning words for the escape of his mouth again, her power spiraling down his throat in soft sputters of moans and idle, abated breath. Lena had usurped his thoughts and drank on them like fine wine, inky fingers walking up his spine then danced down along his sides. The rhythm of her hips slowed- an offering to his mind, pushing him to touch her there and how. A steady streaming fantasy would have erupted, sweetly dripping drops of rapture as the key on a map of her body. She was the madness, leaving you on the never ending cusp of fantasy and wanting.
All peril and suffering, but a kiss away- something akin to a catastrophic blast and disintegration of a star. Everything you knew before now being lost among the galaxy never to be found again whilst satin skin and fervent desire comforted every corner and crevice and delved still further seeking darkness. However, it was not gone. Never gone and always able to creep up on you at the most inconvenient of times. That drive, reminder from your name on her salty, ravenous tongue- nails combing down your soul on a cold, dark night.
Tonight, your world is mine. The galaxy, forever at my fingertips...
--
"Won't you stay longer," the voice said, a feeling of distress piquing through the higher notes, "I have much more to show you."
Rage was bleeding through on her puppet's face and Anesia was budding with venom, seething in fear. You will not have me, she screamed, using the threads of the Force as a line of vocals.
"Oh, but I will," velvet soft, demanding... like he was licking her from the inside out. "In every way imaginable. Then, I will discard you like the rest after I've had my fill..." he laughed then and she could feel the vibrations from it in her core. This once slumbering devil was hungry and she wasn't ready to be anyone's meal. "Don't worry, precious. My hunger knows no bounds, It will be an eternity before I've had enough."
If it were possible to turn the shade of clear to disappear, she would have in that moment. Not because she felt uncomfortable- but because deep down in her bones, further still to her soul, Anesia knew he would do just that. It would go beyond classical torment and she'd be a slave.
"No."
Just as the tendrils of darkness went to lap at her, she pulled back causing the girl to turn. Footfalls seemed ghostly in their own right, resounding off the hollowness that was the corridor and echoing back. They might as well have been in a cavern where twists and turns stretched into what seemed like nothingness and the expanse seemed limitless. Close your eyes! See through this!
But she couldn't and Anesia was scratching to get out. Faster!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Coldness crept like liquid, a steady streaming shower of evil that promised death. A persistent push with devilish hands- that lovers caress you craved, he used it against you until you were a puddle. Already jumping from the cliff and embracing his lies, forgetting who you are, were, or what you could have been. Death had ensnared you. Not her though. Not yet. Too much was at stake and she rushed him, essence streaking past, then through his power, leaving Zena's body... her shell behind. Being as unexpected as it was, it slammed through this being's barriers and kept going. A flash of purple never came, she never looked back.
--
The tumbling, long drawn out caresses, lip stick smearing kisses, the two hand ended up on the floor. Her back was arched while still poised atop his lap, small hands gripping just above his knees- full frontal view exposed and at the mercy of practiced, creative hands... under the study of calculating, wild green eyes.
--
How she had actually escaped, boggled her mind. She had slammed into her slack frame with such a force, the wallpaper behind the headboard curled, the sheets ripped and she looked as if she had gone through traffic a couple times over. Clinging to anything, everything inside, she opted to push what happened aside; or tried, with her eyes still shut- slumber perhaps seconds away. Anesia felt herself falling into dream. "Auto-pilot," she said exhausted, a wreck, "take us home." Munto Codru.
This had not lasted for nearly as long as she wished.
The lady awoke, startled at young breath swarming above her head, not quite adept digits around her throat. "Zena."
"You left me there! You heartless sot!" Her fists rained down in time, she was so furious she didn't realize what she had been beating on was pillows and her master had indeed moved to avoid violence. Had it of been Anesia, she probably would have been a bloody pulp by now. The Sith Master just stood back, watched. "Are you finished yet?"
It was not right- and by it, I mean... sot was not in Zena's vocabulary. That small detail had the dark headed woman's skin crawling. Her apprentice was not that strong either; had she of been, Anesia would have not been able to exert complete control over her mind and body. The girls eyes just shot to her, anger written all over her swollen face. "Well, are you okay?" She led on, still on her toes.
"Of course I'm not!" Zena's voice belched out.
"Okay," shrugged the master, throwing a bit of pity in her gaze, "I'm going to go get us a couple glasses and we're going to talk about what the feck that was and what we are going to do about it. Just have a seat, rest a minute." Easy girl. Anesia tried as best as she could to keep her heart rate down, her breath even while moving away from the girl and skirting into the other room.
She really had went to get a drink. The top was off the bottle and she was shaking while she was pouring it.
Vile, evil incarnate stench filled her nostrils- heart in her chest- ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum -there was no controlling it now.
PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...
--
With long-stemmed legs, Lena stood, taut frame stretching while she sighed. A finger crooked, then swiped his dress shirt from the end table it had landed on. "We should probably get off ground," she said darkly, slipping the garment on and buttoning it half-way, "Sal." She wasn't done yet. Not by any means.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal's mind was buzzing with static, no thoughts, no feelings, just a warm blanket of nothing had enveloped him. He'd utterly forgot what that felt like and made a vow in that moment to make up for the time he'd lost in his self imposed exile. He watched Anesia get up, her bare skin catching the light in all the right ways and drawing his eye.
An arm lay under his head while the other held a cigarrette between fore and index finger, casting wisps of a blueish grey hue into the musky atmosphere. She slipped on his discarded shirt and turned her coy gaze upon his naked form, he would be remiss to say that he wasn't sad to see that exquisitely crafted body veiled to him.
"Of course," He said with a smile and for a minute his essence dipped into the Force, it passed through the floor into into the mass of wiring and cables and streamed along the mass of connections. The floor beneath them gave a subtle rumbled as the ships ion engines came to life under his will. If they could see the cockpit control board they would have seen it lighten, the navigational computer preping them for take off and the hyper space coordinated for Lianna scroll across the screen. There was a feeling of motion and the Blackheart set off on its course controlled as it were, by a ghost in the machine. He had trained this particular skill for two years in the unknown regions in preparation to pilot the behemoth Star Destroyer back into the known galaxy. A ship as large as a Firespray was childs play- it required little, if any, thought.
"Now that's taken care of..." A mischievous smirk tugged at the corner of his lips and his cigarrette laden hand pointed to her chest, to where the top button lay, and slowly traced a line down to the bottom of the shirt. Flickers of telekinetic energy leaped from his fingers and popped each button in turn, causing the white fabric to fall aside. If he needed to say anything more, she wasn't the woman he thought her to be.
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
So very still, and even though her fingers would have twitched with the desire to touch him, she shoved at it with control and instead watched his inky digit with unwavering copper eyes. The last button was discarded and she blinked- need flowing in an endless stream to her tips, even as she plucked the cigarette from his mouth and inhaled the smoke so carelessly swirling between the two of them. Anesia's other hand rested flat upon his naked chest... raked her nails down a time or two before stilling, and in the same fashion he so used upon his blouse she donned, power fled from her palm. Only from her, it was like a soft caress and she pushed, walking him until his back was against the wall. The shirt billowed as if there were a wind in the cabin- the after effects of his power pushing against hers, but not quite enough to reveal anything other than cleavage.
It was in that instant, she placed his cigarette between the vindication of her plump, pink lips. She smiled then, half way as to not disturb that nasty little habit decor fringed upon her tiers. The gray-blue hue the smoke had offered before had changed, been tainted to a more surreal purple as it rolled from her mouth to his after a draw or two.
Her crimson stiletto slid between both of his feet, lithe frame plastered against his. She drew the cigarette away from her lips, watched as it was led to the ashtray through ghost tendrils of the Force where it then rested. "Now that that is taken care of," reiterated from a softer, supple voice.
Bottom lip was snugly pulled in, nipped by pretty white teeth- she looked almost innocent when she stared up at him. So innocent that when her lips met his ablaze, the comfort in the heat would take his aback. Passion throttled the essence swimming about her aura, her hands fleeting to find Sal's, then pinning them behind his own head. Perhaps she was fiendish for the control, or perhaps she was testing his.
The Darkside wrapped around them in ribbons resembling silk, masking discord and instead offering a promise of desire like you'd never felt. Lena had altered the playing board, dipping into his mind and unraveling what she must. While her hands worked with practiced gratuity to his body, her lips had fed his, pouring essence and desire with each tender lap of her devilish tongue. She drove him back to the point of feeling famished and starved with need- filling his head with such promiscuous, devoted imagery, then taking it away. Giving it back. Taking it away. Moans echoing in his ear.
A single finger befell his lips, moved just past his chin and she took a couple steps back and her hand resumed position along side her. The other, well... the bottle of Crystal Fire were in it's clutches and being brought up for a deep swallow. Anesia watched him as various colors bounced around the room from under a veil of dark lashes. Never wavering and then... the lights went out.
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
Re: The Rhythm of Madness (Re-re animated)
Sal Norongachi 13th August 2012, 01:51
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Two Months Ago: Santhe/Sienar Technologies Cargo Vessel Serenity, Lianna Sector.
Space is lonely. It makes you feel insignificant and little more than a microbe in a universe so vast and diverse. Nev was lonely, he was literally light years from those he loved on Felucia, working a job that had him traversing distances that no sentient should ever do in their lifetime. To top it off, he was doing it alone. It wasn't a bad gig, the money was good and his family back home never had to worry that they'd never get by but...that thought alone didn't kill the homesick feeling that had taken up residence in his soul.
"You're loaded and sealed, Captain Nev. Smooth Spacing."
Yeah...smooth spacing...
The ship, which was little more than a vast hold with a small cockpit attached, rose from the S/ST loading hanger and set off toward the stars and he alone again, with nothing but the stars and old holo-flicks for company for the next month in hyperspace. The stories didn't tell you about this part. They always portrayed the dashing spacer giving up his home world without a glance back, never thinking of the friends he'd left behind or the places he'd spent so much of his life in. Those few, brief, hours he spent with the earth beneath him, the wind upon his face and fresh, unscrubbed, air in his lungs were what kept him going. He had three more years on his contract with S/ST and then he could go home substantially richer but that seemed like another lifetime right now.
Snap out of it Nev..
His hand worked the control board and pulled up the navigation interface, he was heading for Bakura this time, and punched in the hyperspace coordinates. The lethargic vessel pondered onwards out of the lines of traffic and toward the designated jump point, his hand resting upon the hyperdrive activation levers. He was perhaps twenty minutes out from the jump point when his sensors pinged upon an unknown object, broadcasting no FoF transponder. In the same moment he looked down at the data, his comms indicated an incoming transmission.
"Help me..." The voice was weak and after three heart beats it repeated, evidently it was on a loop. He looked to his sensor screens and it showed that the vessel was little more than 9ft by 6ft in length and width, an escape pod, Nev assumed. The ship banked into an intercept course and soon he was far from the designated shipping lanes, the planet a mere glow in the far distance with nothing else around for a light year in either direction.
Although the ship was not equipped with a sophisticated targeting computer it was designed to target and tractor cargo from space stations where needed and so he set the ship as its target and brought the vessel along side it when he was within range. The blue beam lanced out instantly and held the target motionless while Nev risked a look out of the view port. What he saw filled him with panic, the tiny pod was spewing gas into the void at an alarming rate and he could see signs of other mechanical damage, even from here. He quickly opened the bay doors and with a series of commands guided it inside.
The cargo hold portion of the vessel was not designed to allow easy passage once in transit. It had no grav-plates or even life support, the cargo was magnetically tethered to the floor, and to get inside the pilot had to don a rebreather. Nev did so, quickly, and grabbed a spare before stepping into the tiny corridor between the cockpit and hold. He slipped on the rebreather keyed the inner hatch to open. Immediately he felt the effects of wieghtlessness, and saw through the mountain of contained, the pod floating a foot off the deck.
He pushed off and caught ahold of a container, pulling himself along its edge to avoid any unanted collisions and with a soft shove floated toward the pod. His eyes searched along its battered outer hull and then he found the emergency release switch for the door. he hit it with a fist and moved further down its length before the door was blown off with a burst of hydraulics.
Nev moved quickly, pulling himself along the pod to the open hatch and peering inside, ready to strap the rebreather to the occupants face when he saw blood. The entire inside was slick with it, and droplets danced lazily in the gravityless atmospere, shimmering in the dull lighting from over head. His eyes were wide, the panic ripped at his insides like a feral creature and he wanted to run away. He almost did but a shaking hand reached out from the gloom and without any higher thought he had grabbed it. The human he pulled from that hell was stick thin, his body mutilated in such a way as Nev had never seen, not even in a horror flick. He slid the rebreather over the mangled face, its eyes just empty holes, a leg missing, and every where there were lascerations as if he had been mauled by a feriocious predator.
"Don't let them get out...you have to warn someone...the darkness can't get out!" The voice was weak but insistent and the empty sockets looked into his eyes, the voids where eyes should have been seemed to draw him in like singularites and fill him with dread.
"I don't know what you mean, we'll get you help. Don't worry, you're safe now." Nev tried to comfort the old grey haired human but his voice would not remain steady, the fear and repulsion were all to evident.
"NO ONE IS SAFE!" The man suddenly screamed ripping at the rebreather with his blood encrusted hands and throwing it aside before gripping the lapels of Nev's flight suit. "The Darkness sees...it knows..." The last word was said with a pathetic exhilation of breath and Dr Tiberius Fallon died.
* * *
Sal awoke to the insescent beeping of the hyperspace reversion alarm and with a smile at the gorgeous naked woman on his chect, disentangled himself gently. He got up from the floor at the base of the bar, treading barefoot through the minefield of broken glass that had been swiped from the bartop in their lust, and made his way to the cockpit. He got there a second before the ship spewed from the intangible corridor of light but what they were greeted with was not to his liking.
The entire sector was littered with ships, each one falling and colliding with one another as if they were derelict and abandoned "Lena!" He called through the internal comms. "We have a problem, get up here."
He banked the ship downwards along the hull of a bulk frieghter and across its under side, pulling the steering yoke to the side as a small personal craft cut across their path, barely missing the firespray.
"Approaching vessel this is Lianna port control." The voice punched through the quiet of the cockpit. "Please follow the following route, the system is currenly in lockdown until further notice. All travellers and merchants are required to dock with Space Station Alpha-127 until further notice. Thank you for your time."
What in the hells was going on?
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Slumber was vast, a never ending spiral of nothing. The scent of aftershave, sweat and sex filled her nostrils even then, keeping her content- long limbs strewn across him like an exotic garment, digits in his short lockes. It knows, came softly as a purr... almost a lick at her ear just as Salem arose. The thought was almost dismissed while she drank in his nude form for what had to be the thousandth time. If things were different, she thought quite literally blind. But they're not and that was not Sal's voice.
There was never..."...a dull moment," Anesia finished aloud to herself, raking her fingers through her hair to remove the dark strands from her face. He had stirred moments before and so, she had awoke with an effortless, soft sigh that came to pass between full lips. Her lids were half open, but nonetheless followed Sal's naked backside until it was only a memory- a slight amused smile curling on her lips. It too vanished, a hand swiped across a high-cheek boned visage as if it were an attempt at removing the dark and the mistress stood, stretching.
Re-centering the thoughts from last night's events was a harder feat than she had planned; everything was a mess and nothing made sense. Even in that, she couldn't shake the very vivid memory replaying in her mind. There was no stop, no pause and need cut at her like razors. As a slave to passion, she channeled it into a more comforting, easy emotion... rage.
The glass shards that littered the floor were now hovering in the air- much like tiny darts, Anesia sent them spinning so fast it made the illusion of liquid- a steady stream of it or appeared as such. It was not until the velocity in which the objects moved picked up enough, she sent them into the back wall. Upon contact they exploded and turned into no more than dust.
When her name sprang from the ship's communications device, she turned and stared at it like it was foreign. As if Salem was speaking in tongues. "What kind of problem?" finally Lena managed with a shake of her wild mane and in the same breath, lost her sense of gravity. Luckily for her, the bar was within arm's reach and her hand came to bend around it's corner to keep herself from falling. Something was wrong... so very wrong. "Sal..."
Bare footfalls fell in the order and direction she had last seen her bed partner wander off in. The same attire donned her svelte frame that had Norongachi, but alas that did not seem to hold priority. Clothes were not as important as survival and given her loss of balance (which was hard to do in its own right) in the passing moments it could very well hold true. From his scent alone, she found him, but stopped short of the cockpit.
A sense of urgency and panic clouded her mind. "Sal," but it was a whisper that could quite possibly fall off deaf ears.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal worked the controls like a maestro. An adjustment here, a twitch of the yolk there, angle the shields just so to shunt aside debris. It was all clockwork, all instinct and his mind wandered. It thought of the girl in his bed, the night they had spent together, the lust that drew tenacious moans from his lips with each pull of hair, each trace of a finger, a touch of lips.
Rapture.
The potent, poisonous, swirl of the less sunny side of the Force filled his body. The dance of a thousand emotions corroded at his mind, the epicentre could be none other than his playmate, the dark goddess. He felt her move, the thunder of her presence in the Force like intangible footfalls upon his senses and then she was behind him, the tantalizing aroma of her scent filled his nostrils and he bit down upon a growl, a snarl, of the creature within.
There was something else. It seemed to creep into his thoughts like a shadow, a whisper of anticipation upon its lips like a predator with the scent of its prey. Norongachi's guts squirmed as the ship swung onto the navigational route provided, his body was filled with disquiet. It were as if someone, something, were watching him. Like a danger in the darkness that he couldn't perceive but could feel all the same, knew it was there and..in some way he felt it wanted him to know. That was, perhaps, the most sinister part.
His hands tightened upon the controls and he shook the thoughts aside. There would be time for questions very soon, many questions, and he was positive that they wouldn't like the answers they were given. "Take a seat and...as much as it pains me to say it, you'll have to get dressed before we dock."
Dusted off his shoulder- a skitter of pale milk digits, as if there were something ruining the perfect expanse of Sal's olive skin...her fingers made that motion as if to brush it aside and rid him of it. Perhaps it was not that, but a sincere form of endearment. Maybe she just liked touching him. She sighed then, heaving her shoulders softly, impatiently.
"You feel it too," began the inky darkness. The practicality behind the way she said it was like a hairless cat rubbing against your bare leg- natural to the cat, but the feeling was just a touch foreign to you when you expected something completely different. It was never exactly as you thought.
Salem had not to utter a word; his unease perfumed the air.
And to say in the least... Lena didn't like this smell on him, but at least she wasn't alone in the feeling.
Her body snaked itself into the seat he offered. One long stemmed leg being thrown over the other and had she of had glasses, Lena would have been looking at him over the rims. "And just what am I supposed to wear?" Instead of the more serious questions that they in no doubt both had, the dark headed beauty went for the obvious, safer one.
"You made a dozen or more scarves and ribbons out of the gown I wore," she smiled, lowering her eyes and raising a dark brow. The edge was a little too close now, and Anesia feared they'd sooner fall if they didn't take a step or two back. Fear was the path to the Darkside and she'd already walked down that road a time or two.
Norongachi felt it. He felt like he were drowning in foul waters; struggling for breath, fighting a current that threatened to pull him under. There was no safe haven here, no glimmer of light in the dark. There was only the taint, permeating everything in the system like a cancer.
Then there was the devils whisper in his mind, it promised him power and wealth, it would gift him his dreams...if only he would let it in. If only he ceased his mental war with this faceless enemy and he chose surrender. That drew more than its share of ire from the Force Master and his green eyes narrowed on the unseen and cast back the temptress.
"Armour, you'll need armour..." He said, perfectly serious. Whatever this thing was, whatever sway it held, could unmake men and beast alike and they were heading into a space station full of minds ripe for corrupting. This wouldn't end without bloodshed, that was a foregone conclusion, but the thought that drove daggers of ice into his gut was that the darkness wouldn't let them go, it was too late. They had been dealt their hand, the game was in motion.
The small opening of the hanger bay lay before them and in seconds the ship was cruising into the pressurized atmosphere of the space station. Sal set the ship down without a word, almost without moving. This was bigger than any of them and he couldn't believe that somehow, like all the other times, he'd win. It was a sobering thought, he just hoped it wasn't a premonition...
"Change of plan..." He said finally, standing from his seat and looking down at Lena with a cold fire behind his eyes. "We find it and we kill it." No room for argument given, no reasoning. If she didn't like it, if she couldn't see just how toxic this thing was, then this little game would escalate to levels she had never dared dream of.
He moved into the cargo area of the firespray and pulled open a locker, and then the one beside it. Inside were clothes, womans clothes. Sal's fingers brushed the fabric for a moment, it was a good thing he'd never gotten around to clearing out her stuff after all. In the other locker was his own attire, black full body armour.
"These should do," He called up to the naked Lena as he got himself strapped in. "I really would recommend armour, however.." With that he slipped on the dark helm and his face was lost to the world.
Two Months Ago: Santhe/Sienar Technologies Cargo Vessel Serenity, Lianna Sector.
Space is lonely. It makes you feel insignificant and little more than a microbe in a universe so vast and diverse. Nev was lonely, he was literally light years from those he loved on Felucia, working a job that had him traversing distances that no sentient should ever do in their lifetime. To top it off, he was doing it alone. It wasn't a bad gig, the money was good and his family back home never had to worry that they'd never get by but...that thought alone didn't kill the homesick feeling that had taken up residence in his soul.
"You're loaded and sealed, Captain Nev. Smooth Spacing."
Yeah...smooth spacing...
The ship, which was little more than a vast hold with a small cockpit attached, rose from the S/ST loading hanger and set off toward the stars and he alone again, with nothing but the stars and old holo-flicks for company for the next month in hyperspace. The stories didn't tell you about this part. They always portrayed the dashing spacer giving up his home world without a glance back, never thinking of the friends he'd left behind or the places he'd spent so much of his life in. Those few, brief, hours he spent with the earth beneath him, the wind upon his face and fresh, unscrubbed, air in his lungs were what kept him going. He had three more years on his contract with S/ST and then he could go home substantially richer but that seemed like another lifetime right now.
Snap out of it Nev..
His hand worked the control board and pulled up the navigation interface, he was heading for Bakura this time, and punched in the hyperspace coordinates. The lethargic vessel pondered onwards out of the lines of traffic and toward the designated jump point, his hand resting upon the hyperdrive activation levers. He was perhaps twenty minutes out from the jump point when his sensors pinged upon an unknown object, broadcasting no FoF transponder. In the same moment he looked down at the data, his comms indicated an incoming transmission.
"Help me..." The voice was weak and after three heart beats it repeated, evidently it was on a loop. He looked to his sensor screens and it showed that the vessel was little more than 9ft by 6ft in length and width, an escape pod, Nev assumed. The ship banked into an intercept course and soon he was far from the designated shipping lanes, the planet a mere glow in the far distance with nothing else around for a light year in either direction.
Although the ship was not equipped with a sophisticated targeting computer it was designed to target and tractor cargo from space stations where needed and so he set the ship as its target and brought the vessel along side it when he was within range. The blue beam lanced out instantly and held the target motionless while Nev risked a look out of the view port. What he saw filled him with panic, the tiny pod was spewing gas into the void at an alarming rate and he could see signs of other mechanical damage, even from here. He quickly opened the bay doors and with a series of commands guided it inside.
The cargo hold portion of the vessel was not designed to allow easy passage once in transit. It had no grav-plates or even life support, the cargo was magnetically tethered to the floor, and to get inside the pilot had to don a rebreather. Nev did so, quickly, and grabbed a spare before stepping into the tiny corridor between the cockpit and hold. He slipped on the rebreather keyed the inner hatch to open. Immediately he felt the effects of wieghtlessness, and saw through the mountain of contained, the pod floating a foot off the deck.
He pushed off and caught ahold of a container, pulling himself along its edge to avoid any unanted collisions and with a soft shove floated toward the pod. His eyes searched along its battered outer hull and then he found the emergency release switch for the door. he hit it with a fist and moved further down its length before the door was blown off with a burst of hydraulics.
Nev moved quickly, pulling himself along the pod to the open hatch and peering inside, ready to strap the rebreather to the occupants face when he saw blood. The entire inside was slick with it, and droplets danced lazily in the gravityless atmospere, shimmering in the dull lighting from over head. His eyes were wide, the panic ripped at his insides like a feral creature and he wanted to run away. He almost did but a shaking hand reached out from the gloom and without any higher thought he had grabbed it. The human he pulled from that hell was stick thin, his body mutilated in such a way as Nev had never seen, not even in a horror flick. He slid the rebreather over the mangled face, its eyes just empty holes, a leg missing, and every where there were lascerations as if he had been mauled by a feriocious predator.
"Don't let them get out...you have to warn someone...the darkness can't get out!" The voice was weak but insistent and the empty sockets looked into his eyes, the voids where eyes should have been seemed to draw him in like singularites and fill him with dread.
"I don't know what you mean, we'll get you help. Don't worry, you're safe now." Nev tried to comfort the old grey haired human but his voice would not remain steady, the fear and repulsion were all to evident.
"NO ONE IS SAFE!" The man suddenly screamed ripping at the rebreather with his blood encrusted hands and throwing it aside before gripping the lapels of Nev's flight suit. "The Darkness sees...it knows..." The last word was said with a pathetic exhilation of breath and Dr Tiberius Fallon died.
* * *
Sal awoke to the insescent beeping of the hyperspace reversion alarm and with a smile at the gorgeous naked woman on his chect, disentangled himself gently. He got up from the floor at the base of the bar, treading barefoot through the minefield of broken glass that had been swiped from the bartop in their lust, and made his way to the cockpit. He got there a second before the ship spewed from the intangible corridor of light but what they were greeted with was not to his liking.
The entire sector was littered with ships, each one falling and colliding with one another as if they were derelict and abandoned "Lena!" He called through the internal comms. "We have a problem, get up here."
He banked the ship downwards along the hull of a bulk frieghter and across its under side, pulling the steering yoke to the side as a small personal craft cut across their path, barely missing the firespray.
"Approaching vessel this is Lianna port control." The voice punched through the quiet of the cockpit. "Please follow the following route, the system is currenly in lockdown until further notice. All travellers and merchants are required to dock with Space Station Alpha-127 until further notice. Thank you for your time."
What in the hells was going on?
[ANESIA JY'VUN]
Slumber was vast, a never ending spiral of nothing. The scent of aftershave, sweat and sex filled her nostrils even then, keeping her content- long limbs strewn across him like an exotic garment, digits in his short lockes. It knows, came softly as a purr... almost a lick at her ear just as Salem arose. The thought was almost dismissed while she drank in his nude form for what had to be the thousandth time. If things were different, she thought quite literally blind. But they're not and that was not Sal's voice.
There was never..."...a dull moment," Anesia finished aloud to herself, raking her fingers through her hair to remove the dark strands from her face. He had stirred moments before and so, she had awoke with an effortless, soft sigh that came to pass between full lips. Her lids were half open, but nonetheless followed Sal's naked backside until it was only a memory- a slight amused smile curling on her lips. It too vanished, a hand swiped across a high-cheek boned visage as if it were an attempt at removing the dark and the mistress stood, stretching.
Re-centering the thoughts from last night's events was a harder feat than she had planned; everything was a mess and nothing made sense. Even in that, she couldn't shake the very vivid memory replaying in her mind. There was no stop, no pause and need cut at her like razors. As a slave to passion, she channeled it into a more comforting, easy emotion... rage.
The glass shards that littered the floor were now hovering in the air- much like tiny darts, Anesia sent them spinning so fast it made the illusion of liquid- a steady stream of it or appeared as such. It was not until the velocity in which the objects moved picked up enough, she sent them into the back wall. Upon contact they exploded and turned into no more than dust.
When her name sprang from the ship's communications device, she turned and stared at it like it was foreign. As if Salem was speaking in tongues. "What kind of problem?" finally Lena managed with a shake of her wild mane and in the same breath, lost her sense of gravity. Luckily for her, the bar was within arm's reach and her hand came to bend around it's corner to keep herself from falling. Something was wrong... so very wrong. "Sal..."
Bare footfalls fell in the order and direction she had last seen her bed partner wander off in. The same attire donned her svelte frame that had Norongachi, but alas that did not seem to hold priority. Clothes were not as important as survival and given her loss of balance (which was hard to do in its own right) in the passing moments it could very well hold true. From his scent alone, she found him, but stopped short of the cockpit.
A sense of urgency and panic clouded her mind. "Sal," but it was a whisper that could quite possibly fall off deaf ears.
[SALEM NORONGACHI]
Sal worked the controls like a maestro. An adjustment here, a twitch of the yolk there, angle the shields just so to shunt aside debris. It was all clockwork, all instinct and his mind wandered. It thought of the girl in his bed, the night they had spent together, the lust that drew tenacious moans from his lips with each pull of hair, each trace of a finger, a touch of lips.
Rapture.
The potent, poisonous, swirl of the less sunny side of the Force filled his body. The dance of a thousand emotions corroded at his mind, the epicentre could be none other than his playmate, the dark goddess. He felt her move, the thunder of her presence in the Force like intangible footfalls upon his senses and then she was behind him, the tantalizing aroma of her scent filled his nostrils and he bit down upon a growl, a snarl, of the creature within.
There was something else. It seemed to creep into his thoughts like a shadow, a whisper of anticipation upon its lips like a predator with the scent of its prey. Norongachi's guts squirmed as the ship swung onto the navigational route provided, his body was filled with disquiet. It were as if someone, something, were watching him. Like a danger in the darkness that he couldn't perceive but could feel all the same, knew it was there and..in some way he felt it wanted him to know. That was, perhaps, the most sinister part.
His hands tightened upon the controls and he shook the thoughts aside. There would be time for questions very soon, many questions, and he was positive that they wouldn't like the answers they were given. "Take a seat and...as much as it pains me to say it, you'll have to get dressed before we dock."
Dusted off his shoulder- a skitter of pale milk digits, as if there were something ruining the perfect expanse of Sal's olive skin...her fingers made that motion as if to brush it aside and rid him of it. Perhaps it was not that, but a sincere form of endearment. Maybe she just liked touching him. She sighed then, heaving her shoulders softly, impatiently.
"You feel it too," began the inky darkness. The practicality behind the way she said it was like a hairless cat rubbing against your bare leg- natural to the cat, but the feeling was just a touch foreign to you when you expected something completely different. It was never exactly as you thought.
Salem had not to utter a word; his unease perfumed the air.
And to say in the least... Lena didn't like this smell on him, but at least she wasn't alone in the feeling.
Her body snaked itself into the seat he offered. One long stemmed leg being thrown over the other and had she of had glasses, Lena would have been looking at him over the rims. "And just what am I supposed to wear?" Instead of the more serious questions that they in no doubt both had, the dark headed beauty went for the obvious, safer one.
"You made a dozen or more scarves and ribbons out of the gown I wore," she smiled, lowering her eyes and raising a dark brow. The edge was a little too close now, and Anesia feared they'd sooner fall if they didn't take a step or two back. Fear was the path to the Darkside and she'd already walked down that road a time or two.
Norongachi felt it. He felt like he were drowning in foul waters; struggling for breath, fighting a current that threatened to pull him under. There was no safe haven here, no glimmer of light in the dark. There was only the taint, permeating everything in the system like a cancer.
Then there was the devils whisper in his mind, it promised him power and wealth, it would gift him his dreams...if only he would let it in. If only he ceased his mental war with this faceless enemy and he chose surrender. That drew more than its share of ire from the Force Master and his green eyes narrowed on the unseen and cast back the temptress.
"Armour, you'll need armour..." He said, perfectly serious. Whatever this thing was, whatever sway it held, could unmake men and beast alike and they were heading into a space station full of minds ripe for corrupting. This wouldn't end without bloodshed, that was a foregone conclusion, but the thought that drove daggers of ice into his gut was that the darkness wouldn't let them go, it was too late. They had been dealt their hand, the game was in motion.
The small opening of the hanger bay lay before them and in seconds the ship was cruising into the pressurized atmosphere of the space station. Sal set the ship down without a word, almost without moving. This was bigger than any of them and he couldn't believe that somehow, like all the other times, he'd win. It was a sobering thought, he just hoped it wasn't a premonition...
"Change of plan..." He said finally, standing from his seat and looking down at Lena with a cold fire behind his eyes. "We find it and we kill it." No room for argument given, no reasoning. If she didn't like it, if she couldn't see just how toxic this thing was, then this little game would escalate to levels she had never dared dream of.
He moved into the cargo area of the firespray and pulled open a locker, and then the one beside it. Inside were clothes, womans clothes. Sal's fingers brushed the fabric for a moment, it was a good thing he'd never gotten around to clearing out her stuff after all. In the other locker was his own attire, black full body armour.
"These should do," He called up to the naked Lena as he got himself strapped in. "I really would recommend armour, however.." With that he slipped on the dark helm and his face was lost to the world.
Sal Norongachi- Admin
- Posts : 77
Join date : 2012-02-22
Age : 37 -
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