Private A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

[Vatrës Dhalis]

the Champion stood unhidden, vast and sure
he knew his effect, of that all could be sure
she thought of women and of what he took
then felt a darker gaze behind her look​

"I -- " The Avatara stammered, heat rising in her throat.

There it was again: that queer, prickling sensation beneath her sternum, a sort of fierce sense of covetousness -- of ownership. It accompanied a throb of anger, but it took a moment for Vatrës to grasp why. Her black eyes were locked to the Champion -- partially in shock, partially in appreciation. She was aware of his body -- all of it -- with an iron-clad understanding that she was seeing what she ought not. That she was spying what she knew to belong to someone else. A subtle guilty thrill of prowling in someone else's private museum, ogling someone else's prized art, made her stomach twist.

And worse. Appreciating it. Hasuras Na-Gerra knew what he was to women, clearly. Perhaps he did not fully appreciate what he was to the goddess Vahl. Yet.

There was anger, too, Vahl's anger, unmistakable and raw and painful.

You presume to speak for Me? You use My name in jest? Vahl's voice was a poisoned whisper in her mind, and the Avatara could feel the goddess' presence expanding in her mind, with all the pain that came with Her approach.

"Forgive me, my lady," Vatrës gasped, and she took a half-step back, groping for the door frame. Gerra would feel the spike of fear -- no, not fear, terror -- as her vision narrowed and her fingers went slack on the doorstep. "Please -- I meant nothing by -- " She choked on the rest of the sentence.

Blackness enveloped her eyes and Vatrës went slack for a moment. When she spoke it was in that other voice, the voice of the goddess. "I demand nothing more than what I am owed," Vahl declared, lifting Vatrës' delicate chin with a defiance unsuited to the Avatara. "The faithful service of My Avatar without distraction. Discipline on the part of My Champion. I know thy heart, Hasuras Na-Gerra, I can see it as plainly as I can see thy breathing. A man of appetites indeed. But not all women belong on thy plate. Remember to whom belongest thou, and she, and know that retribution will fall on those who trespass."

for anger rose, raw, ancient, close to pain
envious pressure tightening round her brain
a whisper, poisoned, slid through thought like smoke
the veil grew thin and then suddenly broke​

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

A brow lofted at Vatres' reaction and the way she spoke, seeming at once both embarrassed and frightened. Swiftly did he realize that the source of the fear didst not stem from his presence, but that of the Dark Side entity which too inhabited the woman's body. And as her fear grew and her body trembled, then grew slack... as the voice of Vahl took over and spake with ire and condescension... Gerra grew most wroth.

His brows drew down in a scowl most sharp and terrible.

"Do not mistake me, Spirit."

The words ground from his mouth with the force and weight of shifting tectonic plates biting upon one another. His lips curled into a sneer of defiance and his eyes flashed with the fury of a star's heart.

"I aid you, but I do not belong to you."

Nor did the woman Vahl possessed.

"She can choose as she wills. Or would you declare her a holy vessel to be untouched by the hands of mortals?"

He snorted in derision, for he had heard some of the Chosen take up such a stance of their own personages and priests.

"No matter. My hands shall remain free of her."

His mouth twitched. "I would not wish to scald myself."

The hulking Vahlan made to move past her and grabbed a towel.

Vatrës Dhalis

 

[Vatrës Dhalis]

yet still She faced a thing She'd not weighed:
a Champion proud, refusing to be made
so wrath turned sharp, the goddess steered Her gaze
and drank in the sight of cord, flame, and blaze
then called it safety, named it virtues guard
to lock Vatrës far beneath, eyes unstarred​

There was no such thing as cold fury in the dark goddess; her rage burned like a furnace. Her avatara's flesh flushed painfully, as though magma had replaced blood within her veins. "Take pleasure and solace in thy defiance whilst thou can," Vahl rumbled from within the confines of her avatara. This vessel had been selected years ago for the prophesied qualities Vatrës would possess: sensitivity to the Force, the appropriate coloring of her hair and flesh and eyes, her proximity to where Vahl needed her to be.

She had not counted on the potential need to bring her Champion to heel. Whatever Vatrës' gifts, whatever promises of the prophecy she fulfilled, she was in no position to enforce Vahl's will any more than Vahl, in her ethereal form, was. This could be trouble.

As the warlord shifted to move past, Vahl directed the avatara to turn to allow him berth, directing the avatara's eyes to Gerra's muscular arm, his back, the yoke of his shoulders, his flamelike hair. Safe, this time, because Vatrës was locked away, beyond temptation -- because of course, the goddess would frame her own covetousness as protection of the avatara's virtue. "One day thou may rue the time spent fighting the discipline I offer, Hasuras Na-Gerra ," Vahl murmured to his retreating back. "If you would only deign to submit, our combined efforts might yet shake the foundations of this galaxy."

And when Gerra had gone far enough that his footsteps were no longer audible, so did Vahl. Not merely to abandon and punish the avatara for her lack of judgment, her disobedience, her weakness -- but because the heat of the goddess' fury was harming the girl's vapid, weak mortal form. Before the smoke began to rise -- before the fever boiled the girl's brain, the goddess ascended to wherever goddesses resided and Vatrës slumped into a heap on the floor, without a care, like a doll discarded by a bored child.

Again, Vatrës knew not how long she had been out. The pain in her head was greater, more widespread -- tender tension along her neck and shoulders, down her back. Her legs ached for where she had collapsed to her knees before slumping backwards, pinning her lower legs behind and beneath her. One arm had an ugly and painful wound where, in her collapse, she had slammed hard enough against the edge of the wardrobe to tear the skin. She had been out long enough to stop bleeding, at least.

The avatara gingerly unfolded herself, stood. Her mind was frustratingly blank, except for the vivid pain that came with breath and light. Her throat burned as if she'd breathed smoke for hours. She remembered -- fleetingly, like a half-remembered nightmare -- the feeling of fury and scorn that filled her, the fear that came with the goddess' presence this time, before -- blackness. Vahl had come.

And now Vahl had gone.

She had made it to her knees, high enough to look around the room over the top of the bed. Gerra was not there. She sensed him, nearby, his disposition somewhere between amused and pleased, she thought. Vatrës dragged herself to her feet, allowing one concession to the overwhelming pain and confusion she felt with a pained whimper. Then she was leaving, pushing through the doorway back into the corridor. The lighting had changed in the corridor, signifying some passage of time. Was it now early evening by the ship's clock? The gentle amber of the running lights was much easier on the avatara's throbbing headache than the brash, bright white would have been.

Small miracles. The idea was almost funny to a woman who knew without reservation that divinity was all too real.

She found Gerra sitting in the dining room, chair tilted back, his gargantuan legs up with his feet on the table. He had what appeared to be several treasure chests out on the table, open, rummaged, some items of interest placed out. A metallic sphere of some extraction, glowing faintly, pulsing in the Force, hovered before him. She did not announce herself, not yet, merely stood in the half-open doorway and studied him. There was nothing in her gaze that would have troubled Vahl; her gaze was appraising.

Finally she stepped inside, making a soft sighing grunt of pain and immediately regretting it. Vatrës prayed he had not noticed. "Hasuras Na-Gerra," she murmured quietly, rounding the table to stand opposite him. "Did she hurt you?" It didn't look like it, from here. But there was much she did not see.

she paused to measure him with sober sight
no longing there, no lust, just right
still she approached, spake his name as low
willing her own weakness not to show
and asked for him in pride's dim glare
if Vahl had struck him or if he'd been spared​

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The eyes of the Warlord of the Vahla looked up as she approached, ever searing with the heat and intensity of his presence, his will in the Force. Like the ever churning fires of a volcano. Not always erupting in anger and rage, but ever burning. When he heard the question on the lips of this white-haired Vahlan he snorted in amusement.

“No. The houndmaster raised her hand to a dog and found him a wolf.”

The Qhan suspected that the true depths of his own power and abilities might frighten the Dark Side spirit dwelling within Vatres, if she thought he might ever use them against her. If she could even envision such a thing.

Across the table lay scattered the plunder of a dozen worlds, their most precious artifacts tossed about like mere baubles. Gerra recognized a paltry few, but others were new finds even to him. He pushed away a Sith holocron and held up the thin links of golden chain which formed an intricate necklace inlaid with rubies. Power seeped from the necklace and Gerra could feel the Dark Side upon it, though he knew not the form it took.

“Come here,” he beckoned her forward, holding up the links of the chain.

“This would suit you. Take it,” his brow furrowed as he saw a smear of red on her arm.

“Hm. You ask me if I had been hurt by your goddess when it is you who seem to bear her marks. Come here,” he beckoned again, still seated though even seated his head was practically level with her own. “To mar such beauty,” Gerra’s lips curled in disgust, “Does she punish you?”

Shaking his head, Gerra motioned for her to turn around before him. “Then let me reward you instead. Without the Chosen, I alone will be supreme among the Vahla. Surely your actions deserve some recompense.”

Gerra moved to lace the necklace of golden chain about her neck should she deign to follow his directions, the links swiftly warming against skin as they settled on pale flesh.

Vatrës Dhalis

 

[Vatrës Dhalis]

Normally Vatrës would have chastised the man for his casual reference to Vahl as her goddess. She was his goddess as well, whether he recognized it or not. But she was feeling less inclined to be defend Vahl's honor, not when was clearly able to go to bat for herself. Even if she was only capable of doing so against the underfed, underpowered avatar she had selected for that very purpose.

Let her take the reigns over the Qhan of Khans -- if indeed he had reigns to take.

"I doubt sincerely whether she would approve of being called a houndmaster," the woman said, pushing the silken strands of ash-white hair falling across her forehead back behind one ear. "Luckily for you, she is not here. And I am in no rush to summon her."

She stepped forward as he bid, without thinking. When she allowed herself the time to consider it, she complied anyway. She could feel the power pulsing within the links of metal, the corrosive, cloying, seductive call of the dark side that seemed to soak invisibly into her flesh the moment his warm fingers laid it against her collar.

"I do not know my sin," Vatrës said. Even to her, the evasiveness almost felt like the truth. "But I do not question her wisdom. She is eternal, after all. Speaking of -- forgive me. I don't wish to look a gift ronto in the mouth, but -- " The Avatara's breath caught when she felt his fingers shifting on the delicate clasp at the back of her neck; it was hard to imagine fingers so brutish and schooled in killing could work something so fine.

Momentarily, she found her voice again. "I feel that you tempt her wrath too freely. How can you be the supreme among the Vahla while Vahl herself is here? Or -- there? Wherever she is." Vatrës hesitated, falling silent. It was perhaps easy for the Qhan to blaspheme when it was she who bore the brunt of the goddess' displeasure from it. She turned, leaning against the table. "Our task is not yet complete, anyway." She lifted a hand to let her fingers skim along the links and rubies of the necklace. The metal was warm.

"There is power in this," she observed. "Is it dangerous?"

A stupid question. All power was dangerous.

Hasuras Na-Gerra​