And At My Command [Kesare]

[Matsu Xiangu]

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[SIZE=12pt]Ryloth – Pandemonium Cantina[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=12pt]Late Evening[/SIZE]​

​

It had been a long time since Matsu had been on the planet of Ryloth. There was no particular reason – besides the fact that she’d left the Confederacy long behind – for her absence, more the sense that there was nothing much on the planet to come back for. A lot of sand, a lot of heat, and a lot of drunks.

But, she supposed, it had its attractions. She came to a stop outside a cantina that had just recently opened – or rather, the particular club inside had just opened. The building itself could have been as old as Ryloth itself for all Matsu knew, and it had been always been a bar of ill repute, but had recently come under new management. And she’d heard the new management was good. She didn’t frequent places like this a lot between Jared’s relentless slave-driving and her personal hunt for the man who’d maimed her, but some friends (or as close as Matsu got) had tempted her with the promise of drinks and dancing.

Slipping inside, she swept her dark eyes over the room. Everything was bathed in purples and greens, the air thick with smoke wafting off the pipes a few Hutts carried with them. She breezed past a few groups, her hair long and thick as he it rolled over her shoulders, her cybernetic arm hidden under the long sleeve of a loose dress. She hid the arm not out of shame, but because the questions were getting tiring. (Yes, its strong. Yes, the claws are sharp. Do you want to see? Do you want to feel, because in about five seconds I’m going to rip your…)

She found her friends at the bar, sliding herself in to get a drink for herself before turning and leaning against the counter, elbows back, watching the raised platforms where dancers came out in turns.

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

[SIZE=10pt]Despite coming here day in and day out the stench still made her stomach roll, the place reeked of sweat, smoke and desperation. This was a place where people went to forget, a place where you could shed your skin at the door and become someone else for the night. [/SIZE]Oh, how so loathed every single one of them. What a luxury to be able to pretend for an evening before returning to whatever freedom they possessed. They had no idea, not a clue with their fat tongues wagging like a dog out of their mouth, all starry eyed and buzzing with desire and want.

[SIZE=10pt]Revolting swine, they disgust her more than this hell hole.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]The night had started off slow but it was nearing midnight now and the nightlife was starting to pick up, greedy hands pried and stroked like they are doing her some sort of favor. How can they not see it? How can they not see the hatred burning behind her dark gaze? Her smile is stiff at the edges but otherwise she makes no show of showing her festering contempt, after all she’s had years to perfect how others viewed her, she is a chameleon blending in with her surroundings. Survival is the key.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]With a bat of the lashes and a crook of the finger she could have anyone in this place on their knees at her mercy. It is like this every night as she makes her rounds, weaving throughout the crowd silently watching with the anticipation hanging thick in the air. Fingers curl at her hip from behind, words whispered like he’s the only one who’s ever tried this line.[/SIZE][SIZE=10pt] “Hey baby, you gotta light?” [/SIZE][SIZE=10pt]The tone is thick with suggestion and it takes every bit of restraint not to bristle as she turns beneath his hands where she offers him an almost sheepish expression with a playful smirk. Let him believe.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Only if I can set you alight and watch as your flesh sizzles.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]She says nothing, shaking her head as she slowly plucks his fingers off one by one. “Sorry handsome, I’m about to go on but you can look for me later.” [/SIZE][SIZE=10pt]She holds his gaze until it moves to the dancer currently on the stage and she is left feeling a small sense of smug satisfaction. It is a game she has created for herself, and she is the last one standing. Let him wish.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]The dancer before her slips behind the curtain, revealing that it is her due. She takes to the stage like it is the most natural thing in the world, a second skin that she wears as her body finds the rhythm of the music and flows with it. A bat of the lashes here, a hint of skin there, a flash of teeth and the crowd is hers. She is used to it, the feeling of eyes undressing her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Screw them. Screw them all.[/SIZE]

Her gaze locks on one man in the crowd and she can practically feel his excitement, it’s a shame for him that he doesn't realize that in her head she is picturing taking her thumbs to his eyes and pressing down until she hears a pop. Her attention shifts to another on-looker and this time she envisions her fingers curling around a knife and sinking the blade into their chest before slowly dragging it down and watching as their entrails pool onto the floor at their feet. It continues like this throughout her show, another game that she’s created for herself as a coping mechanism where she took satisfaction envisioning cutting down as many patrons as she could while making sure no act of violence is the same and each one is worse than the last.

[SIZE=10pt]Tonight she is close to beating her record when she falters; her gaze stuck on a face of a beautiful young woman that holds an eerie resemblance to someone she knows but can’t immediately put her finger on. The woman is turned slightly off to the side and not looking at her, and yet there is a draw to her. Look at me. See me. She beckons, as if somehow this woman will look up and know for the both of them.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Just as she is about to give up and move on the woman looks up and it is like two puzzle pieces fitting into place. “Matsu.” She breathes her name like a prayer, a silent thank you to the night for bestowing her such a gift. Though her face has changed and grown she would know those eyes anywhere. She realizes seconds later that she has stopped dancing as more eyes turn to her and she is prodded like cattle, forcing her focus back into the dance. It’s too late now, with her mind is racing a mile a minute and the anticipation an itch waiting to be scratched.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Save me.[/SIZE]

She is worried that she hasn't been recognized by her former friend, after it’s been a long time and both of them have grown considerably since she was taken in the night and even more concerned that before she can get off the stage Matsu will leave. But her time is up and another girl comes on to take her place and Matsu is still seated where she was thirty minutes ago.

Like clockwork she is sought out and pursued by several seedy individuals that linger by the curtain, propositions falling on deaf ears as she purposely navigates her path through the sea of people until she finds the young woman with her back facing towards her. She has a surprising urge to lift her arm and touch her but she quickly thinks better of it, her stomach betraying her with a nervous knot. What if she doesn't remember? What if she doesn't care? What if, what if, what if.

[SIZE=10pt]Clearing her throat slightly she brushes whatever foolish nerves she had aside and says her name softly, just loud enough to hear over the low roar of people surrounding them. “Matsu…” She waits for the woman then, to see if she will acknowledge her, remember her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Please, please let her remember.[/SIZE]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu had forgotten that she wasn’t cut out for ‘friends’. There were few people she trusted, and even fewer that she enjoyed the company of, and none of the idiots she’d agreed to be dragged out by were in that group. She watched as they all got progressively drunker, pawing at strangers and whisking themselves off to corners to do Force knew what.

The Matsu who might have enjoyed nights like this had died a long time ago.
Thrill seeker, adrenaline junkie, solitary explorer. Those were her.

Look at me.​

Matsu froze in place, the voice in her head that was not her own giving her the sense of lead in her bones. She knew that voice, didn’t she? She couldn’t put a claw on it but there was a smoothness, a sea-glass purr to the woman’s words that seemed right outside the edges of her memory.

See me.​

It had been a while since she’d looked up at the raised platforms where the dancers displayed themselves. There were clubs where the women seemed to enjoy what they did, maybe finding a freedom in bearing themselves. But not here, not at Pandemonium. Even if the place weren’t on a planet with a pocked history of slavery, most of the women had a hollowness behind their eyes that spoke of too many nights selling their souls because they had no choice. Matsu had no desire to see it. But that voice…

She looked up, her eyes sweeping over the platform to find the one woman on stage that seemed to be holding the attention of every thirsty patron crowded around its base.

Save me.​

And all the sudden the edges of her memory are no longer unattainable, that same sea-glass purr breaking open things she thought were buried so deep as to never surface again: days drenched in the sun; the taste of fresh honey melon on lips wide with mischievous smiles, fruit traded between sticky fingers; laughter like she hadn’t known since; fingers clasped in hers, the kind of hand-hold that promises safety, that promised a closeness for years beyond the few they’d shared together.

Kesare.

There had been a day when Matsu had waited under the same awning in front of the same building at the same time she always met with her best friend. But a half hour passed. And when it reached an hour she knew something had to be wrong. And when she’d gone to the house where Kesare had always lived there was no one there. She’d broken in through the window of Kesare’s room to find it completely empty – even the mattress was gone. The rest of the apartment followed suit, empty of all the furniture she and Kesare had lazed on during the hottest days of the year. She spent months searching for any scrap or hint of her best friend. Nothing had ever turned up, and in time the search had disintegrated in her hands. But she had never forgotten her.

Never.
Oh Kesare, what happened?

She did not move from her spot for the entirety of the woman’s set, watching her and wondering how this had happened, how they found themselves here. And when the set ended she still did not move, something telling her she would see the friend she’d resigned herself to meeting only in memory if she could only be patient.

When Kesare appeared, cutting a swath through men offering this and that for a minute of her attention, Matsu suddenly thought of a thousand questions she wanted to ask – a million! And more than anything else she wanted to reach out and lace her fingers in Kesare’s again, to see if it felt just as safe as it did when they were little. But she couldn’t, not in front of the club owner’s. Matsu could feel their gaze on her, wondering if she were a threat to their…‘employee’.

“Kesare,” she answered, her face a mask. She was good at what she did, and she would give the owners of the club no reason to regard her with more suspicion than they already were.

But she had heard Kesare as clear as day in her mind before, and more than once. Matsu kept an almost constant guard around her mind since Krius’ betrayal, and it would take more than just passing thoughts to speak to her through her mind.

Kesare had the Force.

Matsu spoke to her through her mind then, testing her theory. She had no idea if Kesare even had any idea how to use the gift, but she'd spoken in to Matsu's head once and she had always been whip-smart - she could do it again. “We will get you out of here. Tonight. Just tell me where to find you later.”

She would leave the consequences of stealing from the club for later.
The only thing that mattered now was Kesare.

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

Fourteen years she has wished, begged and even prayed for her salvation, fourteen years and she has nothing to show for it but sadness and anger. Revenge is all that she has left and has become her motivation to wake up in the morning and keep moving forward. Just keep going, just one more day, tomorrow will be different.

Only tomorrow was never different. Until tonight.​

​

They had stripped her of almost everything - her family, friends, even her body was no longer hers, but what they couldn't take from her was hope. She feels a stirring within her chest, a clutch of her heart and a skip of a beat when for the first time in months she can feel the old stirrings of hope blossoming beneath her flesh and spreading through her veins. Alive. She felt alive.

I've missed you, have you missed me?​

​

Her hands itch to reach out and touch, a dire need to make sure that this was Matsu and she was here and real and this wasn't just another dream. She knows better though, just like she should have known better to be more discreet. She can feel the eyes on her, the unasked questions hanging thick in the air about the mystery girl that has brought life behind her eyes. She wants to sit down here and now with their fingers tangled together and to tell her why she had to leave her and how sorry she was that she’d broken her promise to meet her at that red awning because it had been their vow as best friends. She wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault and to please not be angry because if she had had a choice to keep her promise she would have, no matter what.


She blinks at the sound of her name as it rolls off Matsu’s tongue, she finds comfort in knowing that regardless of everything that she still remembers her. Sweeping her gaze around the room she feels the relief lift from her chest when she realizes other than the occasional stolen glances from several patrons hoping to get to know her on a more personal level, the owners are no longer watching them. Feeling daring she takes a couple more steps closer to where Matsu is seated, again her eyes glance around but nobody important is looking.

“We will get you out of here. Tonight. Just tell me where to find you later.”​

​

It takes her a moment to realize that Matsu’s mouth never moved as she feels the tickle of the words fluttering around inside her head. Tonight. She almost cries then, almost. Surprised, she looks at Matsu for a long, quiet moment while trying to figure out how Matsu had been able to speak so easily without speaking at all. The Force, how had she not known all those years ago before she was taken? Did Matsu not know then? Was that why she had looked at her when she’d asked to be saved on the stage? Had she used the force first without even realizing it? She has so many questions lingering, waiting to be asked at the tip of her tongue but instead, right now she tests herself. To test her theory it takes her several minutes since the first time had been an accident and now she had to try and piece together how this worked on her own.


It is a difficult task for her and it takes most of her concentration but this time she can feel it, it is like her mind is a thread that is becoming increasingly unraveled with each word before being put back together again. “I have a break in twenty – meet me behind the building.” She offers her a small nod to confirm that she’d been heard as a tiny hint of a smile flickers at the corners of her lips before pulling away with a final fleeting glance, allowing the crowd to swallow her whole like she’d never been there in the first place.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu was the picture of patience as she very carefully read Kesare’s emotions. She did not push in to her mind – it was a violation unspeakable for a woman who’d been on the receiving end of such unwanted presences, and she would never do the same to her best friend (so easy to pick it up again) – but merely get a feeling for whether or not Kesare had heard, or was trying to respond. She sensed confusion, hope, and something like determination in Kesare’s mind, but Matsu had all the time in the world. She did not rush her, and instead closed her metal fingers around the glass she’d nearly forgotten about in her shock and took a casual, measured sip to appear as if there was a natural lull in their exchange.

In her mind however she was reeling, letting her eyes rove over Kesare’s face. Not much had changed in fourteen years, at least nothing more than the expected transformation in to a woman who could kill with her looks. There was, however, a hardness Matsu didn’t remember.

What have you seen?​

Because I know that look, I wear it too.​

But I can hold your hand again.​

She was still caught up in memories, in the promise of something like healing, when she heard the soft cadence of Kesare’s voice in her head.

It took all Matsu had not to smile – perfect.

She reached out one more time as her friend turned to go, half to confirm to Kesare that she’d been heard and half to make sure Matsu could get her out with no trouble. She’d arrived in a small stealth ship, perfect for cruising the two of them off Ryloth, but she wanted to be off planet and out in space by the time Kesare’s employers (and Matsu used ‘employers’ instead of ‘owners’ to stop herself from shoving through the crowd of cowed, drunken idiots and snapping the muscled, hard looking man presiding over his establishment with such satisfaction on his face) realized she was gone. “I have room for whatever you can take with you. I’m sure we’ll be back for the rest.”

Matsu turned to the friends who remained at the bar, shoving down the panic that suddenly threatened to smother her. What if something happened and that was it, a teasing glance at the friend she could have back, a taste of the soulmate dangled in front of her only to be ripped away? What if the man sitting on his stage off to the side suspected something and hurt – no, Matsu would kill him before he laid a finger on Kesare.

She waited only about ten minutes, not wanting to raise any more eyebrows than she was certain she already had. As she passed through the room she pushed out gently with the Force, masking herself and redirecting the attention of anymore who might be watching her.

The wait in the alley was the longest ten minutes of her life.
(The dying had been slow, but she’d been unconscious for nearly all of it. It had only been a few minutes she’d spent letting out gasping wails in the snow, surrounded by blood-stained snow.)

But when Kesare appeared (with nothing in her hands, nothing she found valuable enough to smuggle out with her, Matsu’s stomach twisting in anger and sadness) Matsu did not think before she wrapped her arms around her, running her natural hand up in to her friends hair and pressing her face in to the soft curve of her neck.

She didn’t say anything because she didn’t have to.

Once she let go she drifted quietly, leading Kesare back to the spaceport. There would be plenty of time to explain, but they needed to get to the corvette first. She spoke quietly as they spun through back streets and alleyways, staying mostly out of sight without drawing attention. “Ke – it’s not going to make any sense, but think of being anonymous. Think of being invisible, just imagine that no one can see you and…push outwards.” Matsu did not know how to mute her signature in the Force entirely, but she was good at manipulating it to be less detectable.

Better safe than sorry – they were almost home free.

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.


The minutes ticked by slowly as she counted them off in her head, her stomach twisting anxiously, muscles coiled and ready for flight.

Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.

She wears a mask that says everything opposite of what she is carrying internally, refusing to give anything away. She playfully touches the shoulders of men that foolishly believe they stand a chance with her, like she would ever touch any one of them if she had the choice.
Soon.

The freedom felt so close she swore she could touch it. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.

Her tone is warm and suggestive with a bat of the lashes here and a flick of her tongue there to really get their imaginations running. Stroke their egos, make them think they are everything she desires, make them believe she could love them when all she wishes is to rip their still beating hearts out of their chests. Disgusting swine, why would someone want to be with anyone so easily fooled?

Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight.

The knot rises from her chest to her throat and it takes whatever willpower she has left not to hightail it out the backdoor. Instead she keeps a casual gait, everything about her screams normal as she snaked her way through the throng of people. It appeared tonight was going to be her lucky night, Gayla was presently on the main stage and held the rapt fascination of most of the onlookers making it easy for her to flash two fingers in the air to let her ‘boss’ know she was stepping out for twenty.

Seven. Six. Five.

Slipping into the night she can feel her heart pressing so hard against her chest that she swore it was going to burst at any second. She could feel her fear building as it nearly crushed her and left her breathless. Four. Three. Two.

One.

She doesn’t move out of the shadows for another minute, the fear gripping at her and threatening to ruin everything. What if she couldn’t do this? What if she was caught? What if, what if, what if. She didn't have timefor the what if’s she only had time to move forward and hope, she had to keep hoping. With one final glance over her shoulder she moves forward as she puts the past behind her.

She is cloaked in light and darkness, seeing her standing there beneath the flickering light brings her a sweet relief that she has long forgotten. There is not a single inch of hesitation in her movements, like a moth to the flame she finds her way to her (with nothing but the scant clothes she was wearing and her mother’s ring draped around her neck) her fingers seeking hers out, fitting perfectly as they had when they were children, she wraps her arm tightly around her waist and buries her face into the crook her neck. Safe. She was finally safe.

Even now they did not need to speak, each of them knowing what the other was thinking as their fingers remained twined and she let Matsu lead her through dark alleyways and the side streets that slept this late at night. Think of being anonymous. She doesn't think that sounds too crazy, recalling how when she was young and torn away from her mother and father how she had wished to turn invisible, wished to be forgotten, to have someone realize she was nothing special so that she could go back and live a normal life. It was too late for normal now she knew but that didn't stop her from trying as she follows Matsu’s instructions and concentrates her focus on watching her body disappear from head to toes, hoping faintly somewhere in the back of her mind that it was working but didn't dare say anything in fear of breaking her concentration.

It isn't until they are on the small ship that she feels she can breathe again, the reality setting in that this was it, she was tasting freedom for the first time in years. She could almost cry. Almost. Instead she looks around the ship, her curiosity getting the better of her. “I didn't have anything of great importance to bring with me.” She says with a touch of sadness behind her voice, eyes meeting each other’s as she lets herself feel, letting it drip from her pores and shedding her hard outer exterior to the floor as the the happiness and sadness threaten to suffocate her (eventually she would replace that with anger but not here, not now, not with her) Looking out the window she touches her fingers to the glass and stares into the darkness, focusing on the lights dancing in the distance. Almost there.

“Where are we going?” Her voice expresses her curiosity and a hint of her excitement as she looks back at Matsu, really looking at her for the first time since seeing her all those years ago. She has a hardness to her that she hadn't been there as a girl, her eyes betraying her, revealing a story of a young woman who had witnessed one too many bad things in her time. It is then and only then does she catch the glimpse of metal and flesh hidden discreetly beneath the lovely dress that she wore and she feels her breath catch and the agony overwhelm her. How had she not noticed before? How could she have been so blind? “Oh Matsu, what happened?” She reaches out touch her arm, fingers gentle as they glide down the metal and find her fingers, finding that they still fit just as perfectly as they always had.

​

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[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu didn’t say a thing to her friend as they snuck through the backstreets, not even when she felt a dampening of Kesare’s presence – it was an indication that the woman’s efforts to muffle herself were working and Matsu relaxed slightly as they made their way back to the ship, a trickle of pride slinking down her spine at her friend’s early success.

They climb in to the ship and Matsu almost lets herself relax – she wouldn’t let her guard down entirely until they were off the planet and out of the reach of any scumbag who might come calling for their ‘property’. The feeling only intensified when Kesare said she had nothing of value to bring almost as if apologizing, sadness in the sultry sea-glass of her voice. (And she could feel that old spark, for a second thinking of what it had been to loose herself on Skye and send her power flying in waves from her slip of a body. She’d do the same if they came for Kesare, she’d pull everything she could control in, compress it until it almost collapsed on itself under the gravity of its own power, and then let it rush from her fingertips to cut them all in two. A furrow in the ground, a hole through the building in front of her, the hush of steam and water as it streamed from the pipes exposed by the fury of her blast. And nothing left of THEM.) “It doesn’t matter. You’re starting over,” she said, meaning it. Whatever had happened to her friend was now, officially, in the past as she finished prepping the ship for take-off and let it start to lift in to atmosphere.

She watched silently as Kesare’s fingers dragged across the viewport, knowing exactly the freezing cold sensation that would pour through the reinforced glasswork to her skin.

She’d done the same, the first time she’d left Corvanni in search of a life that felt more real.

Once they’d left atmosphere Matsu keyed in for home and let the ship take them away, turning her chair slightly to watch Kesare as she answered. Where once Matsu’s face had been emotion after emotion, a face that hid little…now everything was a secret. She gave away nothing she did not want to tell. But she could feel the old familiarity in Kesare’s presence, the kind that made her soften slightly – a luxury she allowed around no one except this woman who knew her perhaps better than she knew herself (even now, she still will, she still will when I explain what’s gone on between then and now) and Kail.

“I’m taking you to the other side of the Outer Rim, closer to the Unknown Regions,” she answered, wondering if that would mean anything at all to her friend. “I have friends there,” she answered, leaving it at that. There would be plenty of time to explain. What she wanted then was to just enjoy her, relax and say nothing like they used to. But it was not to be, Kesare’s eyes landing on the hard durasteel windings of her left arm. (And there was Krius, ruining a good moment even when he wasn’t there.) Matsu let a faint smile drag on to her face, revealing fangs she didn’t have the last time she’d seen Kesare, and tugged at her sleeve, pulling her arm up and out through the neck of the dress to reveal it entirely. As their hands wrap together she finds it isn’t difficult to keep the fierce claws at the end of her hand from digging in to Kesare’s flesh. Her smile softened at how easy it was, even with the replacement, to entwine with her…

She told the story without reservations, not fearing judgment for what had happened to her, not from Kesare.

I thought I was in love.
I followed him.
I told the truth.
I came so close to death I could hear the voices in the Netherworld.

“And you? What happened?" She paused, her voice much quieter when she continued, almost a whisper. “I looked for you everywhere.”

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

Staring down at the orange planet as it grew smaller and smaller she felt a rush of emotions push and pull at her, it was a sweet relief with a mixture of apprehension of what was to come next. She had dreamt of this day for years, wishing harder than anything to find a way to escape from her own personal hell. It hadn't taken her long for her to realize that wishing only came true in fairy tales and everything she’d once believed had been nothing but a lie, her adolescence cut short, forcing her to rapidly mature beyond her years. They were years she would never get back, a life dramatically altered for a reason she still didn't even understand.

There it was again, her excitement blossoming from within and threatening to spill out. She taps down hard on the emotion, not wanting to feel the familiar sting of when expectations didn't meet reality. “I've never been…” She paused, her expression almost thoughtful as the gears in her mind switch on. “What’s it like?” She recognizes how naïve she must sound, how sheltered she must appear with all these years of such limited knowledge of life outside of Ryloth. The realization physically pains her before the anger quickly ebbs it away (she would never forget and she would never forgive those who made her this way, the rage was what fueled her)

It was them against the universe again, just as it had been all those years ago but this time the girl she had once known was gone, replaced by a woman with sharper edges and a haunted look behind her dark gaze. She wanted to know who could have done this to her, who had been able to dig their claws into her flesh and steal a piece of her best friend (some things never changed)

I came so close to death I could hear the voices in the Netherworld.​

​

This time the pain does ease, she feels it everywhere as she looks at Matsu with such sadness and understanding that her body aches as her fingers trace the windings of flesh and steel beneath a gentle touch. “I wish I could kill him.” Her hand drops away from her arm, fingers tightening with a mixture of apprehension and relief. She knew the question was next, knew before the words pooled past Matsu’s lips that it was time for her to tell her of her ugly, ugly, sordid past that was supposed to be left behind but could never be truly forgotten.

“I looked for you everywhere.”​

​

I know because I knew you would. It took years and years but you found me and you saved me when nobody else would. There was no way to repay something like that but she would try by offering her unconditional trust and love. “Men took me in the middle of the night and shuttled me off, I was no more than an animal to them. One day I was a girl and the next day I was a slave. They gave me away to a man, a bad man who did unspeakable things to me and to others. But mostly to me. When he was done with me he cast me off to another man and then another, and then that last man who you saw in all of his glory tonight. That was when you found me. You saved me. And now I want them to suffer, I want them to pay.”

I was innocent
Now I’m broken
Someone did this to me
I need to know why



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] It was strange how now, after fourteen years of separation and the kind of treatment that no one should suffer, there were some things that didn’t change. As Matsu watched the excitement on Kesare’s face at the idea of leaving the edges of Wild Space to blaze a trail to the Fringe she was reminded of the two of them as children. From the moment they’d met they’d been a team and though neither was as hard then as they were now they’d always been the most relaxed, the most true, around each other. The almost-smile Kesare wore just now as she asked what the other side of the Outer Rim was like was only the ghost of the smile Matsu knew she was capable of. They used to walk down the streets of Corvanni together, quiet and scheming, watching others with the steady gaze of little predators hunting things they just wanted. They were like wolves on the streets of their homeworld.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But when they were alone, they laughed so hard they cried – they were safe.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She can feel the sudden surge of anger that flares up when Kesare asks what it’s like outside Ryloth and closes her eyes, drawing in a breath like she were suddenly hit by something beautiful, feasting on the raw emotion. Her eyes were streaked with amber when she opened them, filling in completely as she spoke, bright wild-cat eyes. “It’s freedom Ke. It’s yours now and from this moment on, you can do whatever you want with it. No one will own you again, no one will make you do a fething thing you don’t want to do. You are free, with me, and we’ll take what we want,” she spat, between her eyes and the way her lips curled back over her fangs looking more an animal than human. Anything loose around them was shaking and she had to close her eyes and take a breath, letting the rage sweep out through the top of her skull, her eyes darkening back to black again.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She smiled when Ke mentioned killing Krius.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “He will suffer. Deeply,” she answered, unwilling to spend any more time on him. She’d laid her story out on the table and for now it was over. The final closure was not right at hand for her and she had come to terms with that. Someday she would meet Krius again and give him what he deserved. But she was patient – she was still the predator she’d learned to be while holding Kesare’s hand. It did not have to be right that moment.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But as for Kesare, her vengeance had been too long in the making. Where Matsu had the years ahead of her to let her hate simmer, Kesare’s had been going for years. The anger that she felt then, imagining the things those ‘men’ (for wasn’t the term loose? was it really a man who bought and sold a woman? who bought and sold ANYONE? could such a…creature be called a man? or a dog. a beast.) did to her Kesare…it was worse than rage. It was the slow painting of her insides in a sick nausea – it was the slow, deliberate, dangerous form of her power that only those idiotic or suicidal brought on themselves. It was time to figure out why. And then end it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu reached over to the control panel, letting the ship cruise in to hyperspace, the stars turning in to lines as they truly left Kesare’s old life behind.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]“I know how.”[/SIZE]​

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[SIZE=12pt][member="Kesare Salazar"][/SIZE]​

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[SIZE=12pt]FIN[/SIZE]​