Chrysalis

[Kuzo]

After a moment, she shifted. Not away. Instead to settle her back against his side, drawing legs up onto the couch, curled slightly there. More of her weight settled against him than it had before, and she let out a slight sigh, as if surprised by how nice it felt.

"Um, actually, kind of mundane. At first anyway," she admitted.

"An infochat I'd been working with tipped me off to her facilities here. He cautioned me to not contact her, but I was following *any* thread I could that might lead me to a solution to Gideon."

Any thread had ended up being what brought her to Panatha as well. To the First Order.

"Fortunately, this one turned out better than the others. Anyway.... we both pretended we weren't keeping secrets, she showed me her labs, we discussed cause of death on an autopsy and then she brought his brain back to life- less, I suspect now, because she needed to, but because she wanted to see just how I would react. We both surprised each other that day. I stayed and, I guess in her way, she was glad that I did."

There was no inflection there, no self recrimination or bitterness. There wasn't a place for it right then. She continued quietly, gaze and voice distant, but the line of her back warm against his side.

"I figured out.... not long ago..... that I was grateful to Gideon. Not that I was glad of the fact of it. But I made a certain peace with it before.... well..... I learned things, about the galaxy, about myself, that I never would have found otherwise. "

Tilting her head back, she leaned slightly in the same direction, peering up at him upside down. An echo of the night they had met.

"Met people I wouldn't have met otherwise."

Like you.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Carach]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

He closed his eyes as he let himself slip into the soft cadence of her words, experiencing the tale as it was spun in front of him.

Matsu had been in his... life for years, decades, and it felt even more than that, whilst Raj? Only a single year, but that year had been filled with turmoil, chaos, so many situations turning into one another and leaving the Sith wondering about his place in it all. In the end there was one thing that he knew for certain: within the span of a single year Raj had somehow managed to gain a place in his life that few others could claim.

Not by pushing, forcing, cutting things out to leave more room for herself.

No, by simply taking up the place that was granted to her and the more place was given to her? The easier it became to give even more farther down the line.

"Met people I wouldn't have met otherwise."

Like you.

Twin disks of amber revealed themselves once more at the brush of her mind against his. He could almost taste those last few unspoken words shared against his consciousness. Looking down her attention was solely focused on him and Carach carefully brushed a few strands away, finding purchase against her cheek before leaning in and burning a kiss against her head. His presence enveloped her, an embrace of a more intimate sort.

More answer than words ever could relay.

And I met you.

"I remember when... I met Matsu for the first time." Carach hummed softly, shifting his own weight to accommodate her press against his body, until they fit snugly and without issue. "It was at a bar," The smirk played signified that he realized just how cliche and obvious that was (but of course you met the beautiful woman at a bar and from there it devolved to here). "See was looking for purpose back then, still young, but full of power and promise."

"I was bolder back then, I showed her pain, showed her power and in the end I taught her everything I knew." There was clear pride radiating from him now.

Matsu had come far since the days of his tutelage.

He eyed her again. "You remind me of her," Hand slipped past, downward her side and brushed against her. "And I am eager to see what you make of yourself."

 

[Kuzo]

"That is high praise indeed," she murmured softly.

Her fingertips moved idly against the back of his hand, as if tracing letters in a language neither of them spoke, but had the potential to learn.

To say that Irajah thought highly of [member="Matsu Xiangu"] would be like saying the Maw was a brown dwarf. There was no worship there, not the love of a supplicant to a deity, bright and terrible and unreachable. But the warmth of a shared strangeness that defied definition. Despite the fact that Matsu could crush her like an insect at a glance, she never treated Irajah as lesser. And while it would be easier to fall on her knees and tremble, she had always in turn treated Matsu as human.

That did not, however, preclude the deep affection and respect Irajah had for the other woman. If anything those things were inexorably tied to each other.

"You are one of the boldest people I know," she offered, finger tips tracing up his arm and back down again. "The idea of you being much bolder is frankly exhausting."

A ghost of a smile flickered over her lips. She was teasing him.

"There was so much driving me before," she mused. "And in a moment.... none of it mattered anymore. But I can also see just how little so much of it meant. Gideon. The Zambranos. I'm not thinking much beyond here...." this moment. "I want to focus on finding out just what I can do, unrestrained by Gideon.... and then....."

And then. She trailed off because at least right now, the and then seemed too far away. But it was there, and she marked it carefully against the future.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Carach]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

The hint of a smirk curled up.

He had been young once - implying he was old now - so perhaps it was more accurate to say that he had been younger once. The fire burning bright in his chest, adrenaline raising up through his veins and the storm barely calmed around him, he had taken risks, made insane choices and caused the Galaxy to move into new directions by the force of his will. But none of that had truly mattered at the end of the day, had it?

It was that realization: that ten years later the Galaxy was still the same and unchanged, that made him realize his actions didn't have the kind of influence he had always been so proud of.

"And then we enjoy life... while taking what is rightfully ours." Carach finished for her. Oh, it probably wasn't what she wanted to say, the cold thoughts breathing out of her spoke of frost vengeance and retribution, but there was enough time to talk about those ends later.

The Sith stretched slightly, letting the bones groan as a long, long, long day was finally coming to an end. "I don't think I have properly sat down and relaxed like this, since your death."

The musing came with some amusement and a touch of tension.

 

[Kuzo]

We. Ours.

While she didn't feel any particular way about it (yet), this was a noticeable shift from the way he'd spoken in the past. Emotionally numb did not translate into mental dullness, and she set it aside again to turn over later.

Rightfully ours.

That one she did mull over, quiet after he'd spoke. Over the last year, her views on that had shifted dramatically, though she had never really considered them in that light before. Everything that had happened, even before the Netherworld, had hardened something within her. Going from everyone deserves certain rights and needs, to no one deserves anything, to you only deserve what you can earn for yourself..... But always shifting, never applied fully across the board to everyone at all times. She'd picked and chosen, deciding on what seemed like a whim who was worthy and who was not, balanced on a moral scale that she could barely remember. There was a jagged hole there, and it made looking back at those decisions difficult because she was missing the context of why she had sometimes chosen the way she had.

She was listening with half of her attention when he spoke again, but that shifted in a snap when the tension shifted into his words.

Irajah sat up slowly, shifting around so she could properly look at him, rather than simply relying on his tone. She needed so see his face, whatever was lurking behind those amber eyes.

"I can't apologize for what happened," she said quietly. "But I am sorry it.... disrupted..... you."

She'd turned over the words 'upset' and 'worried' instead, but she realized she didn't really know.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Carach]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Carach looked down with confusion, before shaking his head in amusement.

"Just like you to apologize after you literally died." Then the glint in his eye hardened as he sought to explain. There was confusion radiating from her as well, started from the very moment he began talking and it had only been increasing over and over again. Peaking every time that he used... different kind of words to refer to them, than he usually would have. But Carach noticed that she didn't clarify, didn't correct, didn't pull away at any of those moments.

"It's not an apology I am after, Raj, especially not from you."

No, it was something entirely else that the Sith wanted, echoing the desire that she had been ready to voice, before he diverted her away from it in that moment.

It didn't matter that he had grown older.

Wiser.

More patient.

What mattered was that a couple of revelations had hit him after her death, which caused him to take another long look at himself.

 

[Kuzo]

"Just like you to apologize after you literally died."​

The comment and his amusement brought a small frown to her face. The sensation of confusion was underlaid with a particular vexation with him right now. Not because he was doing anything that was actually specifically annoying, but because he was acting weird. Not as strange, perhaps as the change in her- his was more subtle, but something had changed for him after what had happened, but she couldn't read his mind. Didn't know what it was. She was just seeing the result and she didn't really know what to do with it.

The distance and chill didn't mean she didn't remember. And her own trauma wasn't enough to erase her ability to see a change in others.

"Then what are you after?"

She asked it slowly. In truth, she wasn't sure that was the question she really meant to ask. But it was the only one she could ask in that moment. She had an idea of what he would say.... because it was what she intended as well.

To see Samka brought as low as she had brought her, and then....

To bury her.

But there was something else he wanted now. Something that in itself had nothing to do with her death excepting as the catalyst. Really, from his shift in vocabulary, the subtle shift in other ways- Do you want this? - She already knew. She just didn't know if she wanted to hear him say it or not.

Not yet.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Carach]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

It was that hesitation in her psyche that made him less direct than he usually was.

Now was not the time, the Sith told him himself, not after she had just died, resurrected and was only finding her way within the Galaxy again. To put that weight on her shoulders now, of what he was thinking, considering? It wasn't fair, not with so much going on. Later, Carach told himself, later when her feet were back on the ground and she was more herself.

Anything else would be selfish now.

But aren't you the selfish one.... always? Why stop now? Why not take what you can now? Because Carach did not want to rush this- she asked a question. The Sith retraced their steps and then a firmness settled across his features.

"Her in pieces before us." Begging in agony and pain, before extending her suffering into eternity. That was what happened to those that crossed them; not just Raj, not just Carach. But all of them, Matsu, Reverance, Aver and the two of them. It was as much about sending a message as it was about visiting revenge on the few ones that rose against them.

"This will be your vengeance, but if you wish? I will be there to assist, every step of the way."

 

[Kuzo]

She could do it without him. Insecurity in what she was capable of outside of a lab had been burned away with so much else in the Netherworld. There wasn't room for it, the extra baggage pulled through the desert, unbalancing her on razor edged bridges, weighing her down on the mountain of the Shrike. It had been shed, piece by piece in that journey, unneeded and undesired. There was no doubt in either of them that her decision to come with him now, to let him help her, was no longer because she needed it.

Irajah was here entirely because she wanted to be so.

Even encased in a thin layer of ice, that much was clear. And somewhere along the way, perhaps realized first by [member="Carach"] or perhaps by her, it had changed a dynamic between them.

But only for the better.

She nodded, not really needing words to confirm what he said. Sometimes talking wasn't needed. They both knew that she had to recover- she could not work like this. Someone else, perhaps, but not her. She needed to explore the expanses of what Gideon had suppressed, relearn muscle memory lost in the transition. And find a way to melt the ice beyond just moments in his arms. While those were good, neither of them was foolish enough to think that it was enough.

Not for her. Not for them.

Her eyes cast from his down to his mouth. Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his. Looking for the warmth, the fire. Looking for more.

That would always be the point, really, for them. Never enough.