Fringe of My Wits

[Lord Ghoul]

One week of rest.

That was how long Mikhail Shorn had until his next duel in the Tournament of the Cauldron. He spent the first day of it completely submerged in a bacta tank to heal from his injuries. The raven haired man clambered out of the tank as dusk approached. Bacta dripped down his leanly muscled figure and he grimaced at the sickly-sweet smell. He glanced in a mirror and snorted. His skin had a pink and healthy glow to it that he hadn't seen in a while.

The corruption of the Dark Side did a lot to the body and soul. Hundreds of immersions in bacta tanks along with a series of unwanted blasts of Force Light helped to forestall the infection of his flesh, but he could not hold back that affliction. His heart already ran black from the blood of a thousand innocent souls or more. How many had he killed who didn't deserve it? That was what truly haunted him. Not the murder of Senators. Those were greedy idiots. No. What made his sweat run cold at night was the memory of him, standing aboard a shuttle, and slaughtering younglings with the Soulsaber. That weapon had possessed him. He had an excuse, he knew, but he couldn't help remembering that it was his hand that had killed them all. It made him want to retch into a toilet somewhere.

Shorn grimaced and slicked back his raven hair, wet from the bacta. Pale-blue eyes squinted as tentative fingers touched the scar on his side. Diana's blade, Tyrfing, had pierced him there. It was not just a blade of metal, but of the Force. The Lightside had literally burned into him, attempting to purge him of the Dark Side. It had failed, but occasionally the wound acted up and felt like a hot brand pressed against his flesh when he did something... bad. Shorn thought perhaps some of the Lightside must have been trapped inside him. Somewhere in the barren wasteland of his soul he could feel the Light fighting to push out the Dark. For an instant or two it would shine brightly, before being repressed beneath of wave of black. Wherever there was light, there was also shadow. The more powerful the light, the larger the shadow. Even Jedi had their demons. The difference was... Shorn was a coward.

To the outside world, Mikhail presented a mask of nonchalance. Shorn didn't brood. He partied! Yet here, where no one could see him, he furrowed his brow and lost himself in his own thoughts. Mikhail stepped into the shower, a good place for thinking, and let the hot water wash away his cares and worries along with the bacta slime.

When he stepped out he felt a little refreshed, but also sorely in need of a drink. He put on a black dress shirt, buttoned it most of the way up, then got some simple pants and shoes. He exhaled softly. Time to go meet his adoring fans. Rattatak had a lot of them. He was in finals of a galactic wide 'sporting' event after all. The more blood the more people seemed to enjoy it. Triam might have a larger fanbase, but Shorn had all the women wrapped around his finger. Or at least... most of them.

After arriving at the Wits' End bar, Shorn got a few stares from the other bar attendees. He smirked and walked casually up to the bar, ordering a corellian whiskey. Then he started drinking

He fought against many opponents at the tournament, but so far only Jared Ovmar had proven a real challenge. The only one able to even wound him... Jared, whom he had killed. Sort of. The man's body had been collected at the bottom of a chasm. Broken. Yet, the Glory-Song still lived in Shorn's head. Every time he closed his eyes he feared that he would wake up with someone else in control of his body. So, he didn't sleep.

He got another shot and drank. A lot.

[member="Selinica Miriya Cailis"]

 

[Ilias Nytrau]

It was something else. Quite something else, to see a man die that she had only found irritating so recently. It hadn't even been her deepest desire. An irritation was not worth such wishes.

Working side-by-side with an entire cadre of powerful people she didn't kriffing trust had been quite the experience in putting down an awfully frightening-yet-fascinating creature, and pilfering the loot. Ah, pilfering. Now that was a skill in her docket, though not so wanton and unskilled as the word itself might suggest. She was lithe, appropriately cautious, intelligent, seeking the right instance, the right move, applying the right amount of force and... so it seemed, not quite the right amount of Force, as of yet. The badges of contact from that experience still smarted slightly, made her sit up just a little straighter as she took the next neat glass of Corellian whisky.

She'd been drinking that a lot, lately. Oh, how Rhuan would surely have disapproved, she thought, and normally the mere thought of disappointment from this man-long-dead would have been more than enough to make her stop, make her go back to the Mitternacht, and lay in contemplation before sleep took her. Not tonight. There had been too much going on, too many things on which to think. The whisky aided the process of thought without the tentative restraint of sobriety getting in the way, as she thought over what the result of the fight meant. She had seen what this [member="Mikhail Shorn"] could do, what he had done, so pressing and stalwart in his offensive against [member="Jared Ovmar"], so rawly powerful (and power had the strange effect of piquing particular sects of her attention, despite her denials) and had sent the man plummeting to his demise.

She felt bad. Almost. But men died... it happened, for reasons.

But there had been something else. The reaction of the victor after his final act on his opponent had seemed so uncharacteristic, compared to the rest of the exchange. What little she knew of Ovmar had been that he was quite the mentalist. So, then... what had that... well, now formerly irritating man done to the other? This was the question on the mind of the Corellian blonde as she half-covertly watched this aforementioned 'Shorn' from another sector of the Rattatak bar, as if he were a mark. It was partly true, for there seemed to be a certain rough art to him, albeit rather dark.

I should like to have a word with him, she thought, perhaps.

But would she? That was the question. Save for one, men had been an utter detriment to her existence, and she was well aware of the risk of a seemingly innocuous exchange. But what could it really hurt? Besides, the face wasn't so bad to look on. So she watched him, for a time, wondering if he would notice her... not so much staring, but observing. Noting things. The distraction apparent in his demeanour from what had otherwise been pointed focus in his fight, among other things. That was curious.

After a time, with more observation on her end than notice on his, she slipped from her stool and tapped her way over to his end of the bar, and took up a seat to his left that had been recently vacated, settling in gently, delicately, as a lady would. Strange, how some things never quite changed when she wasn't trying.

"It's better to share a whisky, rather than drink it alone." She said, seemingly to no-one in particular, though her eyes drifted sidelong to this 'champion', from behind a half-a-curtain of her long, blonde hair that was - for once - down instead of up. "If you wouldn't mind some company."

 

[Lord Ghoul]

He turned and regarded the woman with unabashedly roving eyes that took her in. All of her. Shorn's stare was piercing and unapologetic. Just like the man. She looked a little older, or maybe that was just the experienced way she carried herself. Mikhail didn't mind. That Corellian accent of hers though... interesting. Why was a Corellian so far from the core? They said the blood of hyperlane travelers ran through the veins of every Corellian. Maybe she just had the bug. But still... there wasn't a whole lot of trade out here. Maybe she was a fan? No, she didn't look very fan girly to him. That way she comported herself... no, he'd mistaken experience for age. Still not complaining. But... Blondes. He wasn't really in the mood for blondes, but Shorn was never not in the mood for women. Especially ones who seemed so fascinated by him. Mikhail, with those weird premonitions of the Force, had felt her staring at him. He sometimes had that effect on women.

The tired, partially drunken Sith Lord turned on the stool, so that he faced the woman. He smirked and winked slowly before taking another sip of his dangerously close-to-empty glass and looking side-long at the countertop. "That depends... on what kind of company you plan on being." Mischievous eyes flicked back to meet the blonde's veiled blues.

@Selena Miriya Cailis

 

[Ilias Nytrau]

It wasn't fascination that made her observe him - rare, it was, that she was so committed to the object of any of her observations... and never so close to obsession, for most levels of fixation left one open to things they would not see coming while under that self-instituted trance. No, it was curiosity, nothing more, and it was aware. Aware that he was more than merely pleasant to look on, and it was likely he knew it. Among other things. She tipped back the last dregs of her glass, and signaled the bartender for another.

"I rarely plan on being anything other than exactly who and what I am," she said, as soon as the refill was obtained, "even in conversation."

She lifted the glass, giving it a sniff before a sip, as she did with the two glasses beforehand. Then a sip, and more words came forth, as she turned her face to him again, a noncommittal smile barely formed on her lips.

"Of course, the kind of company I plan on being depends on the kind of company you are..." Miriya admitted, her glass dangling from fingers and a mostly-limp wrist, up from an elbow on the bar counter. "...and the colour and course of the conversation."

Her smile became a little larger, and she met his eyes.

"In fewer words - talk to me, and find out."

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]