Private Gimme Shelter

[Kalporra Djacq]

Nondescript Alleyway,
O'reen
Oran Shule​

He didn't realize he had a shadow as he walked off the main cobbled avenue.

But not because Kalporra was being exceedingly sneaky either. He wasn't paying much of any sort of attention, even half-assed; almost tripped over a tile jacked up by night after night of salt crystallization. More of the same features littered the alley's walkway. Of course the local government -- if one could even call it that with a straight face -- wouldn't have bothered with fixing such hazards. They counted on their citizens to practices common sense instead, and pay attention.

But she didn't. At least not now. Normally she did, enjoyed the bolstered challenge of hunting prey that knew it was caught in a serial killer's trap, but she didn't find herself thinking that way now. She just needed a kill. She had been jonesing bad since, well, probably her apprehension on Christophsis. Training with and killing for the Knights Obsidian had tided her over for some time, but the truce hadn't lasted. Oh well. She didn't have to hold herself back anymore. Even better, she didn't have to pretend there was an ounce of good hidden within her hollow heart.

Kal unwrapped the garotte from her forearm. She had made it from a section of her old lightwhip and some extra parts. No blood, but plenty of burns, and that paired with lack of messy cleanup easily made up for such a drawback.

When the man turned a corner, she reached out around it with the Force. Empty besides him. No witnesses. Good. With an energetic rush, she was behind him. A kick to the back of his knees brougt him down to her level. She caught his fall -- how nice -- by wrapping the garrote around his throat. But then she hesitated to activate it's plasma coating.

Yeah, nah.

She wanted blood today.

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

A walk around town steadied his nerves.

Not the anxious ones, no, the literal ones.

Neurons firing from brain to nerve to muscle in concerted action. They were overstimulated, but that's what happens when you overindulge in the Darkside while trying to summon something from the other side. No success yet. It would come, yes, yes. It would just take some more time and maybe a few more walks around tow-

He paused in the middle of the road.

There was an undertow suddenly. Hair on skin rising up just ever so slightly. Oran closed his eyes... and let his legs do the walking. He could feel how his body turned a corner. Then another. Then a straight line. Down. Pause.....

Breathing.

Gurgle.

Oran opened his eyes to a strange scene. A woman hanging over a collapsed man. Trying to help? Oh, no, not at all. The sharp line trickling blood between her hands confirmed that already.

"You know." Oran said, almost with a whisper of reverence. "That's not the best way to draw blood. A knife is more helpful." With a summon his own knife left its sheath and landed in his hand. The edge sharp enough to cut with a glance. At the very least it looked like the part. "See? Honed to perfection, it's better." Nodding there with a thin smile.

This was most likely one of the weirdest things happening on O'reen right now.

A serial killer being advised about their killing method.

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

Panting. And the breathless kind of laughing. Almost as if she had been helping that man in a very specific manner.

She looked up from his bleeding-out body as someone's voice came. She might have thought for a moment that it was the Force likewise leeching away from him, but surely not as she processed what was being said.

"I'm not sorry--" she began, voice quiet and cool. She had met a handful of different cops over the span of her career; running the gambit from goodie-two-shoes to almost, almost as nasty as her; but never once one keen on giving her trade secrets. In fact, they normally wanted those from here, just not to join in on the fun.

Kal stooped to the cooling corpse and took hold of one of the lapels of his jacket. She paused to give her weapon a good wipe down with it and catch her breath. "--but who the hell are you?" The garrote was slid back under her sleeve, almost entirely clean.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

A tilt of his head there.

"Of course you are not sorry, why would you be?" Curious tone there as he watched her movements carefully. Oran was eccentric, yes, but he was not suicidal. The fact that she just murdered a man right before his eyes was not lost on him. The fact that she could turn that garrote onto him? No, he didn't miss that chance either.

When it became clear that Kalporra wasn't taking the offered knife to hone her craft further Oran sighed. Then resheathed the knife once more.

"Oh. Me?" Brows furrowed and then the odd man smiled. "Oran Shule. Hi." A little wave accompanied that wave. Finally there he leaned against the wall, his eyes sliding away from her towards the corpse.

"Hm. But I assume you weren't asking about the name so much as what I do."

He bit down on the inside of his cheek, until teeth cut blood.

The taste was metallic as it always was.

His fingers twitched in the direction of the corpse as he muttered an incantation. In response to the finger twitch? The body began to twitch too. "I am someone who gathers knowledge." Oran paused there. No, that wasn't quite right. He hadn't been part of the Blackguards for quite some time now. Did they even know he left their charge?

Or did they assume he had died since his last report all those years ago?

"But right now I am looking at a budding new talent. Did this man do something to you? Or did you simply enjoy ending his life?" A remarkable recovery from his previous hesitance. And the tone itself was simply curious, no deepened judgement there, no sir.

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

She didn't offer her own name. Just as she hadn't taken his knife. She wanted nothing to do with this oddly charming man, not even as a next victim, though he had had the gall to walk in on her with two fething cents. In fact, she was about to refute his assumption of her desire to know what he did to keep himself busy, when --

The body moved, but Kal suppressed the impulse to as well. She couldn't help but make a face betraying disgust at it before shifting its theme to confusion and focus to Oran. That was a trick very emphatically not up the Confederacy's sleeve. Though shocked and somewhat scared, she felt compelled to answer his question:

"Latter. It's not about the best way. It's about the...outcome." Horror, then death. "And I like getting to it this way." She motioned to the sleeve hiding her garrote. "The concern's really sweet though. Be my alibi if the cops come asking, eh, babe?"

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

She was an odd one.

He could smell the fear on her skin and yet the bravado wasn't fake. It was as if she was wearing a suit of meat around herself. Both people real in the moment and also not. Curious. It almost made him curious about trying the knife on her. Except, he had to remind himself, that it was not part of his usual proclivities.

This was something Oran had to be careful about.

Joining the Brotherhood of the Maw was one thing, but merging entirely with their state of mind was dangerous. His mind was already unstable and malleable. It would not do to lean over too far into their bloody direction.

"I see. Okay." A shrug there. "I do not argue with methods, they are deeply personal, are they not?" He tried another smile at her, but his attention was still drawn to the corpse.

Another twitch of Oran's fingers.

Now? It crawled up to its knees.

"Hm. Cops? They do not talk- or ask anything of me, ma'am. They are creeped out by me. I think." He chuckled there at the thought, before drawing out a cigarette. "Do you smoke? I smoke. It keeps me steady. Anyway. Um." Lighting it up with a flick of his fingers as a spark of ember left his skin. There were good things about being his species.

"Right, anyway. Do you want a higher purpose? Lots of bloody bodies along the way." A gesture of his head towards the corpse. "That horror pales to the mare that I can summon for you."

Kalporra Djacq

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

No, she didn't smoke. For as many risks to die young as she already took, she wasn't one to heap the pile high. There was no reason to live too fast. The irony wasn't exactly lost on her; she just didn't care.

". . .Do you want a higher purpose?. . ."

Oh. Oh no. It was happening all over again. Caught red-handed. Offered a deal with promises of death count as bait -- just by a single man now rather than a purple posse. But how she wanted it. An addict was an addict. It was nigh on impossible for one to act in their own better instincts when a high presented itself, and she was intrigued by this one. Still:

"I sense some strings," she replied. No yes or no, not yet. "And I don't like strings."

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

That smile broadened to show teeth stained by an overabundance of cigarettes, coffee and carrots.

The almighty three C's.

He already felt it in the air. Her interest. Palpable in the air, if he leaned in and opened his mouth the texture would taste like sticky oil with a trace of ricin. You couldn't go wrong with an addict. Be that cigarettes, narcotics or in this particular situation: murder. Bloody cold murder. Personally Oran didn't go in for it.

At least he tried to ignore the induction the Maw's affiliation was having on his tastes.

But she'd be perfect for their goals, if she could leave the concept of strings behind.

"Strings? No, I wouldn't say that, no." A hum there as he drew deeper from his cigarette and reached out to pet the head of the corpse settling itself on its hands and knees for him. Another twitch of his fingers. It rolled on its back like a dog. "That's a good boy." Murmured with the hint of approval it so desperately craved.

"Ropes. Made out of steel and chain, yes. But look at me. I work with the Maw- do I seem strung up or tied to do something I don't want to do?" His eyes gleamed and reflected the burning ember of his cigarette.

A mad man, but surprisingly steady in his hand.

"We move against the Galaxy, ma'am, we summon the fire to burn it all." Oran blinked and then chuckled at himself for the theatrics. "Better put- the Brotherhood of the Maw wants to destroy and enslave everything in its path." Another pat of the corpse's hair. "You can murder with impunity. No cop or detective to stop you from taking whoever you want."

The tone was surprisingly conversational. As if he wasn't talking about bloody genocide.

"The rope? Don't insult their beliefs. They are kinda crazy." As if he wasn't, but that was the mad man's curse, no? Easy to identify madness in others while feeling perfectly sane himself. "Abide by their religion. In return? We can teach you so much." A third pat of the head... and this time? The corpse gurgled out in pain as that last touch transferred heat.

It washed over its body as it began to twitch, while being incinerated.

"What's your name, Lady Killer Queen? Tell me and together we can paint a beautiful picture."

Kalporra Djacq

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

Kalporra set her jaw, canted her head. Her eyes flitted down to the corpse as it played dog. Force, was that in her cards too, somewhere amongst the ropes of steel and chain? She contained the first wave of a shiver, but then the corpse gave its second death rattle.

Temperature bubbled at its skin, turning tan red and red black. Green eyes still clear of pallor mortis stared at her all the while, a challenge she help with furrowed brow until another gasp came. She spotted his larynx moving through the grove she had cut around his throat--

It.

It.

Feth, it, Kal.

--the cartilage seemed about to tumble from its skin, but at the last moment something else came. Flames. Smoke, heavy and dark with flesh and offal. The air warped with radiating heat. Trickles of blood still oozing from the corpse's throat caramelized, then burnt. But, other that the twitching, and the gurgle more the sound of settling than pain, it didn't seem to mind. There was something -- no, everything -- absolutely uncanny about that. It looked yet alive. It acted yet alive. But it wasn't alive. No real life, not even the fake chit, flickered across its face to drain off into the night. Rather, just fire and fleeting magic.

Her kind of fun was nowhere to be found it that, but something was.

Another wave of shiver overcame, bursting from her skin in similar matter -- as violent , but not quite deadly. It worked through her torso, wormed up her neck, and squeezed. She likewise held her throat, as if barring herself from the same fate, as she turned away. Too quick. Her head suddenly swam with all the adrenaline that had pooled in her feet and rooted her in conversation, causing what would have been a nasty tumble if she hadn't been able to break the fall. It wasn't graceful by any stretch of the word, but neither was the dry heave that followed.

Saliva looked out of place not out-of-body but on the exceedingly dry, dusty pavement.

Goosebumps rose on her goosebumps under the leather of her jacket though the natural heat of O'reen was nearly unbearable, but now doubly so compounding the unnatural heat of...whatever fething fresh hell was behind her.

"Gods...!" Kal sputtered before wiping at her lower lip with the back of her hand.

This was most likely one of the weirdest things happening on O'reen right now.

A serial killer being advised about their killing method.

Right, one of, because without a godsdamned doubt the weirdest thing happening on O'reen right now was a serial killer's stomach turning inside out. It'd take a madman like him to misconstrue her discomfort for excitement. She was killer, yes, and something was very broken in her head in that regard, but her fantasies apparently stopped far short of his. Life, real vitality, drained from a face but once - right before the first death. That was the drug this addict was after, not Oran's cut chit.

Still, perhaps he could teach her to acquire the taste. Maybe it was worse, but maybe it was better. As long as the latter was a possibility, she had to find out.

Game on, Magician.

She unfolded herself out of her fall and turned around to face Oran again. Another wipe of her lip. Complete eye contact. Down in the bottom of her peripherals, the corpse was laid once again in a pile of blood it took so long to lose. "Tell you later." Late introductions were kind of her thing, after all. “Any place serve ‘za around? Always helps me think.” If so, she'd take pepperoni.

Yes, pepperoni.

Always pepperoni.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

Now that was not a reaction he had seen coming.

Brows rose up in surprise as she stumbled - his arm extending to catch her coming too late - and began the process of dry-heaving spittle. It was most definitely not what he had been expecting.

"Um."

He watched the burning bubbling corpse near them.

Maybe it was too much?

Well, apparently it had been too much. Otherwise she wouldn't be on her hands and knees right now. Still, it surprised Oran, because he had assumed that a serial killer (assumption, but the dispassionate way she had just offed this guy made it seem likely) wouldn't be so... edgy about it. That only revealed Oran's own demention, of course.

Even killers had boundaries.

But Oran had stared into the abyss. So to speak. It left him changed, less concerned about displays like this.

"Well- pizza? Yeah, I guess." Extending a hand for her to pull herself up again. "I know a place. But." He gestured lightly at the corpse. "You really want to eat after that?"

After that and THEN heaving all the air up out of her lungs, to be specific. If she reacted in the affirmative, Oran would offer his elbow for her to take, before casually milling their way out of the dark alleyway. Back into the main streets of the city. Out here... nobody knew what had just transpired. It was enough to make a man jaded.

Even with great evil among them... the common man walks on, uncaring and unknowing.

"So, did that man back there do you harm? Or do you just enjoy to kill random people." And there was not even a hint of judgement.

Just naked curiosity.

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

She nodded, cementing her desire to eat, but said nothing. Instead she stepped around the corpse without giving it another look and took delicate hold around Oran's elbow with a practiced poise. As the shadows of the alley drained from her face when the moved back onto mainstreet, so too did all of the emotions the events they left behind step by step.

"Let's just say they're random people," she answered. Wordsmithing. Just enough nice, just enough vague. The statement wasn't true, but also wasn't false. She didn't know them after all--well, not in a matter of speaking. It depended on how one would define that term. If Oran wasn't going to be precise, she'd naturally have to rely on her definition.

She hadn't known her victim, any of them, personally.

By reputation was entirely different. Everyone not knew everyone important by reputation. Therefore, it. Didn't. Count.

"And you?" she asked without looking at him. Eyes only ahead. As if he was what he had raised just to put back down. "Why do you...do what you do?" Her voice was about as impartial as his, but the insinuation was clothed with all the judgement it had shed.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

Was it better or worse that they were random people?

Oran wasn't sure.

Or maybe it didn't matter whatsoever. Wouldn't they all be dead anyway soon enough? 20 years, 50, a hundred, two hundred... or right now. Was there really any difference, besides the passing of time, which was an artificial construct so thin that it might as well be meaningless?

"Let's just say that then." He murmured in acceptance as he guided them to a little pizzaria hidden in a nook. This one was often frequented by the likes of him and people like him. So they already knew to guide him to a corner that was partially shadowed and with a wall against his back. Near a close exit just because his nerves needed one.

"Me?"

As he sat down and shrugged off the coat Oran clearly blinked in surprise.

A question that he hadn't even considered worth answering, but here they were. "The Galaxy is dying. Time flows ever quicker. The Dead rise again and the Spirits are restless." Not his words, quoting something or someone at the very least.

"I was a scholar once. I... collected knowledge. Until I was shown that what I did, did not matter at all. In the grand scheme of things it was just the automated gestures of someone's dying experience." He tapped his head there gently. "If living is suffering, then being good means ending that suffering as fast as possible to as many as possible."

He accepted the pizza slice already put in front of him - Oran didn't have to order, they knew what he liked.

"That's just bullshit, really, I do what I do because I need guidance. Because I like to be at the center of activity.... and if the Galaxy is ending, you might as well march into the Maw with opened eyes and a clear conscious. Why worry, why feel guilt."

His hand tapped the table and a flame sprout between the wooden planks... without catching them on fire.

"Why not just embrace the flame and enjoy the time that's left. Isn't that the only way to turn suffering into pleasure?"

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

Hmmm.

Kal wasn't one for philosophy, at least not for discussing them, but she had to admit she had opened this door. The only questions remaining in her head was where was the window in this place and how might she best shimmy her fine way out of it. She had her own guiding light of course; the bulb had just blinked on one day and she had been chasing its light ever since. Why debate a thought process when all one really had to do, if they had the stomach for it, was kill in the name?

In the time it took to listen to her unlikely companion, Kal waved down a waitress for a slice of what she had expressed a strange taste for in the alley. But when her plate arrived, all she did for a long while was pick at the bubbled crust.

Nervous? Uncomfortable? Fearful? Or simply idle?

Thoughtful.

If she pretended to ascribe to Oran's philosophy, then maybe in a way hers would be better off. Better posed to complete its mission.

"I guess," she said through a hesitation she didn't try to mask but could have easily. This conversion had to be perfect. Seem completely natural. Like a baby learning slowly but surely to walk. "Makes some sense."

Only then did she flick down the bits of yeasty bread she had been gathering up in her palm and took a proper bite.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

Oran didn't believe her.

But perhaps crucially he did not... not believe her either. It was a state of mild apathy that suffused him. It was why his offers for her in the alley had been so simple, basic and born in flesh.

Follow us and we give you power, the ability to kill and freedom from consequences.

"Does it? That's good. Maybe I will write it down and sing it like gospel one day." Oran said amused, while tearing a chunk of pizza off with bright white teeth and swallowing it after a few hearty chomps.

"I don't care if you believe, murder queen. For all my care you can be the most optimistic, life-loving creature in this place." A shrug accompanied that unlikely event. He tapped his pizza and it sizzled just a little bit more. Crispier, yes, that was better. Frankly, Oran didn't think too highly of Kalporra anyway, because senseless murder wasn't exactly his forte.

But.

The Maw would enjoy her gifts and that was what mattered.

"As long as you use your gifts to bring chaos into this Galaxy? You can do as you wish. Believe what you will. I am not a zealot. Unless one can be zealous about believing absolutely nothing at all."

Those eyes with a fire dancing in them glanced at her.

"Do we understand each other?"

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

'Chaos'.

Word chosen like none of this--what her garrote reaped--was worth nothing at all.

'Believe what you will'.

Really. Okay, but really unlikely he'd remain in this apathetic stance for long after she really showed her hand.

Kal swallowed a bite of pizza instead of sighing. To say that insinuation, of everything that had conspired between these two, had offended her would be a terse understatement. And so too would be counting Oran Shule lucky because none of her kills were truly random. On the contrary, each was a means to an end, one that an ex-scholar-turned-necromancer didn't--couldn't, even--fulfill.

Thus, not a drop of blood would hasten from his veins for her artistry.

"We do." Another half lie. She clung to the smiling truth, which reflected in her face. "Murder queen's nice an' all, but the name's Kalporra Djacq. D-j-a-c-q." Short for the noble family she had left behind long ago on Christophsis--House Jacqueline--with a little creative spelling license. "My friends call me Kal." She winked. "Feel free to count yourself among them, Mr. Shule."

This murderess indeed brandished an unsightly edge to her character.

It'd be dangerous to call her out on it, though.

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

"Murder Queen is not your name, it is the essence of your being, no?" He said nonchalantly over his slice of pizza, while studying her and the reactions she made.

People... were strange to him.

The way they acted, the things they did or said, he didn't truly understand them.

Fascinating? Somewhat. Distracting? Most definitely.

"But, Kalporra Djacq." Nodding there as he let the name roll off his tongue in an easy fashion. "Is a good name. Strong." Finally however, the strange scholar slash man did smile at the last thing she said. Friend. Once upon a time the man he was had friends. He couldn't even remember their names now.

Could Kal be a friend to him?

"Very well, Kal then." Oran doubted that very much. But... the illusion was nice nonetheless and perhaps that was all that mattered. "Do you have your own ship? If not, then you can travel with me. It must be... an... upgrade over traveling on cargo haulers and such."

As if Oran hadn't done the same years ago. It wasn't like the Blackguard had a stipend for transit. Back then he had to smuggle himself everywhere, sometimes on haulers, other times stashed away on freighters. There had been zero comfort. Even though Oran would claim that he didn't care about comfort... somehow he hadn't refused the personal ship.

With one more push Oran finished his slice and sighed in contentness.

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

She didn't have her own ship, and said so.

She didn't know why, on either count.

Maybe sneaking on board strangers' starships, where the burden to deciding where to go, landed squarely on them was easier.

And maybe she was trying to pull Oran in, get him to trust her. Be her friend.

Having taken back up a perch at his elbow, Kal asked as they exited the pizzeria, thoughts thoroughly jumpstarted, "You mentioned travel. Where to?" No matter the place, she was sure she would find something to do worth her time. From Christophsis to Kabal to Enos, she always had.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

"Mm, Rhand, holy world of the Maw. Where we will formally induct you... and make you untouchable within the territories of the Brotherhood." Sweetening the deal, because Oran had the distinct feeling of reprehension from Kalporra, regardless of all her sweet little words. As mentioned before, humans were odd to him.

This path would lead her to as much killing as she would ever want.

Who cared who she had to serve alongside that?

Freedom... was a construct, artificial and fake, if you took long enough to study its constraints.

"You have nothing to worry about, Kal. We are friends remember?" Using her own words against her there with a knowing smile. "You are under my protection and will remain so."

He awkwardly tapped her hand there. It seemed to be a movement to put her at ease, but it was quite clear that Oran had little practice in those sort of matters. In fact, she wouldn't have a difficult time sussing out that he felt uncomfortable with people in general. It was the way his eyes always slid away from a direct gaze for more than a few long seconds.

At the very least Oran was trying.

Which was more than you could say about a lot of people.

"I will also test you, to see if you have any potential in the Force. If so I will train you how to use it. That is exciting, isn't it?"

 

[Kalporra Djacq]

"Hmm," hummed along idle interest. Rhand. She wasn't familiar. What she was familiar with--all too well--was induction. Whether that included limitation or freedom of course mattered, but didn't stand to change the switch from cold autonomy to warmer loyalty. The Confederate Knights Obsidian fell into category one. Perhaps the Brotherhood would do Kalporra better.

Oh oh oh, it would.

Her interest grew when he mentioned how swearing to the Maw would make her untouchable within its cloud of influence. That had great potential. A boon to her shrouded plans. She planned to take full advantage of the benefit overall, but also Oran's overtly personal half of the promise specifically. Contrary to his and somewhat popular belief too, she didn't want as much killing as she could get away with, but she did want to get away with it. Needed to, even, if her carefully-selected victims were to bleed out more than their blood.

Change, meaningful and sweeping.

Murder, though, was the path that would lead civilization there, just as it was the last venue open to her. Of course she had gotten used to it. Good at it.

"I will also test you, to see if you have any potential in the Force. If so I will train you how to use it. That is exciting, isn't it?"

That was a word for it, sure.

But, "Oh," she interjected. "I'll save you some time. I have a proclivity and have already had some training." Kal paused speaking to gnaw at the inside of her cheek, anticipating a possible response. "It was rather imposed upon me, hence why I tend not to use it."

They had already established that her methods were her own anyway.

Oran Shule

 

[Oran Shule]

Kalporra Djacq

He blinked there at that.

It wasn't very usual for people to come with existing force training. This did pique his interest ever so slightly. Maybe there was more to Kalporra than the aimless killing she seemed so fond of. Oran made a mental note to himself- not to judge so quickly, that was probably a good venture for the future as well.

"Some training, huh, I see." Studying her with interest there. "And who imposed on you this sort of knowledge, Kal?"

There was purpose behind the usage of her name like that. The shortened version which she herself had said only her friends used. And friends didn't have many secrets between them, yes? So, if they were friends she wouldn't mind sharing that information, right? In a way it was a challenge of the sort to her. To see how she'd respond and in what shape her lies would come.

The smile that accompanied hinted at that.

The suggestion of a test, if not of something more. Truthfully Oran was simply curious as well. Whoever trained her would offer a hint to what sort of person she might have been in the past.

This could be useful for the present and the future as well.