Private Hazy Neon Lights

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: NecroStache​

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[Darth Morveth]

Tag: Meya Liefi ​

The city's pulse was a dull thing to him. It was mechanical, restless and without spirit. It press in on the senses like a cage built of light and sound but beneath it... beneath it there were other currents. Older. Stranger. He had followed one of those currents here, not by chance, not by idle curiosity.

Morveth stood where the rooftop broke into shadow, rain gathering along the edges of his form and slipping soundlessly away. He had tracked the disturbences through the Force across districts and heights, through layers of lesser minds and weaker signatures, until it resolved into something singular.

Her. Not merely strong. Wrong, in the way old things were wrong. He had heard whispers before this night. Fragments carried in the undercurrents of Sith space, in half-spoken warnings and the quiet interest of those who dealt in knowledge best left buried. A woman who did not belong to any Order. One who did not seek power int he ways they taught, but unearthed it. Took it. Kept it.

That alone had been enough, so he came, and now he watched. The man died as Morveth expected he would - without dignity, without resistance worth memory. His attention never left her, not even as the body struck the rooftop and lay broken in the rain.

When she spoke, he did not answer at once. He let the silence live. Let it stretch between them like a drawn blade neither had yet chosen to wield. Then, at last, he stepped forward. Not in some dramatic reveal, but simply because he no longer had reason to remain unseen. The shadows released him without protest. Rain traced the lines of his wrapped tunic, dark cloth clinging in places before falling still again. He stopped well short of her. Distance, for now, was appropriate.

"You already know the answer." Morveth said, his voice low, steady. "Or close enough to it."

His gaze held her, not challengingly, not submissively, but measuring.

"You've left a trail." He continued. "Not carelessly. Not like others... but it is there."

A faint shift of his head indicated the corpse without granting it true attention and then he took another step, not closing the distance, but testing it.

"It doesn't behave like power taught in halls or beaten into acolytes until they forget what they are. It reaches. It searches."

There was no disdain in the words, only fact. His eyes narrowed in recognition. The Force stirred faintly around him, not a display or threat. Something older in its posture. Grounded. Watching as much as it pressed.

"I wanted to see if the stories were exaggeration... They aren't."

The rain thickened for a moment, tapping softly against stone and fabric alike. Morveth did not move. He stood as though it were nothing more than distant noise.

"You felt me watching and you did not stop. You did not turn. You finished what you were doing. That is why I am here."

The words didn't carry approval, not quite, but they lingered close enough to be felt. Another breath of silence. Then, more plainly.

"I sought you out.... because whatever path you walk it does not come from them and I would know what it becomes."

He tilted his head faintly, studying her as one might study something half-buried and newly uncovered.

 

[Meya Liefi]

x

 

[Darth Morveth]

Tag: Meya Liefi
​

Rain thickened between them, a veil drawn thin but unbroken, each drop catching what little light the city bled upward. Morveth did not wipe it from his face, he let it fall, let it mark the stillness of him. She turned fully now. Good. There was no flinch in her. No wasted motion. He watched the minute shift of her footing, the tightening line of her shoulders. Not fear. Not even hostility. Calculation.

His gaze lingered there, not on her mask, but on the shape beneath it. The intent that moved her rather than the surface she presented. When she spoke, he listened without interruption. There was a familiar rhythm to her words. The same quiet separation from the structures other clung to. The same dismissal of the petty cycles that consumed the Order and all its lessor imitators. Morveth did not answer immediately. Instead, he took another step forward, not closing the distance fully but enough that the space between them felt chosen now.

"Distraction." He repeated, as if testing the word for weight. A faint breath left him, not quite amusement. "No."

His hand rose then, unhurried, palm turning slightly upward between them. For a moment, there was nothing, only rain striking skin and cloth. Then it came. Not the crackling violence of lightning nor the crude flare of Sith displays. A slow bloom. Green fire curled into existence above his palm, thin at first, almost fragile in appearance. It did not burn like natural flame. It coiled. Tendrils of it licked the air casting a sickly, shifting glow across the wet stone and the dark line of his hand. The rain did nothing to extinguish it. Morveth's eyes did not leave her as the fire moved, folding in on itself, unfolded again, alive in a way that had nothing to do with heat or combustion.

"I have no interest in their hierarchies." He said, voice low beneath the soft hiss of rain against unnatural flame. "Or their endless circling of the same shallow victories."

The fire tightened, drawing closer to his palm, then stretching again as if tasting the space between them.

"They taught me enough to be useful. Nothing more."

The green light cast brief, warped reflections across her, something ancient meeting something unknown.

"You speak of what lies beneath. Of structures that remain when everything else is stripped away. I know that language."

The flame dimmed, drawn inward, controlled, until it became a smaller, denser thing.

"Not the way they pretend to understand it." There was the faintest edge there now. "But as it is practiced where I come from."

He didn't name Dathomir. He didn't need to. He let the silence stretch again, the fire's low movement filling it like a second heartbeat. He took another step forward. The flame curled once more, then stilled.

"So no. I did not come as a distraction. I came to find the one who has power but is not part of the Order. And I intend to see whether it is a path worth walking."

His hand lowered slightly and the green fire faded away.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Darth Morveth​

Thread cancelled!

 

[Darth Morveth]

Tag: Meya Liefi
​

The flame held a moment longer between them, its sickly green light crawling over rain slicked stone and the dark planes of his hand. Then, with a slow closing of his fingers, it collapsed inward. Morveth did not rush to answer. Her questions were direct. Clean. He respected that more than the games most played.

"You see it as unusual. That I was taught." He said at last, voice low, steady. There was a faint shift of his jaw. "On Dathomir, it is."

There was no bitterness in the words. Not openly. But something older sat beneath them. Something worn smooth by time but not dulled. His gaze drifted past her for the briefest moment, not unfocused but distant, as if measuring something far beyond the city and its poisoned light.

"They do not waste such things on us." He continued. "Not unless there is a reason. I gave them one."

The words settled, simple and unadorned. He did not elaborate immediately. He did not need to dress it in pride or grievance. It stood on its own. When he looked back to her, there was a harder edge there.

"They saw use. A tool that could be sharpened. I learned what they allowed... and more than they intended."

The wind pulled at his garments but he stood as though rooted against it. Her second question lingered longer. This time the silence that followed was heavier.

"I left because there are limits placed on what we are permitted to become. They name it tradition. Order. Balance. They say men are suitable as breeding stock. That we don't have the capability for magick. That we are less than the women... but the truth is it is containment." His voice did not rise but it was firm, certain. "I do not reject Dathomir. It is blood. It is bone. It is the only place that ever made sense... but I will not be lessoned by it."

And there it was. Not shouted. Not flung like a challenge. Set down like iron.

"They would have me stand where I am placed." He continued, quieter now, but no less solid. "Fight when told. Breed when required. Die when it suits them."

A faint exhale came through his nose. It wasn't quite disdain but something colder.

"I chose otherwise."

The rain pressed harder for a moment, hissing softly across the rooftop, almost as if responding to his conviction.

"As for the Sith..." The word carried no reverence. "They were a means. Nothing more."

He tilted his head slightly, studying her now with equal measure.

"You ask why I was taught. Why I trained at the Sith academy... because I refused to remain what they decided I was, because I refuse to remain what anyone decides I am."

Silence followed for a moment, not empty but full. Weighted. Then more quietly:

"And you?"