Location: Kashyyyk [Main Hall - Dance Floor]
Wearing: Something Vaguely Festive
Accompanying: [member="Darth Metus"]
______________________________
The scent of spiced beverages and baked goods teased her nose whilst they made their way into the well-lit Silver Rest. If she was tempted by the confectionary indulgences, none would know, as her focus remained singular.
Survive. Srina intended to survive this event, to survive the day, and perhaps the week that followed. She hadn’t thought much past that. All she could do was try and keep her head above the waves of a virulent storm that seemed content to brew somewhere in her core.
It was unseen, unheard, and unnoticed, but she felt it all the same.
Her decision in regards to Ephraim DeWinter had been seen by some of the Viceroyalty as vindictive.
Cruel. They were mistaken. A vindictive being often lent to some notion of spite, petty, if there was ever such a thing. The Exarch of the Confederacy was
vengeful in a way that had been burned into the marrow of her bones. She had been dealt a unique injustice that could
never be corrected. One explosion, one thermal detonator, had stolen each and every piece of light from her eyes.
The stars that lit mercurial orbs had all been taken. Blown out, like a candle that had been suddenly been swallowed by the dark.
There was nothing left now. Just shadows. Moving, twisting, and writhing as pain blossomed anew with every heartbeat. Every thud within her chest that told her she yet lived, while what mattered most, did not. Briefly—She held tighter to the arm of her Master. Her thoughts were spiraling too deep for this venue. Wittingly or unwittingly the sable-skinned man seemed to sense it and a well of humor suddenly pushed through the silvery threads that bound them together.
A memory. The edges of it had blurred with time and perception, but, it didn’t dissipate as [member="Darth Metus"] expected.
It took the edge off. Softened her—Enough that she need not bare invisible fangs.
“You were dazed enough that you keep eating them. The mighty Vicelord, felled by a cookie. With a cracked a tooth.”
The man at her side might have been surprised that she remembered. Certainly, he would question the fact that her sentence held more than three words. Ever since she had been tasked with leading the investigation against the Eternal Empire her head had been full of data, numbers, transcripts and copies of communications. Srina became mute when work consumed her. Terse, and blunt. This party, though far removed from a desk, was still to some degree a form of work.
They needed to be seen. They, not either or, needed to be perfection. Unbent, unbowed, and unbroken.
Srina let his hand lift her own and twirled delicately beneath his arm. Crimson silk pulled about her form in a way that seemed to emulate the grace of flowing water. There was no undo effort. No hesitation. She seemed to know where Metus would step, how he would move, long before the action was made real. The Echani fell into step and a delicate hand came to rest on his shoulder.
Seamless.
“You may drink, Master.”
The song was neither too fast nor too slow. It was everything she expected of a gathering that filled Kashyyyk with smiling faces and peals of laughter. Some forgotten part of her wished she could feel it. The softness of being content, simply, due to being thankful for those that were closest to her. One by one her family, her companions, her fiancé, disappeared like smoke. Turned to dust that dashed to nothing on the breeze, or, turned to a traitorous ash that seemed satisfied to suffocate her slowly.
Realizing that she was slipping slowly back in to her head she turned her attention toward her dance partner. Her Master was gone, more than usual, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. There was a strange scent on his clothes. It was thick, cloying, like fresh jasmine crushed with petrichor. Every time she approached his office there was a phantom afterimage of a woman haunting his space. Her aura was of the blackest night.
Overwhelming.
Srina did not know her. Moreover, the Dread Queen
did not like her. It was a distraction that they could ill-afford when their enemies grew in spades. The young woman didn’t like the unknown variable. Something…Something about the black ghost made her remember fear. It placed her back on Kuat, buried under rubble, or worse, waiting alone on Naboo for a man that never came home. It picked at her deepest fears and at long forgotten anxieties that she hadn’t even known existed.
“You smell like her.”
A million questions buried in one. Most importantly: Who is she? An enemy? A friend?
Any friend that could make the hair on the back of her neck stand up without actually manifesting a physical form was worthy of a question. The shrouded creature set off warning bells in her head that rang louder than any drum.
“…She is dangerous.”
Silver pools flickered upward to meet eyes of burnished orange. It wasn’t a challenge. A simple statement of fact. What he had lurking freely was quite literally a walking nuclear hazard. The Exarch allowed herself to be moved, spun, or dipped as footwork required. Everything they did was punctuated with a stunning pass of rouge. While some might have thought their clothing would clash, it seemed to blend, and compliment. That could have just as easily been due to the presence they carried.
Nothing so unified, so beautifully confounding, could ever be ugly.
