Private Neon Streets

[Sophelia Ardemark]

She tried not to stiffen when he threw his arm around her and that brush of his finger along her smooth skin. She had to play the part. And she endeavored not to think about how they seemed like two puzzle pieces coming together as she stood next to him. Her side tugged into his own. Any bare skin shifting against that fishnet shirt of his and the brush of his pants along her leg.

'There you go again, trying to tell me what to do.' She shot back, into his mind. She was getting better at this. At least one master at the Sanctuary would be proud. Even though they wouldn't like...how she was learning.

The hard muscle beneath.

Then the doors slid open.

She would follow his lead. For now. Trying to calm her fraying control, she walked out with him. Oceanic blues sweeping the room. There were too many. She swallowed but her high-heeled steps did not waiver. A sideways glance at Isar at the Prince comment. Her eyes following his gaze to the dancers. Then they rolled slightly before she caught herself and remembered all eyes were on them. And it seemed on her.

Attention shifted, as she saw the Doctor.

Finally. Hope soared for a moment then sputtered out as the odds in the room didn't bode well for her getting what she came here for. The bulbous eyes of the rhodian and aqualish clearly trained on her as she opened the bottle and reached forward for a low-balled glass, giving Isar a generous pour. That silk shifting along her curves with the slight bent forward. Ew, was that drool on his tusks?

Disgusting.

For a moment she was confused why she felt concerned before realizing it was coming from Isar. That was interesting. The mental link they were growing would...do that? She had half a mind to force slam these two crime bosses right off the couch and into the opposite wall. The problem was, there were too many others. And she kinda sorta wasn't that great with the force yet.

Such a missed opportunity and if she expected it would give Isar a heart attack.

With that dumb-fake smile on her face...one that faltered for just a flicker of a span of a second, she sunk down onto Isar's lap.

'Remember this because it's never going to happen again.' A resolute thought pushed down their connection silently. Legs shifted so they were draped over across and fell to one side of his. Her arm looped around the back of his shoulders, hand gently stroking the back of his neck and into those magenta-red feathers of hair.

As if she'd done it a thousand times before.

She could feel the fabric of the plum silk shift and ride up in her lap as she adjusted her legs. Her other hand offered him the glass as her eyes managed to look away from his own - that were so close - their noses almost touching, and toward the doctor. Even as subtle scents of sandalwood and lavender cloyed at her nose.

'Can you see if he's willing to talk about his latest project?' Thumb stroked across the base of his neck in slow circles.

 

[Isar du Vain]

Mm, we will need to get his attention.

With the threads spanning between their thoughts in the Force, a wide open conduit of raw emotion, Isar could not hide the thrill and the heat that raced through him at the touch of her fingers running through the back of his hair and the weight of her frame in his lap. Neither could he hide the way his body reacted to her.

Stop wiggling so much.

He held his breath.

"Huh, who is this. Haven't seen her working here before," muttered One-Eye sourly.

The Aqualish just chuffed and said in Huttese, <<Relax. You know he always gets the good looking humans.>>

Chagrin washed over Isar and he hoped that Soph, Stardust, whatever her real name was did not understand Huttese.

The Rodian let out an annoyed buzz. "Whatever, Narbo."

This only made the arachnoid chuff harder, laughing, and go back to doing another line of spice. Isar had a problem, he knew, but it was nothing compared to the legendary spice addiction of Yuhj Narbo.

Isar's heart thudded in his chest. The mesh fabric of his shirt just a pretense of clothing between his body and hers. He needed to focus, but this close her eyes were very blue and the way she felt against him just felt... right.

Clearing his throat, Isar held up his drink, "To the Bareesh and Black Sun."

"Huh. Kark you, I'm not drinking to that. You lot killed Gorba." One-Eye looked upset.

Details, details.

Shrugging, Isar drained his glass and leaned over Soph to thunk his glass onto the table and exchange it for the whole bottle.

"To Nar Shaddaa then... where we can do whatever the fuck we want."

"Now that's more like it."

One-Eye and Narbo both raised glasses.

Instead of drinking though, Isar tipped the bottle toward Soph's mouth. "Here you go, love. Drink up."

Punch me later. He sent into her mind.

Liquor worth a thousand credits streamed from the lip of the bottle and down toward Soph's mouth, whether it was open or not. Isar had worked a bar or two, so he knew how to make a pour right. Or, in this case, to pour until the stream of alcohol run down her chin, the hollow of her throat, and further down the track of open skin below.

Laughing like he was reveling in it - and maybe part of him was - Isar halted the pour and lifted the bottle into the air.

'What do you think, Doctor Grimwall. You've been quiet. Would she make good for one of your experiments?"


Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

Stop wiggling so much

'I'm trying.'

And then she felt it. Her body became taught against his chest. If she moved her head slightly, she'd feel that rough stubble on her cheek. His warm breath against her skin. She swallowed. Let her hand rest against his outer thigh. Trying to look bored. Even though heart raced in her chest.

The huttese re-centered her.

Because she did understand.

Of course a noblewoman had training in the most used languages of the 'verse. She was practically a protocol droid. A single blonde brow lofted at Isar as she turned her head just a hair to snap to those pale lavender eyes. She was trying to parse out her feelings about it but she brushed them quickly aside before her mind could wander down a path she didn't want to go down.

And then he had the bottle up.

A brush against her mind, feeling his excitement with a mixture of chagrin.

'Don't you dare-' alcohol poured down her pink lips. She sputtered as she swallowed some of the burning liquid. It tasted like a smooth fire going down her throat. She felt it carve a path over the curve of her delicate chin, down her neck, past the hollow of her throat and dip through the V of exposed skin before disappearing farther below. Making that silken fabric damp.

She tried not to openly glare at Isar but failed as her head snapped back to his own.

'I am going to do more than punch you when we get out of here.' A smoldering ire in those blues. A mask she tried to keep in place kept slipping. Eyes flickered over to the Mirialian doctor. His full attention was on the pair of them. No, on her. He looked bored and disinterested but there was something cold and calculating in his eyes that made her...shiver.

Or it was because of how cold the room was. And now her skin and dress were wet. Goosebumps began spreading across her body. Another tremble even as she held her chin high, not breaking her stare from the doctor's. But she couldn't stop going back to one thing.

Isar knew? What he did?

Hand tightened slightly on the side of his thigh.

Grimwall's gaze lingered on her for a moment longer than was polite, his expression unreadable.

"Potentially." He adjusted one cuff with meticulous care. "Though I wouldn't make the mistake of assuming suitability based on appearance alone. A specimen's value is determined by what it survives, not what it looks like."

A faint smile touched his lips dark green, thin lips.

"I'd need to examine her first."

Soph's heart sunk. Was this the only way?

'Tell him you'll allow it.' She didn't know why but she had a feeling Isar wouldn't like that. But maybe, maybe, if she could be alone with him. Even if that probably wasn't a smart idea. Probably a very foolish idea. Maybe it didn't have to go that way.

'I need to know where his lab is. Where he keeps antidotes.' A desperate plea into Isar's mind. Her outrage at the Zeltron momentarily forgotten.

 

[Isar du Vain]

"Punch me. Bite me. I'll let you do whatever you want when we're done here. Only seems fair."

Isar took a long pull of the lip of the bottle, trying to gather his wits. Difficult, with the way she sat on his lap, her front drenched with alcohol. It burned down his throat now. A precious vintage. Smiling tightly, he set the bottle back on the table.

"Examine her?"

The Zeltron enforcer did not like the sound of that. Gave him thoughts of needles and backrooms and a doctor's roving hands. His teeth clenched down, jaw flexing. That whole 'what it survives' sounded particularly nasty.

"Are you out of your mind? You trying to end up locked in one of his cages for the rest of your life?"

Besides, any crime lord with someone like her on a leash would not just offer her up so willingly.

"Sounds intense. What exactly are we talking about, doctor? Am I getting her back or... would this be a one way transaction. I haven't grown bored of this one yet."

Magenta fingers threaded into blonde hair, then tugged to pull back her head and leave her neck exposed. Bending down over her, Isar trailed his tongue down, tracing the stream of liquor from her chin, along her neck, to where some had gathered in the hollow of her throat. Through their connection, frissons of heat and desire flashed like sparks of electricity.

Have to make it look real.

He lapped the liquor up, making a show of it. Slow and languid, pausing only to tilt his head so that his stubbled chin rubbed against her chest and he could look up at the doctor.

The hand not buried in her hair prowled along her hip, stroking just beneath the slitted fabric of the dress along her hip. And higher, heartbeat by heartbeat.

His lips twisted in a pout.

"Hate to give her up before I've had my fill. Unless... you have a number in mind that could make it worth my while."

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

Isar du Vain

‘Bite you…what…’

A grunt of surprise left the base of her throat as Isar tugged her head back. The others probably heard a moan.

Disgusting.

Then that tongue dragged across her slick skin. He’d get hints of sea-salt as if Tapani had a hard time letting her go. She didn’t need to see that all eyes on this floor of the club were on them. She’d never been good at sensing others’ emotions through the force. But here the greed, lust, jealous, and raw desire was like a thick, suffocating fog.

‘I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to shoot you.’

The color black is described as being made up of all the other colors. Her emotions were a swirl of midnight. With things she couldn’t identify. Things she didn’t want to name or admit to and things that were easier to hang onto. Ire being the most convenient even as her body betrayed her as two pebbled peaks pressed against the thin plum dress.

‘Crazy? Don’t you know by now I can take care of myself.’ For the first time, flutters of doubt flickered between them. She’d be lying if she said the doctor didn’t scare her. But she thought of the village. Why she was here in the first place.

A small, quick breath as his fingers roved. The hand on his thigh lifted, palm cradling his face, thumb stroking stubble. Nails pressing lightly - a warning. Traveling down the side of his neck. To rest over the hard plane where his heart beat beneath. Nails snagging on fishnet. To hang onto or push away. She wasn’t sure which. But she convinced herself it was part of the show.

The doctor watched the performance without interruption. Face remaining impassive. Cold eyes not sparing a moment to blink. Unnatural.

"Your concern is misplaced."

A brief pause.

"I am not interested in owning her. Nor am I interested in your permission."

His gaze settled on Soph for a moment, clinical and detached, before returning to Isar. He remained seated, with an imperceptible lean forward, hands steepled beneath his chin. Even as the anqualish and Rodian muttered beneath their breaths. “At least let us play with her first before the doctor.”

The doctor ignored them. Eyes on Isar.

"And you misunderstand the transaction. You are not being asked to give her to me."

The faintest hint of a smile touched his mouth. As if the gesture happened twice a cycle.

"You are being paid to let me determine whether she is worth returning."

He regarded Isar's hand at her hip as though it were an irrelevant laboratory variable.

"I’m sure we can arrive at an arrangement that is to your liking."

His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

"But be careful. If you ask for something you cannot keep, I will have no reason to honor the agreement."

The doctor's voice remained soft.

"After all, I dislike wasting resources."

 

[Isar du Vain]

“Sure, just make the shot clean. I don’t want to die gut shot, love.”

The way her nails skated against his chest, snagging against the mesh and biting into rigid, toned muscle the color of magenta made Isar’s breath quicken. His chest rose and fell beneath her hand. And he could not help the way a feeling like cold electricity shot down his spine. Beneath her, his body reacted. Stiffening as she lay atop him.

His lilac eyes traversed down her sprawled length, pausing on the shape of her calves and those heels, before his attention drew onto the doctor again.

“I feel the same way,” Isar murmured in reply to the Doctor’s words.

The fingers at her thigh drifted higher, thumb whispering briefly against the bone of her hip, circling it and playing with the bit of string that stretched against it.

“That’s why I make sure I use up,” his attention returned to Soph and he drug his tongue down the middle of the dress’ v in one smooth lick that left the taste of liquor and sea salt on his tongue.

“Every. Last. Drop.”

The Aqualish and Rodian stared, spice forgotten on the table.

Right now, he struggled just to keep the mask on. The raw emotions storming through him mirrored Soph’s own black cloud that poured into his mind. He wanted more. Needed it. Needed it worse than a shot of Corellian whiskey, or a drag of a deathstick, or a line of spice.

And she would know.

With this connection, she would know. And he couldn’t hide it.

Gritting his teeth and smiling tightly, the Zeltron cocked his head.

“Some might say… “

Isar leaned up, away from her. His hand in her hair moved to her neck, massaging gently.

“She’s priceless…”

The other came up from her hip, across the ridges of her ribs beneath the thin fabric, and then rested fully against the curve of her chest. Thumb roaming again in small, tight circles against the fabric.

“What do you think, love? You want to go with the doctor if he gives me one of those artifacts I know he has? It seems like a fair trade.”

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

It was becoming impossible to separate his emotions with her own. She saw glimpses of sincerity through their link. And the evidence beneath her. Maybe his body was as traitorous as her own. Heart hammered against her ribs like an ensnared bird. Teeth bit lightly into her lower lip as his hand landed.

‘Black eye incoming.’

She just had to keep telling herself it was a part. A role he was playing. She was playing even as his words about her being priceless did the most damage of anything tonight. She felt a large fissure in her resolve. The foundation cracking more than it had any right to.

Hand on his torso paused. Faltered.

No. Keep it together. She couldn’t afford to wander.

Her fingers roved lower. Then paused. Then she realized her eyes had been squeezed closed. Shut. With a flutter of lashes her blues opened and found those lilac ones. He’d feel everything she was along the bond: ire, determination, guilt, shame, uncertainty, hope, a smidge of fear, and a spark of something else. An ache she refused to name.

There was something almost painful about how they looked at each other. And how she knew she had to look away. To look at Grinwall. “Seems fair,” she echoed even as a warning in the force rippled down her spine.

Grimwall looked all too pleased and bored at the same time. He stood and loomed over them, holding out his hand. “Come now, dear. My time isn’t cheap.”

‘Trust me.’

Untangling herself from the zeltron, she stood. Not taking the doctor’s hand. All the same, she felt his frigid snake-like digits encircle her wrist as his long legs strode toward a door tucked away in the far wall. Without even turning to look over his shoulder at the black sun zeltron he spoke to Isar as if this type of thing happened everyday for him. “Let’s finalize in my office.”

 

[Isar du Vain]

He did not want her to go.

The urge to plunge the whole room into an illusion of the Force, to drag her off into an alternate dimension in the White Current and continue whatever this game was that they played, reared its naked head within the depths of his thoughts and crashed against her like a tidal wave.

She was brave. Too brave. Too certain. This world was not the one she came from, wherever that place might be. Isar did not want to watch it eat her alive.

Then she stood up, her weight leaving him, and it felt wrong. The way she went with the doctor. The way the doctor’s hand circled around her wrist and tugged her toward the door.

The corner of Isar’s eye twitched and he had to breathe as a cloud of anger and jealousy tore through him. Isar got to his feet and followed, expression tight and cold.

“Lead the way.”

Grimwall was a psychotic madman. Isar had heard the rumors. Whatever one expected of an insane scientist, Grimwall seemed all too willing to fulfill those expectations. No matter how vile.

“I am right here. I won’t him hurt you.”

Even allowing Grimwall to touch her without Force pushing him through a wall took a level of restraint Isar did not know he possessed.

The door hissed shut behind them. Isar took a look around the office.

“So, simple exchange? After your exam, obviously.” He eyed the reams of flimsi stacked high on a desk and pinned to the walls. “Hey what are these? You planning something dastardly again you old devil?”

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

Without Isar's body heat, Soph hadn't realized how cold she'd become. Goosebumps began spreading along her exposed back. Even as his emotions threatened to drown her. Drag her under. Force her to name something she wasn't ready to whisper alone in a darkened room.

'I'll be fine. Isar.' A warning in his mind. A gentle one. Even as his feelings continued to assault her.

How did empaths do this?

How did he do this?

A slow steady breath as they entered Grimwall's office. Everything was sterile. Clean. The stacks were piled but with purpose and nothing out of place or off-angle. It was also clear this probably just one of his locations. Soph worked really hard to keep open disgust from her features. To keep them smooth. To keep that compliant mask on her face.

"Dastardly?" An almost offended breath escaped Dr. Grimwall as he dropped Soph's wrist with the hiss of the closing door. "Such an inelegant word." He gathered one of the datachits from the desk, smoothing its edge between two fingers. "I prefer methodical."

His gaze returned to the stacks, his expression settling into that familiar, clinical calm.

"And as for the exchange…" A thin smile appeared. "After the examination, I see no reason why we can't consider the matter settled." He waved his hand to a shelf on the opposite wall. "Have your pick." Soph sensed an unspoken test there.

"As for what I'm planning, my dear boy, if I were planning something dastardly, do you truly think I'd leave the evidence lying around?"

No, he wouldn't have made it that easy. Soph's hope faltered. But she parted her lips, facing the doctor. "I've heard of your works, Doctor. I am," she ground the next word out. "impressed."

Fingers clenched at her sides before she gathered herself for the next question. "Tell me, was it your work on Naboo?"

Grimwall's attention settled fully upon her for the first time. The faintest hint of amusement touched his expression.

"Impressed?"

He let the word linger. A faint smile on lips that never did that.

"Naboo?" He repeated the word thoughtfully. "That's a rather specific place to have heard mentioned." He circled her like a predator, looking down his long nose. Hand latching out and grabbing her jaw. He tilted her head slowly from side-to-side with interest. His thumb running to tug down on her lower lip, looking at her teeth.

Soph bristled.

"People have a remarkable tendency to confuse results they find unpleasant with results they find extraordinary. But you appear to have done your homework. Tell me, what exactly did you hear about Naboo?"

 

[Isar du Vain]

He's not going to make this easy.

Isar tried to reassure her in the Force, but the truth was that as he went to the wall and pretended to study the artifacts there he felt a sense of rage rising up, burning through his stomach like acid and then up through his chest until it sat with a bitter taste on his tongue. The hand at his side trembled and he shoved it quickly into a pocket.

Then Stardust just came out and mentioned Naboo. Isar, facing away from the pair of them, closed his eyes as he felt his stomach drop out. The question had been clumsy, inartfully placed. It told him that whoever Stardust, Soph, really was she was not used to this sort of infiltration. Whereas Isar...

Whereas he knew it all too well.

Slow down. Tell him I told you.

Another slip up like that and he would be onto them, if he was not already.

Naboo huh... how did she know? And why did it matter to a streetracer turned waitress?

Isar picked up a relic and glanced over his shoulder, then quickly glanced away as a spike of anger drove through him at the sight of the frigid creep prowling around her. He swallowed.

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

He's not going to make this easy.

'I know.'

She only let her blue eyes flicker to Isar when his back was turned to her. She could feel it. The building tension in the air. The fuse was lit and it was only a matter of time before everything blew up.

"Mister Du Vain told me." She stumbled. Doctor Grimwall kept his attention on her. "Open wide dear," he moved his cold, clammy hands to press against either side of her face. Looking into her eyes. Her mouth when she did as she was told.

"Did he now?"

Then his fingers roved into her hair, checking out her scalp.

Every touch. Every stroke made her want to vomit. She felt sick and cheap. Disgusted.

He paused. "If I'm expected to assess her physical condition properly, clothing becomes an impediment to a thorough examination. You may undress now. I'll require only what is medically relevant." He released her quickly and turned his back to them. Hands going for a small injector from a medkit on his desk. Soph's cheeks paled. Even as shame flared on her skin. Hotly.

She couldn't do this anymore.

She took a half step back.

 

[Isar du Vain]

Isar turned casually around, the movement hiding the anger that coiled within and tensed up his limbs and set his hand trembling.

A hand he'd used to do so many things.

Awful things.

Horrible things.

He imagined doing them to the Doctor now.

"Is that medically necessary?" Isar asked cooly, a brow rising.

In the hand that wasn't shoved in his pocket he held a pyramid shaped Sith holocron.

"I suppose," his throat bobbed as he swallowed and smiled, "you're the expert."

A little exhale and his head tilted, as if to watch the show. He leaned against the wall.

"What happened on Naboo anyway, since the girl asked? There's a king there I wouldn't mind you giving the clap to."

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

The doctor turned and gave her a pointed look to remind her time was credits. Even as he adjusted the tool in his hand. Soph froze in her retreat. Arms lifted. Fingers going to move her long blonde-locks over each shoulder. Fingers fumbled with the knot of the halter behind her neck.

Reaching for time as Isar asked his question.

Grimwall's expression remained perfectly composed.

"Ah. Naboo."

Sharp eyes looked to Soph. With a twist of her fingers, she undid the knot, the material slipped away easily and pooled at her feet. Funny how something so slim and flimsy could still cause her to notice when it was suddenly gone. Hair partially covering her front the only modesty alloted to her. As the air hit her.

So much shame, embarrassment and disgust rippled through her. Cheeks burned. But she forced herself to freeze. To not reach for that pool of plum as the doctor continued speaking.

"The symptoms were merely the consequence. The interesting part was determining how quickly they would spread, which populations would prove most susceptible, and how long it would take before anyone recognized the pattern."

A cruel turn of his lips.

"As for the king…" His eyes flicked briefly toward Isar. "I have little interest in giving him something so ordinary."

Grimwall approached with the same measured composure he brought to everything else. His gaze moved over her clinically, noting posture, breathing, visible injuries, and any abnormalities before he reached for his instruments. That small injector heading for her arm.

Isar du Vain

 

[Isar du Vain]

The way his body reacted to the puddle of plum on the floor and what lay beneath twisted inside him. The hunger came back. The raw need, like when he’d gone too long without the glitterstim but something aching inside his actual chest instead of on his tongue. Disgust ruined it, like curdling milk. The view poisoned by the reality of what was happening.

Lilac eyes traversed from the puddle, transfixed to follow every line and curve of her as though just his gaze could drink her up and give him what he craved. He knew could feel that between them. Was probably repulsed by it. By him.

Good.

She should be.

Isar’s jaw muscles worked as his gaze focused in on the needle tip of the injector.

He lifted a single finger, pointing.

Reaching out with the Force, he stopped the needle’s forward momentum, arresting it right before it kissed bare skin.

“That vial.”

Isar raised an eyebrow.

“That wouldn’t be the Naboo stuff, would it? I mean. We just talked about not spoiling the goods.”

He raised the pyramid in his hand.

“But if it was…”

A hungry look entered Isar’s eyes, as if he wanted the vial to be full of the poison.

“…what would it do to her? Would I get to see it… right now?”

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

She tried to wall him off. Not to feel what was pumping through her connection with Isar. Because it shocked and crashed against her own tidal wave of emotions. It was like a riptide, threatening to pull her away from the rocky shore she stood on and drag her under. The ground she stood on now was shaky enough. Collapsing with every breath she took. Every moment she felt how exposed she was just standing there under Grimwall's clinical assessing gaze.

A wince at Isar's words. Her gaze remained firmly down at her feet. And for the first time,she couldn't sense the emotion behind his words. Couldn't afford to dig deeper to reach for them. And for a second - she believed him.

As soon as the force stalled Grimwall's hand - a ripple of rage crossed his stoic features.

Soph felt a crack of simmering anger. Something she'd missed beneath the surface of the doctor. Something ancient, dark and smoldering. A power that made her freeze - an inward chill icing her bones. Far beyond the outward chill of the air in the room against her swath of skin.

"Enough," Grimwall growled, eyes cracking orange and red as his hand shot out - lighting crackling down his fingers to Isar. The pulse of power causing her to stumble back against the corner near the door. The doctor's hanging coat crashing against her shoulders. Soph snagged it, pumping both her arms through either sleeve, buttoning the single button against her middriff. The length fell just below the curves of her rear.

Almost instantly, her arm reached forward sending a force blast at the doctor's extended arm to knock it away from Isar, But it was like a gnat trying to swat a rathtiir tiger. The sith's other arm snapped toward her and she felt a growing pressure around her throat.. Choking. Strangling.

 

[Isar du Vain]

Surprise rippled across Isar's features and he barely had time to throw up his arms in front of himself in some desperate attempt to stop the strands of crackling, hissing blue lightning that shot toward him from the fingertips of Doctor Grimwall.

The forking tongues connected with Isar's forearms first, then coruscated across his entire body, wrapping him in flickering threads of blinding cobalt that sent Isar flying backward and into the shelves on the wall. Wood splintered. His back exploded with pain. Relics and curios tumbled down around him. Isar slumped to the ground, letting out a gasp of pain. Tendrils of smoke curled from his body and his fingers and feet trembled, wracked with tremors as nerves misfired.

It ended when Soph blasted the doctor with a Force Push. Briefly.

Isar pushed through the pain, drawing on the Force to strengthen his body even though he wanted to just give up and lay there. Violet eyes went cold at the sight of Stardust, choking as the Doctor curled his fist and exerted his will in the Force on her throat.

"No."

Reaching deep into the Force, Isar gathered up all his rage and pain into a telepathic spike that he plunged into the Doctor's mind.

"No!"

Nightmares reeled, drawn out by Isar's summons, pouring through the mind Grimwall. Coming from the deepest, darkest parts of this man, this Dark Sider, whatever he was. Enough to drive a normal person mad, blubbering, drooling on the ground.

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

The feeling of Isar's pain mixing with her own did something to her. She tried crying out. A gurgling-choking sound escaping from the base of her throat as her lips started tinting blue. Then Isar's rage. His raw unrated fury.

She sunk to her knees, hand going to her neck as she was suddenly released.

Chest heaved as she breathed in that precious air. Lungfull after lungfull. Head lifted as she saw Grimwall stagger, dropping to a knee. No more lightning but his hand remained outstretched. Teeth ground. Dark, dangerous eyes fixated on her for a moment, a sick and twisted curiosity in them before snapping to Isar. Grimacing, he slowly began to rise.

Soph's heart sunk. Later she'd blame herself. For not being a good enough jedi. But she was already moving, pushing off her bare feet and racing toward Isar. She grabbed his arm and raised her other hand, shattering the massive floor to ceiling glass window of the office. And then jumped, tugging Isar right with her into the rushing wind and air of a five-story drop to the Neon lit streets of Nar Shadda below.

 

[Isar du Vain]

Glass shattered, then Soph's hand drug Isar out through the busted window and into the night air of Nar Shaddaa. They fell, plummeting the five stories toward the ground. Isar pulled her to him, her weight again almost nothing in his arms as they fell. He drew on the Force again, the world slowing, his senses enhancing, his limbs feeling for a brief moment like he hadn't stuck a fork in an electrical socket.

Then he landed with her clutched close to him. His knees bent, the Force-assisted landing managing to not snap his ankles. It still hurt.

Isar let out a grunt and stumbled forward, setting Soph down.

"Ow."

Barely able to breath, fingers still twitching, he could only smell the stench of burning hair.

That probably was not good.

"We need to get..." he panted, "Get out of here."

A crushing emotional weight bore him down as he tugged her through the streets of the smuggler's moon toward safety. All of that, and for what?

Nothing.

His vision swam.

"I don't feel..."

The Zeltron tottered unsteadily.

Sophelia Ardemark

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

Isar du Vain

She felt numb Isar tugged her along through the crowded streets. Not noticing the sharp things that sliced against her bare feet. Or the shoves from others as she bumped shoulders in the crowd. Or that she wore little to nothing - though, perhaps arguably more than that plum silken dress. She felt herself threatening to float away.

It beat feeling so dirty. So used. The sensation of her skin crawling. The extreme weight of failure.

She hadn't been good enough.

People were relying on her and it had been all her fault.

Then her eyes refocused. Or tried to. As she realized they were walking in the opposite direction of her temporary room. "Where are we going..."

Then a tug of her arm as he stumbled.

It was enough to snap her out of her daze. Her shock. Azure eyes focused on him and she didn't hesitate. One arm snaked around his waist and she lifted his arm to loop around her thin shoulders as she tried to support them both. Pressing into his side.

"Isar, you're hurt," she mumbled the obvious seeing the burns mixed with his magenta skin and floral tattoos. They needed to get off the streets. Out of the open. A neon sign flashed for a hotel and she began steering them that way. "Stay with me."

 

[Isar du Vain]

“Woah, woah,” he wheezed as he saw where she led them, “not the murder motel.”

Down in these streets, it would almost certainly be full of junkies, killers, and every other down on their luck freak who would sell Isar out for a line of spice and a handle of whiskey.

“There.”

Waving a hand to flag down an airtaxi, Isar regretted the movement, wincing as his fingers curled and uncurled without his command and twitched. His heartbeat felt strange and he felt dizzy on his feet. Soph might have been the only thing keeping him up, or maybe they were keeping each other up.

The taxi moved toward them. A strange man with smoke curling from his body and a woman clothed only in a jacket did not appear to faze the Neimodian driver.

Isar climbed in and made room for Soph.

His head slumped back against the headrest. Everything hurt.

“Marquee Tower. Penthouse.”

Isar must have passed out for the ride. He came to when the airtaxi settled on the landing pad by his place.

The back door automatically slid open for them. Inside, the penthouse apartment looked sleek and black, with minimalist designs and low lighting from subtle wall and ceiling sconces. One enormous piece of abstract artwork hung on the wall. A vase with fake flowers stood in a corner. In the living room, an enormous L shaped couch sprawled out over a rug, both light colored and in contrast to the black of the interior.

Isar swayed a moment as he stood there.

“Welcome to my place.”

Sophelia Ardemark