Old and New [Seydon]

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa steps were muffled by the thick layer of dust and she found herself skirting the odd piece of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling. She made mental notes of places in need of structural repair as she walk the track towards the living quarters of the Silent Temple, seeking one room in particular. Here had been a place she had once called home, and one she hoped very much to do so again. Several old wooden doors led off to her right and left, and she counted them as she moved past them, fingers running across them as she passed, psychometry granting her glances into the faces of those who had once occupied them.

Soon, the Temple would be full of life once more but there was one in particular that she was looking for, with his wolfish eyes and white hair and a smile that he reserved only for her. The different paths that they walked pulled them apart more often than it did bring them together, but their relationship would stand the test of time, of that much she was certain. No matter how far away her husband may seem, he was always close by.

The door she was seeking was slightly ajar, a soft breeze issuing through the gap. She pushed it open a rush of memories flooding her mind. It wasn't a heavily decorated room, for they had always taken pleasure in simple living. A large four poster bed rested against the far wall, and to her left an open terrace granted her a view of the jungle beyond the temple. the thing that caught her eye however, was a writing desk, littered with old letters. Padding over, she picked one up and blew the dust from it, smiling as she re-read its contents. [member="Seydon"] had never really liked the idea of their messages being caught up in the holonet, easy for any to read.

Pulling open a draw she found ink, a quill, and some writing paper, and settled herself down into the chair to write.

​

My dearest Seydon,​

​

I hope your work with Jorus and the Underground is going well and he's not putting you in too much danger. Froce knows I'd have his head if anything happened to you.​

​

I've vacated Arda and come to Teth in the hopes of setting up base here. You would not believe the state the Silent Temple is in, after all these years I would have thought that someone would have taken control of it but it would seem that, thankfully, it has remained untouched by gluttonous hands.​

​

I've begun a restoration project here, gathering a helping hand where I can. If Jorus can spare you, you should come. Restoration project aside, i can feel a storm brewing.​

​

Stay safe.​

​

All my love,​

Rosa​

 

[Seydon of Arda]

The worn buttresses held. Wind, ice melt, and creepers still ate at the stone and the mortar work was chipping dangerously at the higher towers. Faces of brickwork adorning the forward arcades had collapsed, piling below in the canyon vales, leaving pocky lichen to grow across the naked stone. Families of grey falcons occupied upper crenellations, above hollowed out networks housing their prey: lesser crystal komodos and granite-ball pythons. The Silent Temple shook as a tramp freighter drew over and hovered above the high glass-roofed atrium. Its belly ramp canned open. A darkly dressed profile made the leap from ramp to battlement and waved the freighter off. Engine flare coasted the portly hauler about on an axis, soon becoming just a trio of fading false-stars disappearing beyond the horizon terminator.

Seydon knelt, broke the latch on a disused tower hatch, mounting iron bars down into the temple’s topmost wards. Must and cloth dampness jostled with inches worth of untouched dust, rendering a thick, coughing air. He lit torches and forgotten tapers nestled in small shrine alcoves, flicking finger, thumb and wrist, casting low sparks onto the wick threads and wax. Sound carried down the stairwells, into tunnel vaults, high bays, emptied halls adorned only with lanky sheets of abandoned cobwebs. Spiders chittered out of his way. Seydon paused before an old closet. Its contents had been discarded in a bonfire and then updated with an installed stain-glass window that played cyan and ruby across the flooring. A meditation rug was where it’d been left.

“Hmmn...”

Lower stories became gradually more kept. Floors had been swept, rudimentary mason work repaired some damages to the archways, and piles of discarded rubble were awaiting transportation in neat pyramids in a few of the broader halls. What chambers not in use were shut in by modern magnetic bars. Fresh power cabling snaked through billet moulds. Tool chests, equipment cases, refurbished consoles littered some corridors, ancient baptistries and long choirs recently converted over into power generator nodal points. A raised plague with the ‘Boolon Foundation’ had been nailed over a central corridor. Rosa had been ferociously busy.

He tracked her scent. It’d caught him in the upper wards before. Her signature was like rose water with something sprightly, a liquor soda that tantalized his palette, reaching his memories with an aftertaste of dry apple and cinnamon. His wife reminded him of summer. Hot, searingly warm, flickering with tempestuous dry lightning, calm as an empty blue sky before klaxons rang flash flood warnings. Seydon picked up his feet, jogging down the passageways. Soon, he could hear her heartbeat through the stone.

“Rose...?” He strode into the lower dormitories. Their rooms were the last on the right, nestled close to the public bathing rooms. Once, they held a monopoly on the steaming chambers, much to Jaxton and Qae’s chagrin. He nudged into their coatroom. Rosa’s travel shawl and cowl were neatly hung from a wire hanger within a slightly weevil chewed coat armoire. Humming sounded from the living area, papers shuffling in hand, a gloved touch tapping swiftly over dataslate screens. He spied discarded foodstuff containers piled on the coffee table. The cafmaker was already stained with fresh brews.

Arms folded around her waist as a presence pressed up to her shoulder blades. Seydon hovered just beside the crook of Rosa’s throat, nuzzling the beyond-soft skin with kisses. He dived into her scent, pressing her documents and ledgers back onto the desk, drawing her back to what mattered most. Least, to him. Which was them, there, in the now. Seydon’s hands shivered in their gloves. He never knew what to say upon coming home...

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Goosebumps had risen upon her skin as she felt him draw nearer, her heart quickening with anticipation as it always did. She could liken the sensation to a teenage crush, the sort that made her stomach flutter and all reason flit from her mind. She tried to resist it, forcing herself to focus on the documents in her hand as he called her name, but the words slid past her mind as a smile spread across her lips. He blotted everything else in the force out as his powerful arms coiled about her, forcing the documents back to where she'd picked them up from. She wanted to be haughty, to punish him for being away so long, but the kisses along her neck drove the idea from her mind.

Words weren't needed, not yet. She twisted in his embrace, her lavender gaze settling upon his hard amber eyes and her breath caught in her throat. Oh how the years had changed them both, once Master and Apprentice, each soft and gentle in their own right, both hardened by the path's they had trodden. For what felt like an eternity she simply gazed into his eyes, searching and feeling him in the force, recognising old scars and seeking any new ones he might have collected. Satisfied he was still in one piece she seized the collar of his cloak and pulled him into a fierce embrace. Joy exploded from her in the force and somewhere beyond the terrace a bird of paradise sang in response.

They remained locked in that embrace for sometime neither willing to break it, neither willing to talk of anyone or anything, but instead wanting to lose themselves in one another, to forget where one begins and the other ends. With immense difficulty, she drew back, her breath hard her eyes blazing. She released her grip on his collar, one hand drawing back to strike him hard on the shoulder.

"You. Stopped. Writing." Each word came with a fresh strike, though they were not her worst. They both knew that if she wanted to, she could land him on his taught backside if she so wished it. Whatever anger was in her voice was counteracted by the fact that her eyes were still alight with joy at seeing him again. She knew why he had stopped writing, communications were never easy when you were working with the Underground. It had that name for a reason after all.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Jorus wanted me for a trip.” Seydon wrestled her wrist into his grasp, pausing her half-hearted fury. “Didn’t know we’d be under wraps for so long. I’m sorry...”

Apologies for chronic absences and extended periods abroad always sounded trite and hollow to his ears. He unclasped his old, thread-stitched and re-stitched rucksack and loosened the twine keeping the parcel flap closed. Withdrew a neat dozen letters, folded into unsealed vellum envelopes, bearing his impromptu seal. “Was going to put these through mail but then I got your note through the carrier. Came as fast as able.”

He tugged off a glove and stroke his thumb down the corner of her pouting smirk. Autonomic responses flashed bright in his eyes. But, he paused, she’d take a day or three to forgive him ruining her organized stationary desk. The slight jerk in his hand did not pass unnoticed. Seydon could render himself deathly steady and bestial combat encounters rarely pushed his heart-rate past the sixty BPM climb. Yet, Rosa Gunn with only her avid stare, cool expression, mixture of haughty know-how and unconditional fondness, was undoing him piece by piece.

“Promise I was up to good work this time. Running fugitives out through the dark ports...” He said, then paused. “...You’re not busy, are you?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa cast a glance at the desk behind her, headed letters from potential donors caught her eye as she pondered his question. They could wait. They would wait. Blazing eyes returned to her husbands. "No." she replied flatly before kissing him, her hands taking the letters from him and dropping them on the desk as she did. Hands found his chest pushing him backwards and away from her desk, lest he disorganise her work. Fingers fumbled for the fastenings of his coat, desire burning through her as she steered him towards the bed.

Beyond the walls of the temple, the skies darkened as thunder rumbled across the jungle. Her hand gestured at the door which slammed shut with a little more force than intended, but never did her attention waver from her husband as she explored and rediscovered him with fierce kisses and gentle hands, eager to have him but desperate to make the moment last.

The rain began, hammering down upon the jungle and bringing humidity up to an almost discomforting height as lightening cut across the skies. The storm drowned the noise of the jungle with great roars of thunder and a heavy downpour that would flood the jungle floor. Yet even amidst this cacophony of noise, the lovers keening cries could be heard, echoing throughout the temples corridors, making even the skittering spiders blush.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Fade to black.

To marble flesh and scarred-over iron. To the contortion of unification flashing bold and stark across the walls as lightning lit their room. Heady breaths washed on stained lips. Every kiss a too sweet promise that was bound to break. Murmuring pieces of halted conversation, brief laughter and trembling pleads, desperate encouragement and the appetite for more, more, please black gods, don’t let the momentum stop. She broke him down into the mattress springs. He knitted her together across the smooth-hewn walls. Spending in time with the flash storm felling down once proud softwood giants in the verdant forests beyond.

Slowly, in its good time, the storm melted into steady rain.

They laid back against soaked bedding, linked by their hands, blinking at the cedar-log ceiling through half-lidded gazes. Rosa’s hair was damp and matted to his shoulder. With supreme gentility, the Dunaan rolled over and straddled his frame in against her contours, kissing at the skin just beneath her jaw and chin. Cool air was billowing in through an opened window, fighting with the humidity and heat fog hazing their chambers. Condensation dripped silver bars down the span of his wife’s tall dressing mirror. Distantly, thunder heaved, and Seydon knew exactly how the travelling storm front felt.

“Don’t wanna wait for the weather...” Seydon whispered, panted, as he kissed Rosa full. “Stay right here... Not letting paperwork take you from me... I need you so much, Rose...”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa's eyes were half open as she lost her self in the moment, letting her whole body relax and drifting in the force, not looking for anything in particular but simply content with the hubbub of life about the place, of the feel of her husband against her side as he whispered, his breath tickling her neck as he did, rising a shiver of delight through her. She forced herself to come back from the jungle, opening her eyes fully and turning her head to face her husband. His kiss was burning, rising the heat again in her belly.

She smiled, tilting her head to kiss his brow. "For a man getting on in years, you've got the appetite of a man still in his early twenties." she teased, though her eyes reflected everything he felt. "I'm not going anywhere, not yet at least." For a long moment, they lay in silence, listening to each others breathing and enjoying the sensation of skin on skin. It'd been a long time since Rosa had felt this content, not because Seydon had been away, but because she had been fighting internal battles, warring constantly with her alter-ego and trying to remember her place in the galaxy and the force.

"I've missed this place." she confessed quietly. "More than I realised. Our friends even more so. I spent the first few weeks in the garden and I could have sworn I could hear Boolon humming beside me." she trailed off a happy nostalgia settling over her. "How's Jorus?" she asked him.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Young,” Seydon chortled. At Rosa’s quizzing look, he settled on his elbows though heat still warmed and mingled between their pressed bellies. “He glossed over some of it. They, he and Alna, underwent one of those Tionese rituals. Now, he’s physically thirty years my junior, with all that time to spare again.”

Age was knitting crow’s feet by his eyes, turning the temporal edges of his cheekbones sharper, cheeks hard and a bit sallow. Wrinkles were showing in his knuckles especially. Sunspots and pale freckles, silvertine scar-lines and knots of old wounded tissue, flesh storm beaten, though he hung onto his muscular volume. The Trial of the Waters was exacting its toll, replacing youth with functionality. Seydon knew just Rosa found something handsome in his visage now, maybe imagining a phantom in his place. Young ‘Seroth’, with all his youth and prime, wooing her in poorly insulated darkstation corridors, somehow convincing her broken heart to give an untried, untested boy a chance grown, seasoned men had bungled miserably.

If Rosa was showing her years, he was damned if he could see it. Palms kneaded and stroked the skin across her hips and navel, travelling around to her lumbar muscles, relaxing the flesh until he felt just a liquid roll where his fingertips pressed. “But he’s busy as ever,” Seydon went on. “Part of that Outback coalition, beside his duties with the Underground. Way the Imperials are throwing their weight, he won’t be wanting for bad authorities to foil. ...Sometimes think of quitting the Path, Sign up with his crews full time but... You know...

“And you,” He said, turning a coy smile. “Turning the temple on its head. What are you up to...?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"That must be strange for Mara." She mused, a frown knitting her brow as she cast her eyes to the ceiling. To claim back younver years was definatly appealing, though blessed with young skin, Rosa felt it in her bones and heart. She looked back at Seydon at his secret desire to step off the Path.

She resisted the urge to pass comment about the damage the Path had done and the time it took him away from her. If he was with Jorus, not only would he be easy to find, but she could even join him. That, and she trusted Jorus to bring her husband home. The decision was Seydon's to make and she would not allow such a decision to be marred by the worries of his wife, however valid.

She grinned at his question, glad for the opportunity to steer the subject down a different path. "Redeeming myself." She replied simply. "I've set up a charity to provide humanitarian aid yo those affected by war and also to provide sanctuary to those who need it. In truth it's exactly what we set out to do with the Conclave, hence the relocation here."

She shifted her position on the pillow, excitement blazing in her eyes. "I put something out in the holonet asking for assistance, you wouldn't believe the amount of responses I've gotten back, I've got meetings scheduled for the next few months. Some with businesses offering sponsorships and supplies and a couple with factions, looking to offer locations for refugee camps and sanctuaries."

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Boolon would be proud,” He ducked an inch and dampened her brow with a kiss. “I am especially proud. So much bloody business, and you’re offering alternative. Least to those forced out of home or by wounds taken.”

Again with care, he settled his weight off her hips and rolled onto his side of the mattress, sitting and facing up. Their quarters were spare, decorated in a lean way by Rosa’s luggage and their thrown clothing. His weapons and kit were pushed up against the hearth. The fireplace was silent with old blackened logs on beds of slumbering coals. They wouldn’t lit a fire until the monsoon season had passed and the intermittent muggy fallow subsided for cool days and chilly nights. He thought of wintering on Teth. The Path would be waiting still, monsters out haunting wild locales forsaken by memory and general populations, save for a few brave or stupid venturers that wandered in to get killed.

“Imagine this,” He gestured at the stone brickwork and cedar joists, the Temple in general. “Won’t be so quiet soon. ...Imagine you’ll be busier too. The Core’s bursting with young alliances. War in the east and west. Sith on the rise in the Caldera again, Imperials chomping at the Alliance’s obese hindquarters. A lot of population displacement no one wants to acknowledge. Ruins the idea of a ‘fun’ war.

“...Could probably convert the Temple. Special medical care facility, maybe? Got room to house faculty and the lower basements could be changed into ICU’s. Least a waystop for refugees still travelling. ...Remember when that was all we wanted?” Seydon paused. “When we first started out?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa pulled a disgusted face at the term 'fun' war. There was nothing fun in war and those who saw 'fun' in it were steeped in the darkside. The serpent in the back of her mind stirred with a sickening glee. Rosa closed her eyes again, fighting away nausea and focusing, instead on her husbands thoughts. She rose to sit behind him, fingers kneading taught muscles across his back and shoulders, thinking over what he had suggested.

"I do remember. I remember how hard it was to hold fast to a place with war pressing in from every side." her lips pressed against his shoulders and she loped her arms about his stomach hugging him close for a moment. "We were lucky to find Arda. But Arda cannot house refugees in the hundreds, it doesn't have the resources, and you and I both know the Ardans will not be impressed by an overflow of strangers." She cast her eyes about the room and let out a sigh.

"You're right though, it could be done. Converting the lower levels would be ideal, there are other strongholds like this across teth that could be completely converted in time." She paused, her brain whirring endlessly. They'd need supplies and equipment, not to mention people. All things she could get, provided she asked the right people, there was, however, one small matter that would need to be dealt with first.

"Of course, we'd need to ask the matriarch of the rancors that are using the lower levels, if she minds moving house. And the hunting flies that have been nesting there will need to be dealt with." She smirked ever so slightly.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Rancors?” Seydon shifted, rolling the loosed knots below his shoulder blades, standing and reaching for his strewn clothing. “Teth hosts rancors?”

They dressed, conversing, exchanging theory and idle observations. The sub-basements provided a damp cool throughout Teth’s long summer and enviable cover when heat subsided and cold, blasting monsoon fronts rolled across the continental cleft. Perhaps a generational den, inherited from Alpha Female to Female, grounds quiet and isolated enough to raise their grousing broods. Seydon buckled his vest, drew on his coat and blood-cape, slipping the cloth-mask up over his mouth and nose and finally nudging the cap down over his brow. Razorlight and Winterfang fitted across his back, belted into place.

He turned, eyeing Rosa baldly while she busied with her own ensemble. It was a husband’s privilege. Her long spine was just graciously coloured with hair-thread scars, her dark-on-dark hair falling in distracting trestles, catching the grey light in jet-liquid waves tossing with each light turn of her head. A darker knot of scar-tissue showed below her diaphragm line, skidding above the abdominal cavity and her liver in particular. Where Rosa, consumed under that Layil persona, earned it on Charal. Seydon had run her through. Razorlight still remembered her blood tang.

Seydon stepped over and helped her adjust a cloth piece just out of reach. She hadn’t asked and he did not bother voicing permission. Their knuckles brushed, like a kind of tactile sign. ‘Easy’, her heard her murmur. ‘Fine’, Seydon muttered. Later, he knew. Always later. If a contract didn’t ping down the Mara Corridor, drawing him off to – He stilled for a second, coaxing his attentions to the present.

Rancors and hunting flies.

“...You’re certain it’s just negotiation?” Seydon asked again, as they stepped into a powered lift. The doors caged into place. “I could muster up some palm-bombs. Retrieve my rifle, at least.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa shot him a look with an arched eyebrow and a slight smile. "Savage." she teased before running her eyes over the turbo lift. Kaili had done a good job of the repairs here, though she dreaded to think what the lower levels might be like, or the techno-geeks recation to the state of it.

"Rancors can be reasoned with. They're intelligent enough that we can reach an understanding, if only through the force." She could feel her husbands unease and could not resist the chance to wind him up. After all, it'd been some time and she had teasing to catch up on as well as... well...Storms. The lift was descending smoothly, too far gone to turn back. "But no," she said not looking at him for fear she might laugh at his reaction. "I'm not sure it'll be just a negotiation. Jungle rancors have a temper..."

She conjured up a straight-face. "You've got two swords, love, I'm sure that'll be more than enough for you to manage of things go wrong."

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

He was spousal insurance, if Rosa’s efforts cajoling the rancor’s failed or tripped their bestial temper, Seydon would first and very centre convincing them to vacate anyway. He adjusted his blade sheathes and kept from muttering. Could feel Rosa’s little smile of marital victory with her back turned, beaming in the dim bulb light. She had him. Always had him. Not a day home and had already roped him into basic house care. The brickwork through the lift grate turned from dry mortar to lichen growth, to a kind of pale fungal growth, where the pale dredged to slimy evergreen and the air was thick with wood rot and moist earth.

The lift jostled to the shaft flooring, bouncing off shock dispersers. They strode through the opened gating, into wide barrel halls. The ceiling vaults were decaying. Fallen bricks and collapsed corner posts were strewn over the cellar flooring. Unknown flora grew in twisting collections atop some of the rubble, raking choking roots into exposed soil. Already, they could listen to thick, phlegmatic breathing. Ahead, a wide-set doorway had been savagely modified to allow larger objects through. The stone had been bluntly gouged and picked. A ‘guard’ woke at their presence.

Dark, deep-set eyes, framed in a pugnacious face with heavy teeth and enormous, slitted nostrils, peered through the dark. The rancor plodded into view, trembling the ground under foot and boot. Seydon watched it loom overhead, tilting its skull, considering the two very small creatures before its leathery brawn.

“...Rosa. ...Rosa, now,” Seydon tapped her arm with his elbow.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"Oh my" she breathed at Seyon's nudge "I'd forgotten how big they were."

Rosa stepped forward cautiously drawing the force about her, she emanated a calm aura reaching into the guards mind to indicate that they weren't a threat. She reached for Seydon also, looking to calm him and also so they could maintain a mental link throughout the process. His senses were far keener than hers and it was likely he would see things she did not. "Hello." she spoke loud enough for the rancors small ears to hear her. "We're not here to cause any upset, we just wish to speak with your matriarch. Will you permit us to pass?"

She backed up her words with mental images to show she was seeking peace and negotiation. The rancor rumbled a low growl in response, but did not move, clearly intent on blocking their path. She sensed uncertainty and fear, not for its own life, but for the lives of the youngest in the brood. Rosa took another tentative step forward. "No harm will come to them." she assured the creature.

For a long moment, the rancor simply regarded them, clearly weighing up its options. Rosa did not speak, she didn't want to upset it, but she did give a mental nudge towards agreement and after what felt like an age, the great beast turned, its great steps leading them away from the lift. Rosa cast a grin over her shoulder at Seydon.

"See, nothing to worry about." She took the lead in following the guard through the cavernous corridors towards the broods centre.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

The den had been a rudimentary storehouse. Then, decades of slow, accidental water erosion opened a part in the rock, channelling soil away under now rotted, broken floorboards and shattered rock tiles. The wall opened out partially to a narrow gully outside, winding into the mountain labyrinth vales that surrounded the Silent Temple. Sometime ago, a bold rancor brood mother took possession of the below-ground chambers and moved her family in.

They’d slathered the walls with a pitch mixture of clay, earth, and resin. Hanging animal skins, naked skulls, chewed animal bones licked and sucked clean of marrow, notched boulders abused in juvenile play, besides a far chamber corner piled with bright ores and minute, unwashed gems, were rudimentary decoration. Seydon noted massive straw and bramble sleeping nests, and a basic storing pit reeking of meat and thick salt. There was method and careful, primary planning to the tall holt. Rough industry, he thought.

Juvenile rancor whelps galloped out to see what had wandered in. Each whelp stood up at three-and-a-half metres, well into their first half-ton of weight, developing maturing skull and flesh ridges denoting their blunt skulls. They jostled and scrapped, fighting to establish pecking order. The ‘guard’ that saw them into the den lumbered over and loosed a sonic gnarl. It scattered the juveniles, who picked up their loping hind-limbs, retreating to the sleeping nests. It reeked of manure within the carved hall. Seydon reached into a belt pouch and withdrew a rough cotton cloth, dousing it in Kri’gee liquor. Potent fumes but enough to mask the stench. He handed it to Rosa and kept a sobering blood shot ready in his hand. In case the fumes put her at three sheets to the wind.

Then the Matron appeared. She stooped in through the cracked entrance beyond, soaked in summer pollen and wreathes of torn willow ends. Seydon saw she was a mature female, hulking in dimension, ferociously scarred from seasonal rutting combat and defending outside aggressors trying to lay a claim on her hard fought home. She was missing an eye and one heavy tusk was broken and split. She was dressed up in a shawl of heavy, sandpaper skin, that Seydon recognized as belonging off the back of another massive rancor specimen. All other of her brood ducked out of her way. The Matron stomped up to Rosa and her husband, peering down. Fierce, animal intelligence regarded them, in a mixture of scant curiosity and warm-blooded disesteem.

What did the tiny pink thing and the other, sour thing want? How were they not devoured?

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

The fumes from the liquor soaked cloth Seydon had given her made Rosa a little light headed, but it was a relief from the stink of the place about them. She drank in the marton's appearance, with her battle wounds and piercing stare and felt herself draw a little closer to her husband. Not that she was truly afraid, but because it was entirely human to seek reassurance in number when confronted with a fifteen foot monstrosity that was regarding you like you were the cause of the stench in the brood chamber.

Rumbling snarls issued between mate and matron and Rosa felt the tension rising between them. He had brought something into her nest, something she did not approve of, and something that would be better off in the juveniles stomachs. A flash of anger flooded through the force and Rosa hissed a curse. The matron swiped a clawed hand across her mates head, bellowing her anger so that it shook the ceiling above them. Rosa stepped forward, reaching out to the matron in the force attempting to calm her. Another echoing bellow and a clawed fist seized Rosa, knocking the wind from her and squeezing her tight enough that she felt a rib of two crack under her gnarled fingers.

"[member="Seydon"]!" she yelled "Whatever you do, do not kill them!"

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Seydon had Razorlight partly drawn from its scabbard but it possessed nothing like the Matron’s formidable, heavy reach. He picked up crackling and airy pops, where Rosa’s ribcage was being squeezed in tighter. Panic, rare fear, made the acid in his stomach wrench and bubble. She would not have him bear down on the rancor clan, though. Despite pain and whatever extreme misgivings were accompanying her grinding rib bones, Rosa forbade wholesale slaughter. Juveniles and grown adults alike were plodding out. Coaxed by the violence attractant. The moment was slipping out of hand, Razorlight purring louder in his grasp.

The Matron held court. Her mixture of atonal barks and heady pheromone cues commanded her family, insured their ready obedience. She did not expect, what creature in her strata would, challenge or difficulty from anyone so small. Seydon watched her rotate Rosa in her grasp like a toy figure. He could not strike out. Spilt blood would incite a whirlwind that Rosa was desperate to avoid. The stench of rancor manure, body odour, lingering meat rot, and the decay in the sub-basement structure mixed awfully with the moist heat. Rancor played to their own set of challenges. Seydon had one strange skill in reserve, when moments called for it.

He drew in cavernous air. Darker power whorled up, choked hard in his throat. With any fortunate, the effort wouldn’t shred his vocal chords. Rancor utilized mixtures of super-massive physical posturing, scent, and noise communicating territorial challenge. Seydon had none of the very former, the middling was iffy at best (Kri’gee was only so strong), but perhaps the Matron would listen to something feral. Something vocal. Seydon drew Razorlight and stabbed its steel peak high, lining its point to the Matron’s single, enormous black eye.

And then, remembering the war cries of that dead Akure Leviathan... He screamed back at her. And hoped it paused her wrath.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa felt the force build behind around her husband, dark and dangerous and, for a brief moment forgot that she was in danger and recalled their heated moments mere hours ago and a primal grin spread across her features. It was short lived, as his scream hit her full force, leaving her temporarily deafened. The matron seemed to start, surprised that such a noise could come from something so small and pink, and even more surprised that something so small and pink would dare to challenge her. She gave a great snort and tightened her grasp on Rosa, squeezing a sharp gasp that drew her remaining black eye back to the plaything in her hand.

There was something in that eye that stopped Rosa's heart for a moment, a hatred born of fear and suffering, something she could relate to, even with her life in danger. Rosa reached out for the rancor's mind, seeking memories, hunting for the cause of her fury, her intrusion however, was not welcomed. With another roar and a stamp of her foot, Rosa was thrown at the nearest wall with immense force. Pain gave way to a moment of brief darkness, leaving her in a heap on the floor. She pushed herself upright to see the matron advancing on Seydon, bellowing her acceptance of his challenge. Fear clutched at her heart.

Around Seydon, a dozen Rosa's appeared, their faces filled with fury that she could not hold at bay. This was no how she wanted their first day back together to go. They should have started with the flies first, or better still, stayed in bed for the day. A web of fear began to weave about the room, linking to all the minds of the rancors. This little pink thing and its mate were something to be feared. She drove the though home hard, pushing herself up from her feet as she did. The matron hesitated.

"Don't you dare!" she cried at the matron, limping to stand with her husband and the doppelgangers around him.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Rosa’s surge acted like a desaturate, bleeding at the colour and light. Rotting timber rafters blacked out into emerging shadow. Clastic debris, piled bone, misplaced baubles twinkling like rhine glass, faded to cold hues of slate, chalk, and murky amber. The atmosphere grew choking and sibilant, disconnected sounds, playing in reverse or bellowing just to hush to a rasp, stridat whistles, played at the edges of their ears. Seydon held Razorlight in guard, gripping high on the haft, left-hand snug above the pommel, gauging the dismayed brood. Rosa’s hardlight copies formed up in a wedge surrounding him, all wearing identical expressions of dun wroth.

The nature of the contest had changed. The Matron, in a first, had grown anxiously hesitant. This was Badness. Ancestral memories, encoded across successive familial generations, recalled the Badness on Dathomir. Rosa was Witchy. She wielded a doom they could not see, could comprehend in the most vestigial way, power that tickled or could clench their warm, nascent minds and force obedience. The Matron understood her genetic revulsions. She tracked away from the pair, pawing the air, whining catlike.

Her brood uprooted and followed suit. The young trampled out of their nests, tracking pieces of shattered pelvic bones and animal skulls, mewling against the sudden move. Their elders chunnered heavy sub-sonic warbles and ushered them on. They assembled into a loose single file, edging through the part in the far vale wall. Rainfall still curtained over the opening. Their heavy frames glided through the water, shrugging off the sudden wet and cold, glassy rivulets trailing off their hides. The Matron fixed both of them with a lingering, baleful stare. Paused especially over Rosa. She snorted hot, snotty air, gurgled a deep note in her throat, and was next gone out into the jungle.

Seydon dropped Razorlight and its scabbard, sprinting through fading illusions. He skidded over rough stone, to Rosa’s side, fussing as he propped her against the earth with his coat rolled into a make-do pillow. Unfastened her coat and was already pulling through her shirt buttoning, gently probing through cloth at her rib-cage. “Just tell me where it hurts... Don’t know how that could have gone any better. Funny... You’re the one in rough shape this time. Mean I can dote on you in bed now?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]