Private One Man's Food

[Marrow]

Minor Sith-aligned Colony
The Hydian Way

A while ago, a ship had landed. A small freighter with an independent crew. Insignificant. Normally. A surprise inspection from the border authority led to an abnormal outcome. Even in Sith-controlled territory, it was highly irregular for half a dozen customs agents and the crew to be found not only dead but zombified to boot.

Someone, somewhere, would have to fill in a lot of paperwork.

---

Marrow was irate. The meal had been filling, but it had cost him the ship, the Thralls (a less important loss, to be sure, though he needed at least one pilot and preferably a mechanic), and his element of surprise.

Every hunter knew that startled prey was harder to catch.

Of course, the prey might not yet know its status.

The customs agents had been filling, but bland. Utterly mundane. He had yet to prey upon the extraordinary, though that would soon change. There was a man. Someone of authority, possibly. More importantly, he had the connection, though it was mediocre at best. That still put him miles above most prey. A succulent treat.

A hungry gleam entered Marrow's eyes, though for now he was able to restrain himself. The man would be in private soon. He did not know he was being followed. He had a meeting. He did not know that Marrow would intrude.

Sofiel​

 

[Sofiel]

The reports weren't anything too new. Not in Sith space, at least. One of her very superiors had such an ability to drain the life from unfortunate victims and reanimate them as the unliving. But where Darth Strosius could, he hadn't. And the others like him that could certainly wouldn't be doing.. This. She frowned as she looked over one of the bodies in the morgue. Frowned in concentration, interest. Something wild was devouring it's way through the Order.

Which only meant it needed to be stopped.

Her gaze shifted to the door as it opened, her yellow corrupted eyes watching the man who stepped through. The Sith in charge of this location. The one with answers. Hands clasped firmly behind her back, she watched him. Appraised him. A simple, younger soul trying to prove their worth to.. Their master? Some higher authority. It didn't matter too much.

"So you've seen no one? No recordings?"

"We have recordings. But whatever struck was too.. Quick, to get detail on."

"Unfortunate. But, do you think they've left?"

"No, I-"

He paused as something in the shadows moved. From the darkness, her familiar emerged. Landing on her shoulder.

Here.

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

The meeting place reeked of death. Familiar death. His distractions had been secured in one piece.

Where he not so focused on the hunt itself, that thought might have alarmed him - the intent had been to see the defenders forced to rely on fire most destructive, wiping away any undesirable evidence in the process.

Speaking of the hunt, he approached from the shadows like the ambush predator he was. Rather than using the main entrance, he tore open a grate and slid into a ventilation shaft - it was too small for a normal human, but his sizeable frame contorted to fit, extra appendages emerging from his body to push him forward with uncanny speed.

Soon, he was peering down on a corpse storage facility.

Two targets, not one. Both had the connection, but the newest's scent was more appealing than his original prey. More potent? Likely, but there was also something odd about it - and its familiar-creature.

Instincts firing, he noticed himself being noticed and acted accordingly - in a display of superhuman strength, the grate covering the ventilation shaft was torn from its hinged and flung at the back of his prey's head.

At the same time, he dropped to the ground and surged towards the new one.

The element of surprise was essential, especially when outnumbered.

 

[Sofiel]

"I see."

Her gaze lingered on the Familiar, and chaos erupted. The other Sith hadn't stood a chance. Whatever was stalking them, had been for a long while now. Without his notice. The grate cracked the back of his skull, sending him to the ground. Unconscious, dead, Sofiel didn't know. What she did know was the blur that had descended upon her. Fear crept into her mind, panic. It showed on her face before she could stamp it down.

As he pounced, she raised her hand to unleash a telekinetic blast of the Force out to try and send it away from her. Vorthruz itself leapt away from her shoulder, wings beating to send it up towards the ceiling.

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

His original quarry was felled with ease. Down. Bleeding. Alive? So far, yes. The male would hopefully stay that way long enough for Marrow to incapacitate the female - living food was so much more nourishing.

Speaking of the female, her fear was evident. Exhilarating.

Unfortunately, the fear did not translate to vulnerability.

Her telekinesis sent him flying backwards, the Sangnir landing on the ground on all four like a humanoid cat. Snarling in anger, he surged forward once more, only to jump to the right - landing beside a display table, he picked up the blaster-riddled body of one of the dead customs agents, hefted it over his head, and threw it towards the last Sith standing.

His eyes occasionally flickered towards the familiar, but he did not seem to consider it a threat.

 

[Sofiel]

Alright. He was going to throw something. That made sense. Something from the table. Scapel? Bone saw? Hammer? Body. Sofiel blinked as the body was thrown her way. She couldn't do much to defend herself as it hit her. Fear. Confusion. Emotions from the body, not her. Annoyance was all she felt as her vessel refused to co-operate. And that had her suddenly pinned to the ground over a much lighter body than she expected.

No blood weight. Huh.

Sofiel struggled for a moment to try and pry the body off, but it wasn't working. So she shifted tactics. Her gaze flickered, and the black eyes of her Familiar changed to a flickering yellow. Then the mask split down the center, horizontally. The halves separated, revealing nothing. Actual nothing. The absence of something, hidden below the mask in a void that sparked red before unleashing a bolt of crimson lightning towards the Sangnir.

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

The prey was fearful. Confused. Vulnerable. Its end drew near. Once more, Marrow approached, but he did not travel far.

The familiar lashed out at him, emitting crimson lightning from its gaping 'maw' - sorcerous trickery far beyond what Marrow was capable of, at least in his current state. By bending his back so far back his head almost hit the floor, he evaded the brunt of the attack, though it still glanced off his right thigh, causing the flesh to bubble angrily.

A pained hiss left his mouth and the Sangnir shot backwards, picking up a scalpel along the way.

Sliding the blade into his right forearm for safekeeping, he gazed at the female with more wariness. She still reeked of fear, but there was something off about her. Something he could not place. She did not feel like prey.

"What... are... you?" The Basic was slow and heavily accented, but still comprehensible.

 

[Sofiel]

With the Sangnir scooting back, she took the moment to lift the body up and off with a simple application of the Force. Stood up on her own shortly after. She kept her distance from him, but.. He spoke. She raised a brow, curiosity filling her Sith yellow eyes. She hadn't expected him to speak. He seemed.. Feral, after all. The Familiar soared back to her shoulder, it's face once more one mask rather than the split.

She leaned her head over, gently resting a cheek against Vorthruz's wing in the process. Sofiel folded her arms over her chest. No more hostility, not yet.

"I am Sith. What are you?"

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

In contrast to the woman's stationary posture, Marrow continued to pace soundlessly, though he stayed roughly the same distance from his counterpart. She had proven to be anything but vulnerable, after all.

"I am... Ş̷͈̍ȃ̴̝̜̻n̸̢̘̈́̓g̸̝̈͒́n̶͙̊i̷̳͗r̷͇̄͑͂." He evidently did not know the translation for his own species' name.

"You... are different." The statement was punctuated with a meaningful look towards the man.

Black eyes gleaming, he began to slowly make his way towards said man, all the way testing her reactions. What little he knew of the Sith made him think there was a chance she would be uninterested in defending her comrade - and Marrow had built up quite the appetite while trailing this succulent treat. Powerful he was not, but he was connected.

Even a mediocre 'Sith' was much more nourishing than a mundane in peak health.

 

[Sofiel]

It wasn't a word she recognized. Then again, there were still a good number she needed to learn. Her gaze followed his towards the passed out Sith. Wounded; broken, possibly. Curiously, though, the other wasn't looking at them like a threat or with hate or any other emotion that brought people to kill one another. It was like watching a predator.

Interesting.

"Will you eat him?"

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

The woman's words were curious, not concerned. She might not leap to the man's defence.

Marrow's eyes seemed to shift slightly as if dilating but given the lack of a pupil, it was hard to tell.

"Yes." Without any unnecessary ceremony, he approached the man. Faster now, unless she made any threatening moves or otherwise attempted to stop him. If unopposed, he would pick the man up and lift him effortlessly.

Holding him so that the man faced the woman - all the better to keep his eyes on her at all times - he would pause a moment, then sink his teeth into the man's neck. He would not eat the flesh or fully drain him of blood. Instead, Marrow sipped the man like a fine cocktail and with every drop of blood coursed life and power.

At the rate he was draining him, the man would be a withered husk before he lost much of the remaining blood. Marrow still had plenty of unspent biomass from his earlier victims, after all. He was after the Anima.

 

[Sofiel]

She made no move to stop him, instead just watching from her distance. Curiosity won the day out. Sith were all about the strong surviving, right? The calm smile remained on her face, even as the body he devoured shrunk and withered. So that explained how the other bodies were formed, at least. This being for sure was one of the beings like the Knight Inquisitor Darth Strosius . Only when the body was dropped did she step over, to crouch beside it and look it over.

"Will it rise on it's own, by chance?"

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

Her curiosity continued throughout his feeding. Not once did she seem worried or appalled, though once more this failed to match what his senses were telling him. Perhaps she had ways of distorting her true thoughts, but why?

"No." While still concise, Marrow's words seemed more coherent after his little feast.

"Not unless I... refill it." More strangely, his accent seemed to have faded a bit, as if he had taken more than just life force from the now-dead Sith. If so, it was hard to say whether that was normal or a consequence of the deceased's Force Sensitivity. As an added benefit, the satiated Sangnir was able to resist the urge to attack the woman.

At least partially because he was unsure if he could win, even in close quarters.

 

[Sofiel]

"Refill. Fascinating."

She pressed a hand to the throat of the now dead Sith. It looked like she was checking for a pulse, but in reality, she was checking for something else entirely. And she found it, almost immediately she found it. Her hand retracted as she stood up, glanced up towards Marrow's bloodied lips, then to his eyes.

"You devour the Force, don't you? How much of him did you retain?"

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

Perhaps it would have been wiser to keep his cards close to his chest, but Marrow was not in the mood for nuance.

"Sort of," He answered, but apparently felt no need to elaborate. "Not much. Only scraps, but scraps from Connected prey are more... lucid." Apparently, there were beings out there who were absent from the tapestry of life. How such a thing was possible, Marrow did not know, but he would very much like to taste one. Just to see.

Assuming such lifeforms were more than myth and superstition.

She might know. There was much she might know, that he did not.

 

[Sofiel]

Sort of. Good enough.

"That sounds quite handy, doesn't it? But.." The calm smile remained, but as she spoke the Familiar moved. It's shadow spread across the room, the white mask settling in the corner. Once more splitting apart as the red glow of energy started to form within the center of the nothingness that mask contained. It brightened, consuming her in the shadow so only her yellow eyes were left, cold and emotionless as she watched him.

"You have been marked for death. In accordance to the Inquisitorial Law, any external threat to the Sith must be eliminated. Unless you choose to join me, I will have no other recourse but to destroy you now."

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

Marked for death? A different man might have been worried, but the statement struck at his pride.

Marrow admittedly did not remember who he had been before his hibernation, but he was reasonably sure he had been a ruler or at the very least some kind of noble. Certainly not someone who would bow and scrape before the laws of lesser beings. In short, he did not appreciate being threatened.

"I see." Without any pomp and ceremony, he slid the scalpel he had picked up earlier from its flesh-pocket and flung it at the woman's throat. Anticipating more lightning, he jumped sideways and took cover behind an empty slab - grabbing onto it, superhuman muscle flexed and the sound of bending steel could be heard.

If a corpse could knock her down, something like this ought to kill her.

 

[Sofiel]

She blinked once as the knife hit her square in the throat. There was little she could do about that. In an instant her body fell.

But she did not bleed. The lightning scorched out from the Familiar, ripping through the floor with such force it erased a good portion of it. Then it descended, shrouded Sofiel in it's black wings. It took there for a moment before suddenly she was up again. No wound, no mark on her throat. Just the calm smile on her face as the wings pulled back and her Familiar took it's perch on her shoulder.

"Vessels are hard to come by. If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you kept harm to it to a minimum. And that you would surrender yourself. I don't want to kill you, but orders are orders. Please, give me a reason not to."

Marrow

 

[Marrow]

She failed to protect herself and the blow landed better than expected.

Despite this, she was back on her feet in short order and something finally clicked, not least because of her statement - she was a spirit, or something like it. The details were irrelevant. What mattered was that he did not know how to put her down for good, though strictly speaking that may well not be necessary if his goal was to escape.

"Orders," He scoffed. "Orders are for lackeys. I have no intention of being anyone's lackey."

Having halfway transformed into his Warform, the Sangnir tore the slab loose with one last display of herculean strength, but held off on throwing or otherwise utilising it. For now. That said, he did keep it between him and her.

 

[Sofiel]

Sofiel had started to raise her hand, prepare another attack, ready another strike. And yet, she paused. Orders were for lackeys? What an interesting thought.

"Orders give people reason. If you don't take orders, what is your reason then? Your purpose?"

Marrow