Out In The Cold

[Rose Kuhn]

Rose stood, she wore her asheran armorweave bodysuit and a heavy thick fur cloak wrapped around her.

Her hair was tied into a tight bun, hidden away by a hood. Her face was wrapped with a long scarf that draped down the front of her body. She shivered still, even though she should have been more than warm. Truth was, she simply didn't like the cold. Empress Teta had always been warm. There had been no snow, no winter freezes, nothing of the sort.

Hoth was a different story.

A strong shiver poured through her entire body, shaking her from head to toe. Her hands clasped at her side, and for a moment her head swiveled back up the ramp of the ship. It would have been easy to go, easy to simply walk back up that ramp and not complete her assignment, but that would have meant no more training.

She grumbled slightly, knowing she had to push forward.

“Come on!” She yelled back to her sister, Lily, still hiding on the ship. Vrag had only sent Rose here, but she knew that finding what she sought would be more difficult on her own. It was easier to bring Lily along too. Or she hoped it would be.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Rose always got to go out and bring back nice jewelry, even if they were cursed or tainted with the dark side, and Lily had always been envious of the trinkets and baubles her sister had earned for herself, so it was only obvious - to herself, not her rough sibling, of course - that she'd demand to be brought along on another trip. Only she'd not realized where they were going, and the fact that her sister made the effort to ask her first kept her from really inquiring into such. So now she found herself wearing tight pants, long sleeves, and her normal attire really. Well, she had a coat, of course, but this was going to be the absolute worst trip in recent memory. The fething cold! Of course she could manage to keep herself warm with the force, but that would produce icky results in such an extremely cold planet - to the extent that she'd much rather be holed up on a ship to wait for her sister's return. But, like always, her bossy twin sister's voice rang out and with a scowl and a grunt the way-too-well-dressed teen found herself stomping down the boarding ramp in a disgruntled storm. Snow. Snow. Why of all places did Rose have to bring her to Hoth? "Alright, alright! I'm coming.." She growled, not at all happy, and most certainly not the picturesque example of 'help'.

Not even two minutes, or maybe two seconds depending on who you asked, after she stepped out of the ship and barely even made her way to her sister Lily was already unable to bear the freezing air that nipped at her lips and fingers. Flames leaped from her the tips of the fingers on her right hand, and like a torch she carried the ball of fire that perpetually burned several centimeters above her skin. At least now she was slightly warm, but it was most certainly not pleasant - not with a chilled breeze freezing the sweat that the fire caused to roll off of her. "So what's the plan? After something in particular?" Lily asked, not too concerned with the planet so much as she was with ruining her clothing with sweat and repeated freezing and thawing of the fabric.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

“A holocron.” Rose whispered.

There was an excitement to that. It wasn't an important Holocron. It wasn't one that had belonged to Naga Sadow or Revan or any other infalliably powerful Sith. It was the holocron of a minor Lord within the ancient Sith Empire.

Not the most valuable thing in the galaxy, but certainly warranting her attention. Vrag had told her it contained some bit of knowledge on the construction of a Sith Artifact of some sort, though what exactly it did she had been unsure of. Rose didn't care. She saw this as a trial. She could feel herself becoming stronger, more powerful.

She was better with her lightsabers, stronger with the force.

Rose could feel herself getting closer and closer to the cusp of advancing. On Mandalore she had proven herself, and now with gathering this little trinket, it could be the token that granted her the title of Knight.

“If we find it.” She leaned into her sister, grinning. “I'll let you look inside.”

 

[Ellie Mors]

Lily grimaced, knowing right away that if her sister had thought bringing up something she had been immensely jealous of her sister for inheriting of then this little adventure out on Hoth must have been quite a bit more dangerous than she'd hoped for. That, or her sister really wanted her company.

Hah.

On one hand, she loved the reading, the listening, even the conversations that came out of accessing minor holocrons that she'd borrowed from various mutual friends of her Sith sibling, on the other hand she was no longer in any hurry to even remotely begin going beyond what she had learned with the force. She could create her own treated leather, her own treated metals, even alter her appearance to a degree - no more acne, that much was clear - so she no longer really saw a need for the connection to it. That had, of course, been a sudden strain on her abilities. She had become complacent, she wasn't growing, and although she kept learning more things from texts and other research material they were never put into practice. To put it bluntly, she was falling behind her sister in even this aspect of their respective abilities. Not that it bothered her much, she knew all that she figured she needed to know - she was never going to go into battle, never get into a fight, so why worry?

"And what is guarding this, exactly? Surely you know these sort of things have the spirits of the old Sith Lords who made them stay behind to keep them hidden." Lily asked, although she more grumbled it than outright said it - she was freezing her buttocks off.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

Slowly Rose began to press her way through the snow.

It would be a short trek, at least to the coordinates that Vrag had given her. Supposedly there was a tomb there, or some kind of vault. Rose wasn't entirely sure how she would get inside, but the lightsabers that sat strapped to the small of her back had always worked well as keys, especially to places she wasn't going to get into.

When her sister began to complain Rose simply shook her head, though it was a motion that was well hidden by the fluff around the edge of her hood. She pushed on as she thought of a suitable answer, her gloved hands closing into tight fists and opening again and again to keep her blood flow up.

“It doesn't matter.” Rose finally yelled. “Whatever it is, we'll kill it.”

There was a supreme confidence in her tone. Alone she was strong, with her sister, she was capable of killing anything.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Lily glared. Normally her vain complaints were met with a firm roll of the eyes or shake of the head, and considering she couldn't see her sister's face - or head really - she could only assume it was one or both. Of course the silent pause before Rose finally shouted out her response, which summed up nicely as "Just shut up and keep going", only served to antagonize her further, but rather than make another scene she simply lowered her head and trailed behind the fighter out of the two of them. "She says it doesn't matter now.." She grumbled silently, staring holes in the snow as she pushed her boots through the slush. As far as she was concerned there were a number of things that were not benefiting them at the moment: Her sister, Rose, had no idea what they had to deal with, probably didn't think to scout the area first to ensure it wasn't locked behind blast doors that would take days to break through, and her boots were getting soaked from the snow that was melting into them.

Just great. Wonderful way to start the week.

On one hand she could warm herself up and make the dampness on her clothing change into steam, but by doing so she'd only make her situation worse. Awful situation to be in, really. Glancing up ahead she wondered how long it would be before they arrived at the location her sister had in mind, and partially what might be in this holocron.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

Ten, then twenty minutes passed.

Vrag had said the tomb had been close, and if it hadn't been for the mountains of snow that they had to pass through it likely would only have taken the ten minutes. Yet nearly half an hour after they had disembarked from their ship, Lily and Rose finally found themselves at a small glacial mountainside, a deep etching cavern cut into its base.

“There!” Rose yelled over the sound of the storm that had begun to gather. “In the cave!”

Thats where it had to be. The tomb would be long buried. She frowned slightly as she made her way down towards the crevice, slowly tracing a path that her sister could follow, trudging over snow and ice until finally, she breached the entrance to the cave.

Almost comically, as she climbed over the last mountain of snow Rose fell forward, landing on her rear within a pile of soft white fluff, the darkening winds of the outside howling past the opening of the cave as she sat stunned.

 

[Ellie Mors]

For Rose this was probably just another day of working in the 'field', an exercise session as best, but for someone who was used to doing tummy-tucks and squats with the occasional walk around the garden rather than hard labor this was an intense workout - especially with the insane amount of snow and slippery ice. More than once she found herself with a cramp that had slowed her down considerably - catching up only with a short sprint that wasted just as much stamina as the cramp had before she'd worked it out. But now, after nearly a half hour of way too much marching through snow for her taste, the twins found themselves nearing their destination. As her sister called out to her, letting the shivering teen know of their arrival, Lily couldn't help but look up and notice the brewing storm with not a single iota of joy. "Hopefully it isn't so cold inside.." She muttered, picking up the pace only to watch with a slightly bemused expression as her sister stumbled head-long into the cavern.

Serves you right.

"Rose? Everything okay in there? You know how I feel about dark places and creepy crawlies." Lily called out, hesitating to join her sister - though she was most certainly not going to make the same fumbling mistake her sibling had.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

Rose sat there for a few seconds, her eyes scanning over the inside of the cavern. There wasn't much to look at, at least not in the immediate area.

She wiggled slightly, trying to free herself from the snow that she had buried herself in. For a few moments she found herself stuck, until finally she managed to pull herself free. A stumbling step, and suddenly she heard Lily's voice echoing through the cavern. Her eyes shifted, and she looked up to where her sister was standing.

“It's fine.” Rose called back up, unhooking one of the lightsaber blades from her belt. “Just a little dark.”

The bright red blade jumped into life, thrumming loudly and resounding within the empty cavern. “Be careful coming down.”

Rose said as she suddenly spotted several massive jutting spikes of ice stabbing into the air. She frowned slightly, then began to stalk forward deeper into the cavern. Not too far, she didn't want to leave her sister behind, but enough that she could see more of what was around her.

 

[Ellie Mors]

While her sister preoccupied herself with exploring her immediate surroundings with a lit saber, Lily carefully made her way down the slick and icy entrance to the cavern below. The fire she'd lit had since been extinguished - it was far too tedious to carry such down an icy slope - and instead she found her lightsaber lit and active in her free hand as she felt her way down with her left. Luckily for the teen she had noticed the stalagmites of ice with the glow of her saber and avoided them handily, keeping the saber on even as her feet finally found purchase on solid ground. While she certainly wasn't afraid of the beasts that lurked her mother's small bestiary that held the numerous sithspawn she'd collected over the years, it was entirely different thing in the wild unknown when dealing with untrained beasts and sithspawn. "Ugh, sure is musky in here. Certainly is a tomb of some sort, enough dust here to have collected for centuries." She remarked, swiping her left index finger along a piece of exposed stone.

Trailing a short distance behind her sibling, Lily couldn't help but spend more and more time gazing at the warped architecture, wondering if this cavern had always been buried so far beneath ice and snow. "Hey, Rose, any idea on how old this place is?" Lily asked, trying to keep conversation while she ran her fingers along an engraving that was partially covered with ice and equally frigid blue paint. Part of her wondered if her sister even cared about the holocron or anything in this wretched tomb, the history of it, or if she was only interested in succeeding in her trip. They were the same result, she supposed, but she wondered if the intention behind all of this was right.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

The bright red hue of her lightsaber seemed to splash all over the cavern. It revealed strange architecture and even stranger imprints pressed into the icy floor.

Her heart skipped a few times as she saw frozen statues, massive beasts with open gaping maws that appeared to be ready to pounce and consume. Rose looked away from them, reminding her that fear was no option for Sith. She looked deeper into the cave, leading her sister forward and mulling over her question, trying to find an answer.

“I don't know.” She said, the fact of that stinging slightly. “But the architecture...”

Rose ran her fingers over one of the walls. “It reminds me of some of the pictures in mom's library.”

She nodded to herself as the cave began to narrow into a hallway, the rock carvings beginning to look more and more Ancient Sith, old gold hues and strange curves worked into the rock itself. Rose became more sure as they reached a massive stone door, a huge symbol of the old Sith Imperium carved into its face.

 

[Ellie Mors]

While Lily was tending to her own interests, which happened to be treating the whole pathway as a museum at this point, she listed absent-mindedly as her sister spoke without great interest - at least until she heard her sister mention something about their mother's library. Now if she wasn't shocked that her sister had noticed this from something at home, a book of some sort perhaps, she was totally floored by the mention of the likeness of this place to something in their parent's study - more so that her sister had actually spent time reading a book than training outside with her insufferable lightsaber and other exercises. "You've been in mom's library?" She asked, still a little more than surprised. Sure, Rose always seemed to be researching various things that she was supposed to study whenever Vrag told her to, but things in mom's library, more specifically architectural books, were more in Lily's realm of study, or at least she thought so. For a moment she wondered if she'd dropped that far behind her sister while she focused on other things, like partying and business.

Confident that she was basically out of danger at this point, not that she ever really was, Lily shut off her saber and tucked it away in the purse at her side while she jogged towards her sister, finally glad she put some money into these boots that had otherwise been a near identical pair to her older pair. "The Imperium?" Lily said aloud, questioning the presence of the giant engraving while she approached her sister. "Eh, Rose, there's a decent chance there might be some stuff inside that could be really dangerous, the Sith from those times were supposed to be well-known for making sure their tombs and stuff were well-guarded with traps and sithspawn. Now I'm not saying we can't get through it, but.. Careful?" She cautioned, suddenly quite a bit more weary of simply walking through a large door. She'd, of course, forgotten she wasn't holding her lightsaber in her hand, though - what with it being weightless and she being a completely airhead at the worst of times - so she didn't quite make any motion to prepare.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

Rose traced her finger alongside the strange carving. The pad of her index moved along the jaw of a strange portrait of what could only be a Massassi warrior, the strange protrusions from his head and face etched into the rock, his sword cut deep into stone. She hummed for a second, matching the loud thrum of her lightsaber as it resounded within the cavern.

“It'll be okay, Lily.” Rose said quietly. “Whatever is in there, we can kill it.”

The blade of her lighstaber flicked forward as her hand retreated.

A sharp hiss could be heard and the blade sliced through rock, cutting the primitive lock that had held the stone doors in place and freeing the odd lifting system that had held the stone in place. Slowly the carving fell away into the walls and floor, revealing a massive stone tunnel, a breath of cold air, and a wave of the Darkside of the force that nearly brought Rose to her knees.

 

[Ellie Mors]

"Sure, fine until someone gets hurt... But gee, at least we'll have killed it, right?"

Maybe Lily was being a little harsh, internally, on her sister, but she had plenty of reasons to act like she was defenseless and all that - she really was, especially when compared to her successful Sith of a sister. Maybe it was all a pity-party in her head, maybe the reality that she was doing practically nothing with her life was starting to sink in, but it was still reality - no matter how self-inflicted it was. And before she could say something witty or snarky to her sister about cutting a lock on a likely 'cursed' tomb the deed was already done, a chill filling the room in much the same way one would have felt if they fell into a giant vat of icy water. The cold alone was enough to repel the teen, but it was the sudden draining of her stamina that quite literally brought her tumbling down.

Where her sister had certainly been exposed to this sort of thing often, the closest Lily came to the dark side was the use of sith alchemy in the only way she knew how - with the dark side of the force. Naturally this sudden gust of terror was far more than anything she'd ever experienced, and it literally sapped the strength out of her legs - both of which gave out - while she suddenly felt empty inside. "Rose?" She gasped, trying to catch her sudden loss of breath while she shivered and shook on her hands and knees. Her brow was upturned, the color of her skin several degrees paler, and her chest heaved audibly as she tried to keep herself from hyperventilating.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

Rose leaned against one of the doors, her chest heaved up and down, her face was pale, and her lips had turned a strange blue. Her hair seemed to flick in the wind slightly, but she was still standing. Her head swiveled slightly, shifting to look down the tunnel, then towards her sister.

Panic shot through her for a moment.

“Lily!” She caught herself for one more second, let herself be calm, dig into that well of energy that Vrag had taught her so much about. She found the force, letting it flow through her and press away some of that terror that had sunk into her bones. She frowned, then shook her head, the first step she took towards Lily being a kind of half stumble.

“Are you okay?” She crouched next to her sister, grasping her by the shoulders and attempting to lift her up. “I..Sorry. I didn't expect that to happen.”

It was the truth, and it was a reminder to her that Lily hadn't just been giving empty words.

What they were dealing with here was a serious thing, whatever was in this tomb, whatever could be found in there...it was guarded by something that might be beyond them.

 

[Ellie Mors]

"Why yes, Rose, I am just karking dandy."

Of course the words never made it passed her lips, though she certainly give her sister the kind of look that she generally gave when she made sarcastic and witty comments. Perhaps that twin telepathy thing everyone raved about would kick in about now. Of course she probably would have been fine if she hadn't been completely off-guard when that surge of the dark side rendered her legs useless, but the past was the past. "I'll be okay, really." She rasped, her voice almost as coarse as her mother's had once been a time ago - though primarily because of her ragged breathing rather than how she normally sounded, which was usually quite a bit softer and much less unrefined. She cleared her throat and tried to stand, finding her right hand immediately drawn to the wall as if by instinct to steady herself. "So, dark side and spirits and all that, huh?" Lily joked, trying to make light of her sudden collapse and their rather bleak situation. It wasn't that she doubted they could get rid of the insufferable spirit, just that she doubted it would be either easy and that she would go without at least some wounds to nurse when they returned home. If they returned home.

She shook her head, as if shaking the negative thought from it, and nodded towards the door as her wobbling legs began to steady. She'd broken into a cold sweat, which she didn't really notice all that well because of the adrenaline running through her veins at the moment, to the point that the loose strands of hair she normally kept hanging like bangs at the sides of her forehead were mildly wet - giving her the appearance of someone that had just done an intense workout under a hot sun, all in the span of a couple minutes after the unexpected exposure to that horrendous aura of despair. However, something in her begged to go towards it. It wasn't a daring feeling, or even a challenging one, rather it felt like a hunger, like there was something she felt that attracted her to the source of that assault. "Let's keep moving, it's too late to stop now." She said, although she found herself silently disagreeing with that sentiment even as she began to try to walk onward - perhaps even at the bewilderment of her sister. She happened to surprise herself at that moment, really, and part of her wondered what the feeling that drew her towards the dark power was, as it certainly wasn't a thirst for it.

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

She had never thought about stopping, no, that was unthinkable.

Rose had to complete this task. She had been dubbed a Knight, both in title and strength. She knew what that meant, what it would mean. Rose now had a responsibility to live up to what she had been given. There was success, or there was nothing.

Failing in the retrieval of a simple holocron, a single artifact that was supposed to be easy to hunt down would not be success, it would be failure in the utmost. Vrag would not be pleased if she came back empty handed, not pleased at all. The thought of coming back with nothing...well, she had no idea what Vrag would do, but she very much doubted it would be a pleasant experience.

“Yes.” Rose said with a nod.

They moved deeper into the dark abode, the feeling of overbearing power beginning to fall in on them. Strange statues lined the surrounding halls, odd visages of Massassi that seemed to loom over Rose and Lily as they stepped deeper into the tomb.

“I...” She paused for a second, looking around and tightening her grip. “I feel something.”

Uneasiness grew in her stomach.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Lily was a little too immersed with the current state of tunnel vision she was experiencing to really notice anything out of the ordinary, beyond the slight tug at her psyche that just begged for her to keep on going. Part of this little outing seemed a bit pointless - at least from the perspective of Vrag and Rose, as far as she was concerned. Neither of the two Sith were very focused on using the force over saber combat, she'd watched the two use far more lightsaber practice strikes and duels than she'd ever see them practice the force itself, especially with her sister's disdain for resolving things with anything beyond the blinding glowstick of doom. So, in her mind, a holocron that probably detailed some complex force ability that must have attracted the attention of the Sith to this tomb certainly did not seem to be capable of piquing the interest of such a combat-intensive Sith Lord - at least unless it was what guarded it that bothered the group, and thus the Sith Lord. Thinking she heard something, which was likely just her sister, she turned her head slightly to the right to glance back, only to see her sister nodding her head as a sudden chill overtook Lily's spine - not to the extent of spasming of course, but enough to make her shiver.

Just as her twin mentioned something about feeling 'something', Lily was already turning her head to stare cautiously towards the other end of the cavern as the silence that accompanied them and the darkness around them suddenly felt like a presence all its own. The hallway itself almost seemed to stretch onward into infinity in her eyes and her stomach began to do somersaults. "So they didn't tell you, like, anything about this place?" She questioned, breaking the silence that followed her sister's uneasy statement. The statues themselves had to have dated far beyond the time of the Sith Empire that had almost taken over the galaxy before, far before the times of Darth Revan. Massassi themselves were a people that were kept by the older and original Sith Empire, during the golden age of the Sith, with the likes of Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, Freedon Nadd, and even Exar Kun. Part of her began to try to remember whom else lived during those centuries so many thousands of years ago. It was wholly possible that someone else had occupied the tomb itself since then, and that the holocron could merely be a scapegoat for Rose to eliminate the real target - in which case Lily was certainly out of her league and most certainly in danger.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"]

“I don't think they knew, Lily.” There was a weariness to her voice, but from her body language that would have been impossible to tell.

Whatever lurked here, whatever was within, it would find her without fear or hesitation. She frowned slightly, the bright glow of her lightsaber shinning on her face and giving her eyes an oddly luminescent quality that would have been difficult to discern elsewhere except in the darkness of the cabin.

Rose tried to recall what Vrag had told her, about Hoth, about the tomb, about the effects of the darkside.

Her teacher had not just sent her on a wayward errand to die, Vrag was better than that. The woman in her own way cared for Rose, if only because she saw in Rose a good student to mold into another tool to be used. She doubted there was any real emotion coming from the woman, she doubted the woman was capable of feeling any emotions at all.

Of course that wasn't something Rose wanted to be. “Lets keep going.”

Eventually they would reach the main chamber, and they would find whatever lurked within.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Lily frowned.

"They didn't know?"

The idea of sending a brand-spanking-new knight out on some expedition to retrieve a holocron of some sort without any information whatsoever was, if anything, a sign that the once illustrious government that beat down the Republic, Mandalorians, and the Omega Protectorate almost on their lonesome were becoming feeble and stretched far too thin. Information about these sort of things were what made the One Sith such a dangerous group to mess with, especially in their infancy from what her mother had said in her datacron. There was a time where they were practically an unknown, and yet they seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else. Now it seemed like they were grasping at straws, judging by the lack of knowledge imparted to Rose by her master and her master's employers.
Downright ridiculous.

"I can't understand why you even stick around those morons.." She grumbled under her breath, not particularly a whisper but certainly not loudly either. She'd never been very fond of the Sith, and her own mother being one didn't help their case in her mind. A large part of her was marveled by their traditions in force training, but it was their indoctrination that drove her away. She didn't want to be shoved into a group that made her do what they wanted, and at the moment the only Sith in the entire galaxy, it seemed, were a part of the One Sith, which meant to obtain their knowledge meant doing exactly what her sister was doing - as she was told. Perhaps she had gotten the independent personality from their older sister, but it didn't really matter either way. If times were as they had been in the Old Sith Empire, during the reign of the greats such as Marka Ragnos or Exar Kun, perhaps she would have signed herself away like Rose seemed to do now, but as she walked down a corridor that she, and her sister's benefactors, knew nothing about, it seemed like she was less inclined to feel the same way with the current group.
[member="Rose Kuhn"]