Over Existing In Limbo

[Lief]

Black.

As far as the eye could see.

There inside the great metal beast, there was little for her senses to pick up on. It was cold, colder than the coldest day District Thirty Two had ever known, colder than the coldest night, even! The only sound was the distant rumble of the generator keeping the interior of the cockpit alight.

The strange beast wasn't moving. No, she had shut that function off a little while after leaving home. Home? That place was not home to her any longer... Was this? Nope. Definitely just a strange metal beast.

I don't need a home. Who needs a home? Homes get destroyed... If you don't have something you can't lose it... Right?

Had she ever really had one? Well, yes... Of course she had. Back when Grandpa was with her on Thirty Two, back before the anomaly and the Eclipse. So long ago now that it felt like a dream of another life.

Llevi exhaled a long breath, and leaned back in the seat. She had released the buckles which had been holding her in place what felt like hours ago, and the heavy flight suit the strangers from the Resistance had told her to wear had likewise been kicked off.

That was when the chill had set in. Coincidence? Nah, probably not. The thing had been heavy, itchy, uncomfortable. She much preferred the freedom of her own clothes, a loose shirt and trousers. Yes, much more agreeable.

She flicked her gaze across the view outside her window. Her feet were up on top of the control consoles, obscuring just a thin slither of the abyss. Void. It was definitely more void-like than the abyss had been. What she wouldn't give to be diving down beneath the waves, sinking deeper and deeper and...

Something floated past her, and she turned in the seat to watch its journey. A lump of space rock. Bah, she had seen enough stupid rocks to last a lifetime.

Reaching down to where her feet ought to have been, Llevi pulled up a ration pack and began to absentmindedly chew on its contents. Did she know what it was? Absolutely not. Did it taste good? Nope! But was she going to finish it anyway? Of course she was. Because hunger wasn't something she wanted to experience any time soon.

Funny that. Here you are sat in a stupid metal box floating in the middle of nowhere, refusing to start the engine or whatever the damn thing is called, yet you don't want to be hungry. Tell me, Llevi, where exactly are you going to find the food when you run out of rations, eh? You thinking a cute little space bunny is going to hop on by for you to spear? Oh wait, you don't have your spear anymore, do you? And guess what... Rabbits aren't in space.

She rolled her eyes, and sighed. "Yeah, yeah, no rabbits in space, whatever... I'll just keep eating this sludge and who knows, maybe more will just miraculously appear."

What are you, an idjit? Food doesn't just appear, you dunce, you gotta hunt it! Or find it at the very least. You're in a goddamn tin can, far away from any civilization. But sure, you keep thinking like a silly kid. Why don't you just imagine some up, eh? You're so very good at doing useless things like that!

"Oh shut up, will you? I thought you into existence, I can think you without a damn voice if I wish!"

She tossed what remained of the ration pack back to the floor and grumbled. She hated it out here, it was too quiet, too lonely, too boring. You'd think after so many years of arduous living that she'd have a way to amuse herself that didn't involve conjuring up voices and imagining her next meal, but honestly all it had done was lessen her attention span.

One thing was for sure, if she carried on this way simply floating through space she'd go stir crazy. Or had that already happened?

"Psht, who cares?" You do.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She dreams.

She lay as though she were in a trance, ​

With her long eyelashes fluttering ​

She said to him “I lie beyond the sea", ​

And then all of a sudden her head dipped back and she vanished.​

Gone, gone without a trace. ​

Gone.​

She's never coming back, do you know what it's like to live with that? ​

No one knows what it's like. ​

The only one who knew me, gone.​

She floats.

Her Mother had named her ‘goddess of the sea’ in their language and so its darkness always felt like home. Heavy with salt and life, it carried her tiny frame on gentle waves. Alone, alone, so very alone until a sky so pale and grey and empty it seemed not to separate from the black water below. It was impossible to tell the horizon’s distance she was so far out - she could never have swam this far, and neither would she ever make it back to shore. But it didn’t matter. Her black hair billowed out from out her, curling ink-like like octopus arms. Alone, alone, so very alone. She felt the water suck downwards, the force of something larger moving towards the surface from down in the dark and displacing her towards its approach. Perhaps not so alone.

It came up just underneath her, the water eddying over her back pleasantly as something massive and dark swam by against her skin. On and on and on it went and when she turned her head she caught one huge red eye five times her size passed by beneath her.

She smiled.

It wrapped the very ends of its tentacles around one of her arms, pulling her under with it.

She could breathe, master of her domain as it dragged her towards the sea floor. It could have been minutes or hours or days in that darkness, wrapped in her monster’s embrace as they descended together - hit the sea floor together, disintegrated in to dust together. She would rot down there in the dark and be happy for it. For when her dust reached the surface again she’d be reborn.

She wakes.

Space travel made her contemplative, small in the face of thousands of galaxies beyond her own. She woke slowly from her dream, curled in to a ‘c’ with her legs tucked under the sheets to ward off the chill of the dark outside her massive windows. Her ship did not lack for comfort, but her rooms were the most ostentatious, floor-to-ceiling duraglass panels affording her a view of the cosmos outside as if she could slide from her mattress and step out in to the stars. She’d expected to see the lines of hyperspace outside when she opened her eyes from her repeated dream, but it was just the pinpricks of slowly passing deep space. Odd.

Eventually she drew herself from her bed - a place she found herself spending less and less of her time lately, to her dismay - and dressed; despicably couture, as usual.

She swept on to the main deck of her personal ship with the authority of a woman who ruled her people through a demanding mix of love and fear. She found loyalty was best kept if her people loved her enough to crave her approval, but feared her enough to be terrified of the consequences of failure.

Why are we out of hyperspace, Captain? she asked, her smooth sea-glass voice just the same in the female pilot’s head as it would have been had Matsu still possessed the ability to speak aloud.

“Unexpected refueling stop, my Lady,” the Captain explained, sounding cautiously apologetic. “There was an asteroid shower on our intended route - reports circulating was that it would have done extensive damage to the ship, but taking this longer route required us to stop. I apologize--” The Captain stopped short when Matsu raised a cybernetic hand to stop her.

No apologies required, Captain, the Atrisian said, instead staring out of the viewport. What’s that? she asked, narrowing her eyes as a wave of conflicting emotions blasted across space from the small x-wing right in to Matsu’s open mind.

“Nothing confirmed yet, my Lady, but it appears unaffiliated with any of the major groups in this area or nearby factions. It was stationary when we approached but the pilot has since started moving - erratic flight pattern.”

Matsu tilted her head, watching as a predator might while sizing up the worth of potential prey.

Bring it in, she ordered. Either it would hold something of value, or she would make it valuable when she killed its occupant and learned from experiments on its corpse. Either way she could count it a win.

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

Floating, floating, floating...

Endlessly on through the nothingness of space. What a strange concept it was, this space. Emptiness, that's what it was. Hey, maybe that's why it was called space? Because there was so much of it...

Hold the phone there, Einstein, maybe we should alert all the news stations? Because I'm so certain that hasn't ever been remarked upon before now.

Llevi rolled her eyes. Then she drew her feet all the way back down the consoles to settle back against the ground, knocking a few of the controls in the process. Not that it mattered, they likely didn't do anything anyw--

The whole damn ship jolted, forcing a yelp from the now terrified young lady who grasped onto the seat for dear life.

"What in the seven blazes was that?"

Well, I don't know genius... Seems to me like you hit something you shouldn't have. Might be a good time for you to sit your ass up and remember how to fly this damn thing before you run headlong into that cluster of rocks on the horizon.

Rocks? More rocks? Why was it always rocks?

"Yeah, yeah, right, focus..."

One hand took to the controls while the other did a shoddy job at pulling the flight suit back on. Truth be told Llevi didn't know what use the damn thing was, but her toes were cold and she didn't like that.

It seemed as though an octopus had taken charge, though, limbs everywhere none of which happened to be coordinated. She could feel herself shift from left to right, suddenly jumping forward a few feet then dragging back.

Yup, I knew it, didn't pay a damn bit of attention past launching the bloody thing did you? Well that's just great, Sunshine, such a long and fulfilling life you led. We led. Nice knowing you!

And then something unexpected happened. A blimp on the horizon, like the Great Beast of old. Okay, so much bigger than the Great Beast, it was a behemoth that stretched across the horizon.

It took Llevi a moment to realize that she'd lost control of the ship. Not simply that she was so bad at controlling it that it was flying aimlessly, no, quite the contrary... It was as though some invisible rope had locked around the ship and was drawing it toward the lurking monster. Nothing she did, nothing she pressed, worked to fight against this motion.

"Oh kriff... No... Oh my... no... What did I do?"

What didn't you do, more like? You pressed every damn button, flicked every useless lever... Oh you're screwed girl.

"But I don't wanna be screwed..."

More useless buttons, more silly switches, anything... Everything! She'd seen enough monsters to last a lifetime.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She was waiting when the ship came in to the bay, pulled slowly through space. She had her eyes closed as it drifted closer, savoring confusion and panic from whomever sat inside. Space was as void of emotion as it was of sound - the feelings coming from the small one-seater were easily absorbed. Matsu didn’t open her eyes until she heard the feet of the ship hit the bay floor, the hum of the tractor beam quieting as the small craft powered down.

Matsu was alone, hands clasped together in front of her. Her clothing was dark and tailored exactly, a weakness for high fashion evident in the cut. The neck of the dress extended artfully up to cover the ruin of her mouth though her eyes, ever-amber irises swirling with corruption, stared out from over the fabric with intent as she watched for movement. She might not have seemed a monster save for her eyes - she was exceedingly petite, bird-like metal wrists and high cheekbones lending an air of delicacy something like a china doll. Once upon a time she’d used that to her advantage when others underestimated her. Now she did not have the luxury of anonymity.

“Come out,” she said quietly in to the mind of whomever sat inside the craft, her voice like sea-glass smooth and ancient. It was the opportunity for the stranger to make her own decision - that she would be revealing herself was not up for debate. The only question was how difficult the stranger would make it for themselves.

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

Everything beyond the viewing port turned black for a moment or so as the vessel fell under the shadow of the significantly larger beast. Now that she was safely back in her suit, Llevi looked around for something portable, heavy or sharp, that she could arm herself with... But truth be told everything in the damn cockpit was bolted down.

Maybe you should've thought about that before you left without a single damn thing!

"Hey, you know that my spear wouldn't fit in here!"

She clamped a hand over her mouth soon after, as the ship jolted upon touching down. Oh this wasn't good. She scurried backward just a touch, trying to get out of view, and felt her heartbeat race.

Not this again... Anything but this. She hated this stupid game of cat and mouse that had been played throughout her life, the not knowing when her time would finally come to an end.

"Think...Think" she whispered to herself, looking up and around the entirety of the cockpit for some sort of inspiration which never came.

And then the strangest thing happened. A voice, on the very edge of her mind... And not one of the usual voices either. No, she knew all of those voices. This was different. Effeminate even, where the ones in her head were very masculine.

Come out? Come out? Are they being serious right now? Girl, you'd be a fool to leave this ship and step into the unknown! Damn thing dragged you out of the void...

Stay put then? Oh but she knew better than that. It was a threat, a thinly veiled one at that. Come out or else.

She put her head in her hands and hunched over, body hidden behind the main seat. Oh what a mess this was.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She waited. The flood of emotions from within the small ship wasn’t wholly unexpected, but the quality of the stranger’s confusion was poignant and particular. There were hundreds of planets in the galaxy that were unaware of the Force, of its users and their wars, of a story arcing across the billions of lives playing out every day. That a stranger she’d brought in to her ship might have reacted with surprise and panic upon hearing a voice in their head wasn’t an unexpected reaction. And yet…

As a predator her interest was piqued, some sick hunger in her begging to shake the silk of her web - tell her prey she was coming and there was nothing it could do. But the other part begged patience, to toy, to wear a mask until it was time to devour. She would settle somewhere in the middle.

She moved forward slowly, not sensing any plan to attack her when she approached but being careful nonetheless. But nothing happened, not even when she was close enough to reach out and press her metal hand to the cool surface of the ship. She drummed her fingers on the outside. Clack clack clack clack. Clack clack clack clack, And then she pressed the cockpit open with a hiss, the hinge unlocking and rotating backwards to lift the glass from over the small compartment inside.

Stepping up onto the lip, it at first seemed there was no one inside. She - of course - knew that wasn’t the case but still, her eyes did not immediately catch the booted foot behind the pilot’s seat. Crouched and spider-like, Matsu tilted her head like a wolf attempting to better hear its target while on a hunt. “That hardly looks comfortable.” She almost looked friendly save for her eyes, their swirl of orange and amber nearly hidden by black pupils blown so wide they nearly consumed her.

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

☾​

Along Came A Spider, ​

Crept Up Beside Her...​

Nothing. Silence. She knew better than to take that as a positive sign though... Her anxiety rose almost painfully as she fought to keep her breathing under control. Any moment now and everything she had fought for would be rendered inconsequential. Her entire life had been one long battle for freedom, for the stars, and just a few hours in a new web had been forged within which she had become trapped.

Boo hoo. Perhaps if you tried to be strong like the predator instead of cowering like the prey you are you'd stop finding yourself in such tough positions...

For once Llevi resisted the urge to snap back at Mr Know-It-All. Instead she let out a long and rather drawn out breath and simply... Listened.

Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.

Delicate and yet haunting all the same, the unexpected noise sent shivers down her spine and reduced the exposed skin on her neck to goosebumps. Right about now she was rather regretting the fact that she'd kept the helmet down on her flight suit. A certain chill had marred the air.

The sound was continual for a solid few seconds, before it was overridden by a hissing that she had only really heard a few times before... When the metal beast had opened to let her in and out, back on Thirty Two.

She felt certain this marked the end. Who knew what horrors awaited her outside, what monsters had wormed their way inside the cockpit of her last safe haven. Her eyes squeezed shut, and one hand lifted to clamp over her own mouth. But it was futile, she realized, for the being knew she was here. She had heard them in her mind, and sensed them even now through methods she still did not understand.

Damn the Eclipse for the abnormalities it provided.

Damn the Eclipse for everything.

Just when she thought that her time was up, however, that strange voice resounded within her mind once again. As quiet as a whisper carried on the breeze... A breeze. There was no such thing here in the void.

Oh she had been spotted, alright, only the predator chose not to pounce upon its quarry. Instead it mocked? Perhaps mocked was the wrong word for it, but what did Llevi know. Comfortable, though? Nothing about this damn cockpit screamed comfort.

She could not resist in the end. As much as she wished she could have remained put behind the chair and resisted the rising urge, Llevi hazarded a glance from behind the chair into the cockpit beyond. And what she saw both surprised and horrified her in one.

A woman, crouched there like some beast from the thicket, was staring in her direction. In truth she seemed rather ordinary, that is until you took into account the glowering eyes and the mutilated jaw. Every bone in Llevi's body screamed at her to retreat, only she could not move. Even her gaze could not remove itself from the strange visage it was witnessing.

What a way to go... Gawping like a fish caught on a hook... Void are you useless, girl.

[member='Matsu Xiangu']

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She was torn between two sides of her: something uglier that felt the girl’s disgust and made Matsu hungry to destroy her, and the other half that begged her to take her time. She almost always listened to the latter, but the former was a temptress - an addiction. But Matsu clamped down on it and focused her attention on the girl who’d finally revealed at least most of herself from behind her hiding spot.

Matsu missed making facial expressions. So much of her communication had been with the subtlety of a microexpression - the quirk of the side of her mouth, the jut of her jaw in displeasure. Now she approximated by pressing the emotion she intended on to another’s mind, but that did not have the same ease. Were she still capable she would have been wearing a half-smile, something sardonic and flippantly friendly at once. There was something she recognized of herself in the other girl, back when she’d first entered the wider world of the galaxy. Fear for her though have been replaced by some aloof sense of aggression, a girl with no place to put something horrid.

She was quiet for a moment before her voice drifted through the space between their minds again. “My name is Matsu. And you are…” She looked up for a second, her eyes strobing back and forth as if she were reading something in the air before finding the line she was looking for. “Llevana.” To raise up. She smelled like pine, mulch, an earthy memory.

“Come with me, or I will jettison you back in to space without your ship,” she said. It sounded strangely casual, how someone else might say ‘come in, I was just making cookies’.

She walked away as if she assumed the girl would follow.

“So...what were you doing sitting in space?”

[member="Llevana Helas"]​

 

[Lief]

The malintent practically emanated from the stranger. It reminded her of the gutwrenching sensation which was universally experienced whenever the Eclipse came. A duplicitous feeling of relief that they had not been forgotten and horror as they were in turn forsaken. Truth be told that was exactly the way she felt when looking upon the woman who was crouched a few feet away. Intrigue, curiosity, danger...

Had she a way out of the situation, Llevi would have taken it. For so long she had been struggling to survive, running from incident to incident until all that remained was a confused little girl stuck within a terribly lonely world. Monsters around every corner, and nobody to rely upon but herself.

One might have imagined it would have steeled her. Forced her to grow up. And while that for the most part was the truth of the matter, there was still a small meek part of her that remained as childish and innocent as they came. As fearful and imaginative. It was as though she was torn in two: curiosity bade her to step forward, while the coward in her sought to flee.

Neither one of them moved, however. Neither toward or away from. Nor did they speak. Instead they stared, watched, lost in their thoughts, lost in the sights of one another. It was as though time stood still in that moment.

Of course the spell which had descended was broken, as all were want to do, yet the enchantment and inquisitiveness the moment had brokered lingered on within her.

It was once again the words within her mind that drew her back to the present. An introduction, and then...

What manner of being is this, that can pull my name from thin air?

Llevana gasped, her eyes widened... Clearly she would be the worst person to play poker with, or the best depending on how you looked at it, for she had no game face. For once Mr Know-It-All had little to say. Perhaps it feared being overheard? Yes, that must have been why. As much as she enjoyed shutting him up, there was a part of her which was made to feel... Empty... at the loss. As though she had been abandoned.

I don't need you anyway, traitor!

Wait... Could the stranger hear that? Her brows furrowed with uncertainty. Surely not?

When the woman turned to leave, with threat in hand, she figured it was best to follow. It wasn't as though she could hop back into her seat and fly away, after all, something had grasped the ship within its hand and pulled it toward this woman, and the likelihood of it letting go any time soon felt to be slim to none.

So she rose up, following her from the ship into the bowels of a far greater beast. By comparison she felt tiny, insignificant, like a spec of dirt.

Despite having experienced it several times now, Llevi still jumped to the voice in her mind. Why was the woman choosing to communicate the way Mr Know-It-All did? After all, she could see the stranger - but she could not see him! It made no sense.

Damnit, Grumpy, where did you go? Get back here!

Still nothing. So that was it? He'd truly buggered off? Hmph!

Resisting the urge to cross her arms stroppily, the young girl tilted her head to one side and stared at the back of the stranger - Matsu - pondering on a decent enough response. Alas she had none.

"Survival..."

She looked back toward the ship, and then beyond that to the vast void which stretched throughout the starry heavens. Somewhere out there Thirty Two waited. How strange to think that just a few hours ago she was stood upon its soil, and now she was here...

"Where... are we?"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[member="Llevana Helas"]

Usually Matsu did not expend the energy listening to a person’s every thought unless it was critical to her safety. It required too much of her in the Force to maintain that connection with the subtlety required to listen without being detected. However with the loss of her mouth and jaw and therefore the ability to speak through anything but the mind, it had become somewhat more natural to hear others without trying. She spent so much time in other’s minds already that casual communication had become as simple as breathing. Despite not listening to Llevana she still picked up on the irritation as she yelled at some called...Grumpy?

“Who’s Grumpy?” she asked, trying to find some image of the creature in the girl’s mind but drawing a blank. Some pet? A nickname for a sibling? An imaginary friend?

Either way they were on to other things as the two women swept out of the hangar in to a seemingly endless maze of pristine hallways. The men and women working on the Shibito nodded and dipped slightly to Matsu whenever they passed, a sure sign to even a girl from an isolated planet that Matsu was more than the slight feather she appeared to be.

“Well, it’s easier to survive planet-side, though I share your apparent fondness for space. It’s very peaceful. As for where we are, we’re halfway along the Daragon Trail on our way to Korriban. I have some business to attend to there.” Admittedly she hated the desert planet, much preferring the bustle of an ecumenoplis or something of the like. But The Sith Order’s business required that she show her face there at least once in a while to bolster the Sith’s propaganda of benevolence and caring for its battered people.

Stopping a man in the middle of the hallway, she ignored his momentary expression of panic. “Oddson, I need you to prepare one of the guest suites for our new passenger here. And make sure food is put out as well. Space makes a girl hungry.” Oddson bustled off, too happy for an excuse to be elsewhere.

She turned to Llevi then, tilting her head once more. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sitting down and having a short conversation with me. I’m curious about you - I have many questions. As I'm sure you do too.” She had been exceedingly, perhaps too, friendly since the girl had made the choice to evacuate her ship. It couldn’t be said he wasn’t polite, but the walls were also closing in. She could sense something in the stranger from space and she would pry it from her and find her worth - or eject her.

 

[Lief]

Where at first there had been a vast distance between the pair, when the hangar was abandoned in favour of the winding labyrinthine hallways the young girl found herself edging closer to the strange woman without the jaw. While she was odd to look upon, and moreso to listen to, the mere sight of nameless men and women had her curiosity disintegrating into dubiousness.

And that sensation only peaked with the reflection of ole Know-It-All's name. Truly she shouldn't have been as surprised by the revelation as she was, the woman was already speaking into her mind... What was listening in on top of that? Still, she did not exactly like the idea of her thoughts being openly read in such a way.

"Nobody..." she muttered, with an unhindered sincerity: for what was Grumpy that the woman could understand? He had no body, he had no visage, no history. He was nothing. Nobody. Thankfully that part of the discussion was over before it begun, giving her a moment or so of tranquility.

She watched the odd way in which the strangers reacted to the sight of the woman who was leading her past them; the way that they lowered their heads in a submissiveness that practically dripped from them. Averted their gaze with apparent respect. Someone of importance, then, clearly...

"Space is..." What was the best word to describe it? "Different..." What little she had seen of it in the few hours since leaving Thirty Two revealed a vastness that surpassed even the Abyss. It was a welcome change, though, out among the darkness there had been a sense of freedom, serenity, the knowledge that she was no longer being watched or tracked. For a few hours at least she had felt safe.

No attention was paid to the man who halted in their path and seemingly shot off in the opposite direction moments later. The lack of any verbal communication made it difficult to know what was happening, and yet she knew despite the fact that something had most definitely been said. Seemed as though everyone was used to Matsu's strange way of doing things.

They didn't move after he was gone, and instead the attention was turned back to her - much to her discomfort. She wished to speak? There was something about the look in the woman's eyes that suggested a deeper incentive, but Llevi wasn't about to ask or mention that fact at all.

Instead she simply nodded. Talk? Well, she couldn't promise to be particularly good at it - speaking that was - but she would try if nothing else.

[member='Matsu Xiangu']