Post-Patricide

[Kana Truden]

The sirens had since faded into memory. Kana had been caught red-handed outside the Truden residence, murder wasn’t one of those things that people just brushed off it would seem. The officers hadn’t received any resistance in their arrest but that didn’t stop them from tossing her to the ground. Her hair had turned into a disheveled mess and her cheek bruised. Say what you will about the One Sith, but they certainly seemed to know their business when it came to authority.

She had been taken to the precinct. Processing, a night in prison, several, she didn’t really care. With her hands cuffed behind her back there was little Kana could do but co-operate. In reality, there was little she actually would do either. Part of her knew she deserved this. She thought she wouldn’t ever see her father to die at her hands yet here she was and all she could allow herself to feel was the growing emptiness that formed inside of her.

“What is your name?” The officer asked.

“Kana.” She mumbled.

“What was that?” The man turned around to stare her down.

“Kana Truden.” She repeated.

Her eyes set for the ground again as her teeth gritted in frustration. Though it quickly faded, the man was doing his job. She couldn’t hate him for that. It was a job he wouldn’t even have had to do if she had been able to control herself, but that man -- her father -- had a way with her that nobody else had.

And now he was dead.

Because of her

Part of her revelled in it, the other hated herself. Problem was they both had their reasons to be equally tempting. Revenge was sweet, the emptiness afterwards was not and try as she might they still were very much her own blood. That alone made it all just seem so wrong, just like it made the treatment she had received even worse.

The internal debate went around in a few more circles. Whatever made the pain of having to start a thread more endurable.

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gorMzHRU9yg​

​

​

There was a multitude of reasons why the woman who commanded millions would be standing around a lousy, unimportant precinct down in the belly of Coruscant, squeezed as it was between a fast-food stall that served meat of dubious origin and one of the many flower shops littering the streets of the lower levels.

None of those reasons would make the story plausible, and so the shaky rationale will be pushed to the side in favor of some choice inner monologue by the said woman.

Who the kark needs flowers in this chithole?

As mentioned; choice. She hadn't been entrusted command of millions because of etiquette or extensive vocabulary — that honor was reserved for the Voices — and so she would continue deeper into the unsavory and unkempt building along with that train of thought, irately denouncing every stimcaf stain and yun'donut crumb her cold blue eyes spied through the empty sockets of her ever-leering helmet.

Truly, the warrior looked utterly and completely alien in the precinct, despite the fact that she was surrounded by aliens in various stages of sobriety and incarceration. With her wreath of spikes and horns, the woman actually had to slow her normally brisk pace in order to adapt to the narrow halls, traversing which was made progressively more difficult by the stacks of datapads looming on both sides of the corridors.

By the time the Sith had reached the interrogation rooms, she was in a foul mood, which naturally compounded her foul mouth.

"Well, kark me sideways and call me Corvus," the firrerreo dragged the words through two rows of pointed teeth now glinting behind her mask, icy eyes aflame with devious recognition.

"Look what the cat dragged in."

Her warm welcome was intended for no other than [member="Kana Truden"] herself, the Jedi who had thought it prudent to punch the very same grinning skull obscuring her face in that moment.

 

[Kana Truden]

With the papers signed she was tugged away from the reception and into one of the interrogation rooms. The cuffs were unlocked temporarily as arms changed into something more sit-friendly. There still was no struggle, the officer was still doing his job and Kana was still trying to process exactly what it was that she had done. She took her seat on the cold metal chair and let her arms rest on the table in front of her with a head certainly still crooked in defeated disbelief. The officer asked her questions but they all seemed to phase right by her until eventually the crude voice of another caught her attention.

“Well kark me sideways and call me Corvus, look what the cat dragged in.”

It was her. The woman from Telti. Kana’s eyebrows furrowed, her eyelids popping wide open as her lips thinned. Had she not been bound by her wrists this would have been the part where she tried a round three but the former Jedi calmed herself before anything untoward was to go down. After all, being bound would not bring the odds in her favor. The lack of conveyor belts in the near vicinity saw to that, and she mentioned Corvus.

For the first time in a long time Kana wondered -- no, worried -- what her friend would say if she knew. Maybe news had reached her somehow, or perhaps she had always known. The force worked in mysterious ways, as she always so neatly put it.

“Hah.” Kana afforded the woman a dry snicker. “Hilarious.”

Her eyes set upon the helmet that her fists had come to fear contact with. Nothing about the former master spoke of her being the same woman from before. Her posture was gone and any attempt to find that ancient human will to live was near-depleted. Telti had been part of that. Ord Mirit was merely the final straw.

“Where’s the other guy? The one that couldn’t stand still on Telti.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

The very second the blonde's features contorted into a mirthless smirk, Vrag knew she'd been correct in her recollection. Faces had never been a particular strength of hers, and this was doubly true when they belonged to enemy combatants she was unlikely to ever encounter again.

She had to admit, though; the Jedi had been a fun opponent to beat, and in a sense the Hand was glad she hadn't ground her into dust when she'd had the chance. If she had done so, who would be the source of her entertainment in that bleak precinct?

Truly, it must have been the providence of gods.

Too bad she didn't believe in those.

Her blue eyes dropped from the blonde's face, following the exposed column of her throat before they encountered a buttoned-up barrier — how typical — and completed the once-over with a quick flicker downwards. Unimpressive, as far as clothes went, but that was also the only way a Jedi could hope to maintain a low profile on the streets of a Sith-controlled world.

Outright ignoring the seated woman, Vrag turned to face the officer standing behind the cold metal chair, extending an armored hand with a slight raise of her chin.

To her great surprise, the man had enough wits about him to hand her the datapad with all the relevant data without a single quip of protest, disappearing through the door on the other side of the room with a speed she hadn't thought possible in those narrow corridors.

Amazing, what feats fear can inspire in man.

As the two were left alone, to enjoy each other's company as they saw fit, the firrerreo circled behind her newly acquired prey, making sure to pace each step with exquisite care, the heavy thud of her chitin boots ringing ominously in the small room. Even as she performed these small, nearly-subconscious acts of intimidation, Vrag allowed her gaze to scour the lines of text before her for anything that might catch her interest, and luckily for them both, the woman didn't have to look far.

"Murder?"

There was no cruel glee in that voice, surprisingly enough, for the sentiment had been momentarily ousted by that of genuine surprise, which only doubled once she learned of the manner in which the Jedi — or, more accurately, former Jedi — had taken the life in question.

"Francis Truden," she drawled out after a few stunned seconds, tearing her eyes away from the report to look at the blonde instead.

"Your own father, Kana? Didn't think you had it in you, I confess," she added, though her tone belied the words themselves.

"How'd it feel?"


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Yes, murder. Francis Truden, Kana’s father was dead. There was nothing the former Jedi could add to the conversation. At least there was nothing the former Jedi wanted to add to the conversation. Her head tilted again as her eyes set on the table.

How did it feel?

“Horrible.” Amazing.

“I didn’t want to do it.” But I had always dreamt about it since the day I ran away.

In the end all Kana felt was the encroaching emptiness in her heart. She had wanted to burst into her home for years to collect the revenge she had owed herself for so long. Only her visit this time hadn’t been for revenge. The man had known that but it seemingly hadn’t stop him from pulling at her strings nonetheless. The revelation that he himself was a force sensitive -- with training no less -- just like her was daunting.

“Empires are not built on compassion, Kana.”

He had planned this from the start. That was the part that got to her. The entirety of her life had been planned. Laid out by a mad man with an obsession for forming a new empire under his banner. Kana was the key to that, apparently. Just a pawn in his grand strategy. A strategy which Kana still didn’t know if it was in motion or not.

She certainly hoped not.

She had said no. Refused to play along yet at the indication that she was weak her mind pushed her into proving him otherwise. A push had rung out from her hands and sent the man to his death. It was this piece of unknowing that messed her, made her feel unsure and most of all fed on her anger.

“He’s dead.” She burst out into a defiant turn of her head. Anything to not look at the woman that was presumably leering at her. “It doesn’t matter.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

She didn't say anything for a short while, content to listen to the wavering timbre of the blonde's voice as the bound woman struggled to keep her composure. Restrained as she was, and in a dank backroom of some slovenly precinct to boot, the former Jedi indeed had much to worry about. Ironically enough, it wasn't the crime she'd committed that would be the source of that concern, but rather the much more palpable danger of a figure she'd already fought once, and failed to defeat even in more favorable circumstances.

Now?

"You're lying,"

The Sith spoke at some length, her tone level as she loomed above her incapacitated prey. She lingered behind the blonde for a few more seconds, then thought better of it and crossed over in front of the woman, extending her free hand to perk up her chin.

A pair of Vonduun claws would scrape lightly, yet firmly against pale skin as Vrag bode her prisoner to meet her eyes — or sockets, rather — cocking her head ever so minutely to the side as she regarded the disheveled mess that the former Jedi embodied.

"You're lying, and you're bad at it," she reitrated after a moment of intense scrutiny, her cold blue gaze meeting the fabricated grey defiance.

Without ever averting her eyes, the Hand of the Dark Lord took another step closer, pronouncing the already glaring height disparity as she cast her shadow upon the blonde's face, consequentially forcing her to strain her neck even more with a pressure delivered by insistent fingers. There she took her time as she leaned in closer, the spikes of Skerr Ygdris hovering dangerousy close to her captive as she bent to whisper in her ear.

"Do you think I don't know a killer when I see one?" she uttered, her voice a soft murmur as the mocking question left her lips.

"You reek of death, [member="Kana Truden"]."

Even as the teeth of her skull doubtless dug into the blonde's cheek, the firrerreo dropped her voice to a barely audible breath, and spoke again with no small amount of delight bleeding into her words.

"It suits you."

 

[Kana Truden]

The act continued. The woman may have posed a certain danger to Kana’s life but the former Jedi wouldn’t be in the seat she currently was in if she had valued her own life. Seeking death despite not deserving it. The sweet release that she had come seeking on Ord Mirit was denied to her. This armor-clad woman had defeated Kana before, she could undoubtedly do it again and maybe this time she would do it proper.

To say her methods didn’t work would be a lie. Kana’s heart was slowly ascending up her throat only to find itself stuck in a pit between the ribcage and her neck. Each beat hammered against the walls like a stranger knocking on the door to her slowly devolving mind. The feeling only amplified itself as she felt the hand slowly extend itself for her head. She turned to stray away from it but soon enough she was forced into staring at her captor.

For a second she tried to achieve eye contact but the darkness of the helmet’s sockets provided no such comfort. Her eyes jittered, her panic more evident than ever but Kana refused to give in as she stared into the bottomless voids of the spiked helmet. She couldn’t do it, her eyes strayed away only to be forced back into the abyss by the strong grip of the other woman’s gloved hand.
With a pull Kana was forced to witness as the woman’s shadow fell over. She leaned in, the knuckle-hurting spikes of her helmet grazed upon the cheeks of the former Jedi and for a second she let out a panicked gasp. Kana wasn’t a murderer, and it certainly didn’t fit her to be called such a thing either. She had just lost control, a murderer didn’t lose control. They knew what they did, right?

That was how it worked?

Kana took a deep breath.

“It comes with being a healer.” She mustered with her feigned courage. “It happens. People die around me.”

Like everyone on Ruusan. Her smug face quickly wiped itself from her features.

She didn’t much like to think on that.

Failure.

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

As quickly as she'd closed in, Vrag extricated herself from the implications of their close proximity, taking a long step back to place distance between the two of them while releasing the Jedi's chin. Even killers deserved some reprieve; this she knew for certain.

"Healers don't take lives," she pointed out without malice, then finally averted her eyes as she went to replace the datapad on a small table in the corner.

"Whoever... whatever you were before… it doesn't matter anymore," the woman went on as she strolled back to the chair, pulling the blonde to her feet with an offhand gesture, as if she were lifting a purse and not a full-grown humanoid.

"You're a killer now."

With that, Vrag promptly stalked out of the room with the former Jedi in tow, unheeding of whether or not the blonde was willing to follow; even though her voice was calm, there was still an edge in there, an edge that brooked no argument, be it verbal of physical.

Once they emerged from the confines of the poorly-maintained precinct, the Hand wasted no time commandeering one of their speeders, unceremoniously depositing her bound captive on the back seat as she moved to take the wheel.

The warning she uttered next was purely out of habit, for in her current state, [member="Kana Truden"] hardly posed a threat to her life.

"Try anything, and you'll be staring at prison walls for the rest of your life." A promise of death would have been far too kind, perhaps encouraging, even, and Vrag would never offer that. She could see it in those gray eyes, that the blonde was teetering on the precipice, torn between acceptance and denial of the the beast that had finally emerged from its chrysalis; a beast she would see every time she glanced in a mirror.

She didn't speak again until the end of their ride, a short trip that lead them through the colorful districts of Coruscant until they arrived at their final destination. The officers didn't utter so much as a word of protest when they realized who had come to visit the area, and respectfully — or, rather, fearfully — turned off the energy field containing the scene so that the Hand and her captive could pass.

And then she stood there, with nigh-Jedi level of serenity despite the gory remains splattered across the duracrete pavement only meters away, content to wait out the short period of time it would take for the blonde to break.

Vrag was, regrettably, a very patient woman. Devilishly so.

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana bowed down in silence again. Healers didn’t take lives. Had it been anyone else who said it then perhaps Kana would have been willing to believe it was Avalore herself who had said it. At the very least that was what Kana told herself. It was after all this healer who had managed to give Kana the piece of wisdom that had led her to not come to Coruscant and seek revenge but to seek answers. Not that the wisdom had lasted, old habits wouldn’t just go away overnight and now her father was dead because of it.

The armor-clad woman approached her and there was nothing Kana did to fight her fate. There was no fight as she got ripped out of her seat and there was no fight as she got tossed into the back of the speeder. Sure, she questioned what it was that the other woman wanted with her but ultimately she didn’t really care.

The smell of a urine-drenched precinct was changed for that of a vomit-drenched police speeder. Kana dreaded to even imagine what it was her boot was slowly getting itself covered in. Part of her already knew, but she still didn’t really want to know. There were only one type of clientele that used this type of transportation and it was hardly anyone she thought she’d ever see herself associated with.

As the trip went on her eyes darted out the window to get her bearings. Trisdan’s diner, Benn’s auto shop, Jin and Friends. Kana’s eyes opened wide. These were all places she’d known as a kid in the levels below her home. Her heart raced up her throat again at the realization. She was being taken back home. She looked to the woman in the driver’s seat. Her jaw forced her mouth wide open as her head began to shake back and forth.

“No.” Kana spoke under a shaky breath. “No, please. No.”

There was no answer, all Kana got was a stare through the mirror as if the driver would merely acknowledge that the Jedi Master had spoken. Breathing got heavy as the panic continued to shift its gears. Francis was here, this must have been it. Kana began rattling around in the backseat. Life in prison felt like a better deal, she didn’t want this. She wanted anything but this. Feet kicked against the passenger seat in defiance that all but screamed of the girl’s will to be taken to the prison over what would come next.

But it was all in vain. They arrived on the scene and with that Kana was tugged out of her seat by her captor. Her spratling stopped, her feet touched ground again. The former Jedi’s entire being shook. She wasn’t ready for this. Behind the officers she could see the splatter of blood, a blood most familiar to her and quite literally so.

“No, no, no, no, no-...” The chain repeated itself as they stepped past the barriers and onto the crime scene. “No, stop. No.”

Kana was let free to stand on her own two legs but she didn’t want to, she wanted to get back in the car. However, that felt very much out of the question and running away felt like an impossibility. Her sights set on the towering suit of armor with a look of plea. It was without doubt that it wouldn’t work on her, but Kana had to try. She had to get out and not do this, she didn’t want to take responsibility for this.

No such thing was offered and Kana turned back towards the corpse. Her eyes shut, her chest expanded itself in a deep breath and with a slow exhale she opened her eyes to let them set on the disfigured face of the one and only Francis Truden. A quiet whimper parted her lips and she fell to her knees. He was smiling. He was dead but the last moments of his life had been a moment he had looked forward to, waited for, longed for and Kana had provided it.

It didn’t feel right. None of it did. She had dreamt of it, she truly had. She would have barged in through the door. Lightsaber at the ready she would have made it slow and painful for each of them like a statement for all the years of pain that they had caused her but even now she had been denied that.

She tensed up. It wasn’t fair!

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-EKWkFpEM8​

Though her voice was an octave or so higher, Vrag couldn't help but draw parallels between her newest Jedi captive and another she had taken under her wing so many months ago now. She wondered…

Through a minute movement of her head, the Hand glanced over to the shaking woman, witnessing the full extent of realization crossing her features. As if the weight of her deeds was too much to bear, the blonde collapsed, kneeling in front of the red monument she'd erected in memory of her father.

There was nothing that she could — or would — say to the former Jedi that would make it any better. Killing was killing, in the end, whatever the justification, and she had found that searching for reasons and excuses made the whole ordeal much, much worse. Be it vengeance, righteousness, or mercy; [member="Kana Truden"] had taken a life, consciously, and now she had to carry that knowledge with her for the rest of her days.

Vrag could lie, of course. Provide the crumbling blonde with empty words meaning to appease and mollify.

She would not.

"It gets better," she offered after what seemed like a while, noting absently that the officers had cleared the area completely, leaving the two of them alone in the abandoned urban sprawl.

No, she corrected. The three of us.

Her blue eyes flickered back to the bloody mess on the ground, then up to the lone open window gaping in the otherwise impeccable facade of the building. The firrerreo pivoted on the spot to look down upon the former Jedi, taking in the subtle shudders running down the length of her body where she stood, prostrate before destruction of her own making.

"And if my word is not enough..." she added quietly, placing a gauntleted hand upon that shoulder to still the shivering, "you can always ask Hal."

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana gently shook her head in disbelief over her action as if the realization had sunk in but she refused to accept it. She had killed her father. Right now her knee was soaking up only a shred of what was soon to be all the remained of him. Mixed with the dust and grime from kneeling to the ground she could feel each ounce of his vital essence as it discolored her pants into something she’d have to get rid of. Part of her wanted to draw parallels to the deed she’d done but what purpose would it serve? The man was dead.

She heard the voice of her captor as it spoke of things getting better, but what did she truly care? A few months ago they had nearly brought Kana to her knees on Telti. Now she was playing nice, pretending to care right after having brought Kana to the aftermath of her life’s biggest mistake. She would have lived without the image of her father’s splattered remains if not for this armor-clad woman. Kana’s brows crooked as she looked at her handiwork once more.

A hand was placed on her shoulder. Kana shut her eyes and with a slight twist of her body she let the other woman know that she had her worn attention

“And if my word is not enough... You can always ask Hal.”

Hal. Kana paused her breathing for a second as her eyes forced themselves wide open. They set on the suit of armor once more and without much further ado she rose from the floor to stare directly into those sockets, the tiny abysses. There it was again, that small spark in her eye, the ember that spontaneously combusted into a wild fire only a few hours ago.

“Who is Hal?” Kana tried to cover it up in an obvious lie. “And why did you take me here?”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

She felt the shuddering stop, abruptly so, and for a moment, the blonde was taut like a string, every muscle in her body tense as seconds trickled by like half-melted fat down the edge of a heated blade.

The corners of her mouth threatened to curl up, but she wrestled down the expression even though it wasn't necessary, for fear of the smirk bleeding through into her voice. Instead the Hand took her time to observe the changes so easily coaxed out to the surface with a few choice words, the clenching of her fists, the combative stance… the gray of her eyes; previously dead, the ashes now revealed that there were still embers burning below.

Barely, but they were there.

This time, Vrag couldn't stop the smile from stretching her lips, cocking her head to the side as she held the Jedi's gaze with blatant amusement.

"Because you wanted to see it," she replied, smoothing over the first question as if it weren't there at all. "And because that anger will fester if you don't let it out."

Surprisingly enough, her tone wasn't cruel or derisive; the Hand was merely stating facts, axiomata, even, that she knew to be absolutely true. The blonde would either come to terms with the irrefutable reality of her actions, or wither away, slowly rotted by denial and resentment. Vrag would only stick around for one of those, and it wasn't the latter.

"It's as simple as that."


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Her lips thinned, her nose scrunched up and a tiny chuckle emanated between the two as Kana slowly wagged her head up and down trying to prevent herself from getting played straight into the woman’s hands. Her eyebrows perked and for yet another second she twisted her head to the side to symbolize the disgust, the outrage she was experiencing from the supposed idea that Kana wanted this.

“Oh is it, really?” She chuckled once more. “You’re full of shi-” The jedi exclaimed as she swung her cuffs for the spike-ridden form in the hopes of breaking the chains and gain the use of her arms once more. “I never wanted this.” She tried it again. “I wanted to talk to him.” She tried it again. “I wanted him to tell me why.” She tried it again. “I wanted answers.” She tried it again. “But now he is dead.”

Kana backed away from the woman once more, with or without her cuffs to restrain her. Breathing was getting heavy. Exhaustion and anger, no doubt. She wanted to tear the woman apart, strip her down and just slowly wrap her hands around her neck to see if she would be such a pain once the final gasp for air passed through the room. Crush the back of her head against the pavement and leave an identical mess to the one lying right behind her. Nobody had to know the difference between the two.

She wanted vengeance. For Telti, for Manaan, for every mess up she had performed and everyone that had been taken from her by the hands of the One Sith. The countless friends she had felt end on Ruusan and the aftermath that had caused the psychiatrists to call her crazy, traumatized.

Kana just had to get to her first, but how?

A kick would do. You could always trust kicks to the gut when it came to forcing someone to the ground.

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

It would be pointless to try and hold in the laughter blossoming in her chest, so Vrag didn't even bother to try. A few quick, impeccably timed steps took her well out of range of the first flailing attempt, but they just kept coming, and the Sith found it harder and harder to move out of the way between the bouts of chuckles. She finally gave up on the fourth — or was it fifth? — attempt, confident in her ability to control the Jedi whether the blonde was cuffed or not.

After all, Vrag had been wielding wrath as her weapon of choice for nearly three decades, whereas the former Jedi had known its full brunt for a few months at best, if Telti was any indication.

She watched, curious to see what the blonde would do now that she was bound no more, her cold blue eyes assessing the Jedi's stance almost subconsciously as she devised multiple ways of taking her out if things went south; you could never be too careful with these Jedi types. Repressing your emotions spelled nothing but trouble in the long run, and that was what the Order was all about as far as the Hand was concerned.

And there it was, another deja vú from the industrial moon; the brave Jedi, punching — well, kicking, this time — things that really ought not to be kicked.

The firrerreo could have taken a step back, or to the side, but she was content to roll with the blow instead, accepting the brave, if foolish foot to her Vonduun-clad abdomen, briefly wondering if the blonde's heel would survive the impact. Well, she would find out in a second or so, wouldn't she?

Instead of wasting more time on useless ruminations, Vrag made a grab for the audacious leg instead, aiming to squeeze it into a vice-like grip at the heel, and if successful, the Hand would fling the blonde away and straight at the front door of her father's mansion.

Home sweet home.


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

The suit of armor laughed as Kana’s feet impacted upon the surface of her armor. Tears welled up, tendons cried out in pain and with it came the scream of agony as the former Jedi Master refused to learn her lesson. Her damaged heel was grabbed and a second pained scream reverberated around the walls of riches. The strange sensation of being tossed to the front door was followed by a loud thud and a slight creak as Kana collided with it’s frame.

Her body slumped to the ground before her arms rapidly arms brought her up in an attempted push up from the ground. Each muscle within her shook and shivered as a contemptuous stare set upon Vrag. Kana’s teeth were gritted both from the pain and the anger and with it she used the slight indentations from where the wooden overlays of the door had been ripped away.

Wooden panelling upon a metal sliding door. Classy.

Her heel cried out in pain and the healer forced her balance to alleviate the pain by readjusting her weight to her other half. Slowly she limped back to the great armor-clad figure in front of her. Her hands clenched she needed to show her just exactly how much Kana refused to walk inside that building.

“I am not.” Kana spoke before grunting in pain. “Going inside. That building.”

The woman’s armor may have been covered in spikes, but Kana was stubborn. A second punch set off for her tormentor’s helmet. It was a wide miss and with it she toppled over on the ground in a manner most ungraceful as her heel made itself reminded of just exactly how much pain it was in.

“Lucky miss.” The healer would burst out in anger on the ground, whether it was in affirmation that she was the lucky one or not remained to be seen. Nonetheless she rolled over and onto her back. “I will get you for this.”

“Mark it. I will.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

She remained nearly unnaturally still whilst the Jedi clambered to her feet, unmoved by the blonde's pathetic imitation of a withering stare. Having been leveled with harsher glares by cats — their size notwithstanding — Vrag wasn't particularly inclined to grant the seething woman the reaction she wanted, save for the light tremble of her shoulders as she continued to chuckle.

If you asked her what the perks of full-plate were, the Hand could go on for days, but suffice to say that one of its many, many upsides was the fact that nobody was privy to the expressions one may or may not make while gauging the best moment to move to the side and avoid a punch. To most people, that chit was about important as the Prime Minister's left tit, but Vrag had an image to protect; it wouldn't do, after all, to flinch, even for the slightest moment, once the Jedi moved forth to deliver her anger-driven blow.

The blonde was confused, and frightened, and pissed off, but she was still an individual with a significant amount of combat training and connection to the Force to pose a legitimate threat if Vrag ever stopped treating her like one.

Too bad she wasn't arrogant enough to slip down that particular slope.

Her brow arched in amusement as she listened to the grumbling of the fallen Jedi, and she inched ever so slightly forward to loom over the supine blonde.

"That's not good for your back," she remarked offhandedly, extending an open palm down to her sprawled form. "Didn't daddy teach you to take care of yourself?


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana remained panting on the floor. The rush of pain and exhilaration were proving hard to keep up with. Her heel was punishing her for her previous insistence on trying to bring pain upon the armor-clad tower of power that remained hunched over him. Once more she tried to peer into the abysses of her opponents eye sockets without any luck of finding any form of life.

Was this a figment of her imagination again? Was she truly there?

Kana’s gently let her hand slip into the extended hand of the stranger and with a tug she found herself rising from the ground. A stray heel leapt forward as she lost balance and with it came the pained grunt of a woman who was starting to question just exactly what she was doing. She was broken, defiled almost, but she felt so good.

Her eyes looked to the house again.

“Whatever.” She scoffed at [member="Vrag"]’s remark. “He didn’t -- and can’t -- teach me much of anything anymore.”

Gallows humor as they stood by the man’s corpse. Kana was a classy woman.

The foot that had been crushed by the other woman’s armor reached up in kick for the man’s jaw. It would hurt, Kana knew that, but she would do anything to wipe that smug smile from the man’s face. Alive or not he didn’t deserve it. The only thing he deserved was what he had gotten already. A prospect that forced her eyes to open wide in the slow realisation that-

“He’s dead.” Kana said and slowly turned her head for the suit of armor to hear what she was saying. “I’ve wanted this for so long, yet now...”

“I don’t know.”

 

[Vrag]

From defiance to crying in pain, and then finally to dejected confusion, the former Jedi remained surprisingly collected throughout. Vrag had half expected the blonde to lose it completely, or maybe faint from the combined physical and mental exertion, but as it soon turned out, that wasn't to be the case.

She hummed in accord, acquiescing the broken woman's woe with a small nod of her head. Her horns twitched a little as the blonde turned over what remained of the bloody mess on the floor, Vonduun reeling as a fresh scent of copper and salt wafted through the air.

"Vengeance will leave an empty space in your heart," Vrag offered with a mirthless chuckle in the idle silence now stretching between the two of them, blue eyes flickering from the splattered cadaver to its progeny.

"Nothing much you can do about that now," she added and turned on her heel, slowly walking towards the direction they'd come from. Their business here was concluded; Kana had, as expected, come to realize, fully, just what she'd done only after viewing her handiwork up close. The repercussions of that realization had yet to manifest themselves in their entirety, however, and pure curiosity drove Vrag to be there when it happened. It was oh so interesting, after all, seeing another human being come undone at the seams. Always so different, yet always so similar.

Her lips twisted up in a wry smile, and the Hand stretched lazily as she walked over to the speeder, joints and Skerr Ygdris popping in unison, perfectly synchronized even in such quotidian actions.

"You'll find out eventually. Or you won't," she called out to the woman over her shoulder as she slipped into the vehicle, careful to retract some of the spikes in an effort to avoid tearing apart the upholstery.

"Either way, you gotta move on, Kana. Staring at that corpse ain't gonna do you no good. Now get in here, I'm starving, and you could probably eat something too. Get some color in those pale cheeks and chit."

"A nice, raw steak, maybe?"

Vrag just couldn't help herself.


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Empty space in her heart. It sounded just about right. The anger at her father was being replaced by a great lot of nothing as if a chunk of her entire being was being torn away from her or lifted from her shoulders. She remained standing over the corpse for a while. The man’s blood had just about run it’s course. The fall hadn’t spared much of his head and what seemed to be the occasional specks of gray around the area. She knew what it could have been, but at this point what did it matter?

There was nothing left of the man. Nothing except the smug smile that just didn’t seem to fade. Kana knelt down by the man’s form. Her hand waved for the Sith to wait, there was just the one thing Kana needed to do. Her arm fell by her side and with it she let her eyes wander up and down along the dead man’s blood drained dinner jacket. There was a slight dent from his inner pocket, something he didn’t need anymore.

The former healer’s hand patted at the soft velvety fabric, felt the luxury as it seemed so eager to seep into her very soul. A hand leisurely went inside his jacket to withdraw the item, his wallet. Some would have argued it distasteful to steal from the dead, but this had absolutely nothing to do with being tasteful. Patricide rarely was. Sifting through the content she finally found the thing she was looking for, the one thing that made the galaxy go round.

His credit chit. Plucking it out of the tiny piece of leather her eyes unwillingly fell upon the man’s face again. She should have been revolted, she felt like she should have but ultimately it all just made perfect sense. Everything except that smug smile on his lips and Kana would be damned if the last thing she ever saw of her father was a wicked smile and a healthy donation he should have given her long ago.

Slowly, almost methodically, she placed the chit in her own pocket before tossing the wallet aside. Her left hand dug in deep into his shirt. It tugged at him, forced his lifeless corpse into an upright position. He head bowed forward to expose the massive crater at the top of his head yet still the daughter remained unphased. She merely shook him in order to force his head back again.

She could feel the tears well up again like they had in the immediate aftermath of her push. The smile on his lip was there, her fist was raised beside her and with a deep breath she set it off towards the man’s jaw. It connected. Pain rung out through the girl’s entire hand but she ignored it. She swung again. It connected once more and with it her hand rung out in further pain as it slowly found itself drenched in blood. Whether it was her own or from the blood the remained across the man’s face didn’t matter, the smile wasn’t gone yet.

Kana dug in deep in a swing for his jaw once more. She gave it her all, the last few remaining drips of energy that she allowed her to expend. A clicking sound reverberated around the immediate area and with it the man’s jaw began to slack.

The smile was gone, Kana was free to let the man go.

“It’s over.” She spat him in the face and threw him back to the ground. “You lose.”

Another grunt of pain and Kana was standing up again. With a halt she carried herself over to the Sith Lord’s vehicle. She took her seat within it. For the longest of time she just sat there idly blinking as the cityscape passed them both by. She felt no need for words, today had already had it’s fair share of words in a short time’s span. All Kana wanted in this very moment was some peace and quiet.

At least until...

“That sounds good.” Kana turned to look at [member=Vrag]. “It’s been far too long since I had a good Beef Tartar.”

 

[Vrag]

Usually a 'You done?' would be waiting for the blonde, but the question was moot this time. It was clear the former Jedi had said her last goodbyes to the gory remains of her father, and that was good enough for the woman. Those few seconds in the speeder didn't cost her much, and she got a sweet view of Kana's ass when she'd bent forward to punch that smirk off her daddy's face.

Win-win.

Her clawed fingers drummed against the open window as they breezed across the skies of Coruscant, and Vrag quietly praised the perks of full plate again as she shamelessly ogled her passenger the whole ride, a fact that the former Jedi would remain blissfully ignorant of. Wasn't armor just awesome?

"Ladies first," the firrerreo remarked smugly as they arrived, her blue eyes finally leaving the blonde to take in the facade of her apartment.

Well, the more proper expression would probably be 'apartment floor', because for the few things that Vrag actually owned, she sprang. She sprang big time.

The suite spanned the top two floors of a skyscraper in one of the finest residential areas of the planet, full with a built-in pool on the roof that she never used, as well as a tonne of other luxury features that were still in their figurative wrapping. She may have owned the place, but the Hand spent most of her time either with her fleet or on Selvaris; the few visits she paid to Coruscant were spent doing official business, shagging Carach (et al.), or playing illicit Sabacc games down in the underworld.

Really, the only room that had seen regular use in that apartment was the master bedroom.

Vrag swallowed a chuckle as she led the blonde down the stairs from the helipad on the roof beside the pool, humming to herself a merry melody that Darell had infected her with a long, long time ago.

"Beef tatar, huh?" she finally spoke again as the lights came on in the kitchen, glancing over at her unlikely guest. "Didn't think they fed you that stuff in the Order," she threw over her shoulder as she opened the fridge to peruse the many, many meats stored there.

"But I'll give you that, babe," she grinned and dropped a thick, fat steak on the counter, "you've got good taste."

She picked out a knife for herself, then another for the blonde, offering it with the handle first without bothering to look up. "Better get to work," was all she said, and then she started on the steak with gusto.


[member="Kana Truden"]