Purgatory

[Eun]

The planet burned, a writhing, red-orange miasma in the blackness.

A hundred and thirty days to get to Demonsgate. And so a paltry population. Some made the journey to mine the world's precious ores. Most, however, simply did not want to be found.

Sithspawn and tectonic activity wracked the planet's surface. In orbit floated the space station, Angelsgate, wracked by demons of a different sort.

The station's entertainment district pulsed with life. They called it Purgatory.

* * *

The Speak Easy lay on the second floor. Eun sat at the bar. Strange things, bars. All sorts gathered there to laugh, to seduce, or simply... to drown.

Above thrummed the nightclub. He could hear it. The steady thum, thum. A heartbeat in the night. A thousand writhing bodies, seeking to forget the misery of their lives in moments of sweaty ecstasy. Small, excited gasps in the midst of monotony. Eun closed his eyes.

Thum, thum.

Mmm. Hm.

They'd come so far from the Core, yet here they were pretending a few sleek lines and shifting holograms of cityscapes could make it feel like a Coruscant highrise.

His eyes flickered open again, staring past the barkeeper and out through the transparent glassteel wall behind him. Beyond lay Demonsgate, a hunger, angry and red in the blankness of space.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

After accepting her employment from Mara, Calina took the opportunity to explore a little more or ORC space, finding herself drawn to the spaceport above Demonsgate and the darkness that hummed from the planet below. Sithspawn had always enticed her, fascinating dark and generally dangerous. Encountering them was a test and perhaps an opportunity to bend them to her will, but there would be time for that later.

Her mind had been a whirlwind of emotions, anger, sorrow and pain had left he feeling ultimately lost and while the job offer for the Merrill girl had given her a moment of clarity, something to clutch to and work towards as the Scar of Ilum had faded into hyperspace, everything had come rushing back. she needed to step away. Away from the ship with all it's vile memories, away from the sidelong glances the crew kept giving her, their questioning looks only serving to make her question herself further.

Th Speak Easy was quiet enough to suit Calina's taste, full of people who were content to not notice and to not be noticed. Her eyes lifted briefly to the ceiling, to the distant heartbeat of the bass above them. Another world she'd yet to conquer, she tore her mind away from it and slid towards the bar, weaving between patrons and tables and settling into a stool without looking a the people next to her.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Talia Senn]

Talia wasn't fond of half destroyed planets that were half destroyed at best. She was from some where that was half destroyed herself. Granted it was not the entire planet but Talia was no stranger to wide spread destruction and people who didn't really care enough to do anything about it. In her case she had been tracking something old and valuable. An old holobook, not worth much unless you were of a certain niche crowd. Talia had yet to decide if she were one of those niche crowd members, but she could always sell the thing for more credits than it was worth if it turned out to be useless to her. In the mean while she decided to entertain herself while she was in the area.

To that end she entered and took a look around the room, curious to see to see if any of the patrons looked inclined to murder her needlessly on the spot. She did her best to avoid those sorts of situations unless she could help it, and these sorts of places did tend to attract people who were of the mudery, crazy persuasion. Not being knifed in the back by a random stranger as she made her way to the bar lifted her spirits a little. She knocked on the counter to get the bar tenders attention.

When her zabrak ferment arrived she sat back and watched the crowd, preparing to be entertained herself.

 

[Eun]

Someone plopped down in the seat next to him, eliciting the curious raise of an eyebrow from Eun. A vessel, brimming over with a tidal wave of raw emotion that swept across the traveler. He drew in a breath, swaying in his seat, eyes flickering closed for the briefest of moments.

She possessed a powerful essence that drew in and focused his attention. Blood to a vornskr. Behind closed lips his tongue played across his teeth, mouth suddenly dry. Thirsting for a taste of memory. A sip of that stormy sea.

Locks of beaten gold tumbled from the woman's head down to her shoulders. Eyes fixated on what lay in front of her, lips pursed. Intent.

"Have you found it?" he asked, voice smooth and pleasant, eyes a soft vervain.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

The soft voice sent a shiver of something through Calina, a warning perhaps, urging her to stay on the side of caution. Her whole body shifted slightly, tensing as she drew her defences up around her, black iron gates falling shut behind her eyes as she locked up the emotion that had been broiling within her. It would not do well to share it.

Ice blue eyes looked round at him slowly, a hand brushing golden hair behind her ear and she studied the patron like she might asses someone who was openly pointing a weapon at her. His lilac eyes were keen to be able to pluck such a question out of thin air for a stranger, or perhaps there was something more to him? Curiosity peaked. She tilted her head as the bartender set her drink before her.

"Finding something is made all the more difficult, if you don't know what you're looking for." She tore her eyes away and slid a few credits across the bar-top to pay for her drink.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

Her presence closed off to him, the recoil of a startled viper. And now she rattled, voice a warning castanet.

“Oh?” Eun cocked his head slightly, gaze tracing along her features: the alabaster shade of her skin, the angle of her jaw, the shape of her... nose.

“Strange. You seem like someone who knows what she wants.”

A drink at the edge of the map, staring off into the nothing beyond? Unlikely. People did not travel to Demonsgate for the view.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

She felt his eyes wander her face, like he was studying the brush strokes of a painting, committing the detail to memory. She couldn't recall anyone ever doing that, it unsettled her and yet...

She curled her fingers about the tumbler before her, condensation on the glass cool against her fingertips as she lifted it from the bar top, a smile playing across her lips before she took a sip, peering at him over the rim of her glass. There was something behind those lilac eyes, prowling behind their glittering gaze. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Tentatively, she reached out in the force seeking an answer.

"Appearances are made to be deceiving, are they not?"

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

She looked into the well and found curiousity bobbing at the surface, bright and buoyant. The deeper the plunge, the murkier the waters, ‘til no light shone at all. Nothing there but hidden memories and a dark, crushing pressure.

The traveler’s lips tilted to a smile, “Made and molded. Each of us born to hide.”

Mm. Masks made the reveal so much sweeter. What mysteries hide inside her?

He trembled. A shudder of anticipation that he passed off as a light chuckle.

“But from who?”

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

Curiosity, something they shared. The uncovering of mysteries, she in the force and he? People? Perhaps, it was difficult to pinpoint. Beyond that the darkness, contained but under pressure, like it was trying to escape...or he was trying to squash it out? Who are you? What are you? What secrets are you hiding? She dug deeper.

"Everyone." she replied, fingers absently drew patterns in the condensation on the tumbler. "That's the point isn't it? To don masks and facades so no one can see the truth of what we really are."

She dared not take his eyes off him.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

The deeper she dove, the more the pressure built, threatening to buckle and break her. Not with malignance, but by existence. In the darkness came nothing but whispers of movement, of memories lurking just out of reach, and the long scream of silence.

Mm. He could sense her. Careful now. Careful where you tread.

“Is it? Some, maybe. Others though, they hide from themselves.”

But which was she? The question floated between them, unspoken.

At the opposite end of the bar, a man with a Gree letter tattooed on his neck noisily slurped his tumbler dry.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

The darkness pushed back, and Calina relished in the quiet game, in the distraction from everything her defences slowly coming down and the original tension easing out of her shoulders.

The man at the end of the bar slammed his empty glass on the bar top and Calina jumped, her concentration shattered she snapped away from the mans mind, head whipping round to look at him, tension snapping back into her shoulders. Annoyed at herself for her twitchy attitude and for the fact that in that moment she'd given away the answer to the unspoken question, she stared down at her drink for a moment.

Slowly she lifted ice blue orbs to meet the lavender ones that were so intensely watching her, a smile paying at the corners of her lips as she did.

"Are we going to play games all evening?"

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

She startled, a hunter's concentration broken by the bawdy scavenger. A moment to refocus, then her tack shifted, off-centered lips settling into a smile. Hm. This old game. A familiar path. One he'd trod down a hundred thousand times.

Still, something about her...

He tilted his head, long, wavy tresses swaying. A slender brow arched coyly.

"It depends," Eun leaned back slightly, playing a finger across his cheekbone thoughtfully, "what else do you have in mind?"

Close now. Close to unraveling the mischief behind those glittering sapphires and that lopsided smirk.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

"Wouldn't you like to know." she replied softly, lifting her arm from the bar top to rest her chin upon her hand. She wanted to ask questions, but the only ones that came to mind were simple and she would get no simple nor straight answer from them. That was too easy. She liked the game, it made her think sideways and pluck her words from outside the box.

Her sought to tease the secrets from behind sapphires, while she sought to pluck them from behind his amethyst eyes. She offered him a non committal shrug, lips still curled in a slight smile. He started this game, he could decide where he wanted to take it next. Calina would play along simply for the thrill of it.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

Eun’s lips twitched, then he laughed lightly. “Well, you have me there. You intrigue me.”

The rest of the Speak Easy was full of people seeking a place to lay low, or a place to start over. This woman came all the way to Demonsgate only to hide from herself. It begged the question of why. Unanswered questions, mysteries, drew him, a gravitational force he could not control.

After so many lives, the only allure lay in the unlived. The paths untrod.

Across the bar, a glass shattered. Eun turned, a flicker of emotion danced across his face, anger and irritation. So fast a blink would miss it.

The man with the Gree tattoo looked at his open hand, which weeped scarlet from glistening shards of glass embedded in his palm.

“Kark,” growled the man, a deathly shade of white. “No. I- no.”

He spoke to empty air.

“Carach? No. Ovmar. The heart. The heart. The heart.”

Fascinated, Eun reached out toward the gibbering man’s mind.

Searing memories, as sharp and painful as a heated knife sliced through Eun’s mind. He recoiled, eyes rolling into the back of his head, then slumped forward onto the bar.

“GRAUSH!” Screamed the man with the tattoo, then he fell face first onto the ground, limbs twitching. Brain dead.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

[member="Jairus Starvald"]/[member="Jared Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

The atmosphere shifted at the sound of shattering glass, the tension rising with a different air to it anger flicking over lavender eyes at the interruption and then the utterance of a name that sent ice plummeting into her stomach. Ovmar. Her head snapped round again, heart hammering in her chest. Was he here? No, it wasn't possible, he couldn't be here, she would have known if he was...wouldn't she? Don't be so foolish as to think you can best him.

Her prickling fears blindsided her to the attack made by her companion, eyes widening as the muttering man screamed and toppled down, sending a ripple through the patrons. Beside her, he slumped forward and snapped her attention back round. "...the feth?". She leaned forward, brushing a strand of soft brown hair from his cheek, brows knitted together in a frown.

Already the bouncers of the establishment were hauling the unconscious man from the site of muttering crowds that slowly returned to their drinks and conversation. She reached out again towards his mind, seeking an answer.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

In his mind, chaos: unraveling threads and the whispers of insanity; the blowback of a Sith curse, full effect lost on him, else he might lay with the other man. The taint of the dark side's magic still lay across both their minds, like the smell of smoke clinging to cloth.

The barkeep sighed and picked up a commlink. "Yeah, got a body. . . Yes, another one."

A Duros at a booth shook his head. "Just another day on Angel station." He returned to his drink.

Slowly, Eun lifted his head from the bar. Strands of hair fell into his face, light playing off the brown, blond, and pink tresses. A puff of air from his lips blew the aside only partially. He swept the rest back with a hand and turned to look at her, eerily calm. Eyes all too interested. Not in her, but in an answer, in the riddle.

"Who is Jared Ovmar?"

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

Calina recoiled from the chaos and the miasma of whispers that clouded over his mind. She knew insanity, she had been raised by a woman consumed by it. The contact with it in Eun's mind made he bare her teeth, she turned away both hands closing about her glass and sought to drive it from her own.

Who is Jared Ovmar?

For a long moment she didn't answer, anger rising in her chest, furious that his name could slip into an evening and ruin it for her. She picked the glass up, and drained it before looking round at him. "He's a Sith." She replied curtly "And a dangerous one at that. Likes to play with people's minds, tear them apart and put them back together again in his own fashion. Thinks it's a good game."

She tapped her glass gently on the bar top to order another drink.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

Eun's eyes flickered closed beneath a splitting migraine. His lips pursed tightly, body fighting off the curse's effects, purging it from his system - but all too slowly for his taste.

"Mm. I see."

He held his drink - a water with ice - up to his head. The cold glass felt cool against his skin. Eyes opened to study her face again, but traced down to her neck, and lower to where her heart raced with fury. Thud-thud, thud-thud. A quickening drumbeat, marshaling a tide of wrath.

She knew him? Well enough to elicit this response. So much hate for one so young. How fascinating. Eun's lips curved into a sad, sympathetic smile.

"His name upsets you. Perhaps I shouldn't say... but the man," he pointed vaguely in the direction of the body, "discovered some sort of a map to a library of this Sith. The map was cursed."

Unfortunately? Nay. Delightfully. Eun hadn't come across something this interesting in years. Her life force called to him, a siren's song. She possessed powers few else in the galaxy could claim. The Force. Maybe it was the Force that brought them together, or destiny. Whatever it might be, their fatelines seemed to intersect here. Eun wondered where they led.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Lina Djo]

"His existence upsets me." she muttered as her drink arrived, another set of credits sliding across to the barkeep. He hand paused halfway to the drink sapphires swinging round again to stare. A map, to one of her fathers many caches, a collection of pebbles the bastard had horded over the years that sat collecting dust. Should she? Should they? Surely he would encourage such a thing, what was it he had said....

Power is not given. It is taken, claws scrapping for every inch of it, until your fingers bleed, your hands broken and all you feel is pain.

Heart quickened again, this time with excitement. An opportunity too good to pass, a chance to test herself and prove that she was more than capable of...well, anything really at this stage. She'd take the chance. Fingers found the tumbler.

"What is your name?"

Formalities first, she'd deal with the map in his head in a moment.

[member="Eun"]

 

[Eun]

The soft-spoken fellow frowned slightly, looking past her and up, as if trying to remember his name. So many lifetimes to sift through. So much he could have done to better the galaxy. Memories best left buried. Timelessness wasted on a wanderer still searching for his punishment.

That wan expression returned. "Call me Eun. And you?"

She'd an idea. Something about this Jared stripped away the fugitive's mask and revealed a determined and unmistakably deadly woman. Quiet laughter brimmed in his eyes, the edges crinkling, encouraging. Intrigued.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]