Private Reincarnation

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The halls of the mighty Vahlan warship were strewn with the booty of a dozen worlds. Where other military vessels emphasized order and cleanliness with stark white halls, the halls of this ship were cluttered with rugs and furs and tapestries. Even the occasion plunder piece of art. It looked far more like the hoard of some voracious Arkanian dragon than any ship of the line.

But as these Vahlans hailed from the Firefist galaxy perhaps it was to be expected.

Despite the ostentation and ornaments, there were still training rooms aboard the ship and it was to one of these that the Warlord Hasuras na-Gerra now strode.

The door slid aside, revealing a more orderly room within. A chamber whose walls were decorated with the weapons of all manner of species. Most adhered to the wall through simple magclamps.

Gerra’s attention was not on them, but on the sole other occupant of the room.

He stood proud, impossibly tall, but wore no armor today. Clad in a loose flowing tunic and pants of deep crimson, threaded with gold.

“Greetings, Ansisa.”

Their first introduction had been a brutal one for her, missing every limb and half burned to death. Now she was a new woman. But still recovering.

“You look well.”

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

The lightsaber felt wrong in her hand. Her hand felt wrong. Once she had been graceful, every step made with muscle memory, shifting from one from to the next had been easy but now? Now she was heavy, her steps faltered as legs that weren't here struggled to understand the commands she sent them. Synapses fired, legs obeyed, but it was wrong. Sweat beaded on her brow, trickling down her spine as the droid reset and waited for her command to go again.

Frustration and anger bubbled beneath the surface, burning hotter than the fire that had consumed her and landed her here in the first place. She deactivated the saber and tossed it aside out of frustration her gaze moving to the hands that had been crafted for her. Her breathing heavy.

She looked up as the door opened, revealing the tall muscled form of her rescuer.

"Good morning, Gerra." she replied dismissing the droid with a wave of her hand and pulling the saber back to her hand with the force, the blade connected with her palm with more force than intended and she sighed. "Were it that I just needed looks." She gestured to the matt. "Care to give me something more than a droid to work with?"

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The Chiss bled frustration in the Force, her raven hair slicked to her cobalt face by sweat. She stood tall for her kind and though her new limbs proved slightly ungainly today, Gerra thought they must once have moved with surpassing grace. Agile as an adder. Her red eyes looked to him, rife with anger, though he knew she harbored naught for him.

He could sense this in the Force. See it in the connections threading out between and around them.

Many thought because of his size he was no more than a brute warrior. Perhaps true, but Gerra had mastered no techniques or forms of hand to hand combat. His gifts lay in seeing the shatterpoints of all things. In making and unmaking at a touch.

This was how he had managed to help piece her back together.

The Vahlan shrugged mutely at her words, walking until he stood apace with her and then falling into a fighting stance. Knees bent. Arms raised.

“You are turbulent as a solar storm,” he rumbled, waiting for her to attack first. “You’ve survived much. Do you fear your skills will not return to you in time?”

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Ansisa managed a small smile at his comment liking her to a storm as he moved to join her on the mat. "My fear is not that they won't return," she replied turning to face him. "It is simply the length of time it will take." Already she felt a hole in her chest where her children were supposed to be. Every moment she was away from them, every moment she left them with Srina Talon was a moment she could not get back. She had left them with a stranger and marched away leaving them with a promising of returning she intended to fulfil.

But not before she was ready.

For a moment she simply studied Gerra, she barely reached the middle of his chest, something that might have daunted others in combat, but Ansisa only saw an opportunity. She stepped in quickly, aiming to get close, behind the reach of his arms and strike at his solar plexus with a sharp fist, all the while her mind spun.

Taking her children out of the care of the Empress before she was certain she could protect them herself was a fools errand. Not only did she need to build her personal strength back, but she had to decide where to take them. If she stayed in the Order, what was her purpose. The Tsis'Kaar were gone, Malum was gone. Did she return and join Darth Strosius ? That had been the instruction he had given her before the Kaggath if he were to die, but he had a reputation for irrational choices that endangered everyone around him.

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The blow landed square in his solar plexus. Normally, such a punch from a much smaller being, even to there, would engender naught but mild amusement. Yet Ansisa’s arms were no longer mere mortal instruments. He took a step back, grunting and raising a hand to his chest to rub at the site of impact.

Powerful.

Good. That meant he had done his work well in fashioning those limbs. How odd to have them turned against him in this moment, even if only in sparring.

Gerra warded her away with a shove.

“If that was anything to judge by, then it will be no time at all,” Gerra chuckled wryly, his humor huge and booming for he was a man of gargantuan delights and depthless sorrows.

“You are plagued with doubts and fears,” he grunted, sensing the vague outlines of her thoughts if not their contents. They hung about her like dark clouds. Gerra circled her as he might a dangerous Tuk’ata.

“Yet look. You breathe. You are whole in some fashion again. This is cause for joy, is it not? We are here one moment, gone the next…”

He tested her with a jab for her head, his reach ludicrous in comparison.

“All we have is the strength of our own flame, hm?”

Gerra threw another jab, waiting for her to dart in again to close the distance, then tried to sweep her legs out in a kick aimed for her lead foot.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Ansisa shifted her feet to keep him in front of her as he circled commenting on her state of mind, earning him a narrowed gaze. He was not reading her thoughts, otherwise he would understand why she was plagued by such things, yet the open declaration of what he could read felt like an intrusion. She tolerated it, simply because she owed him her life.

The jab came hard and fast and she reacted instinctively, her palm coming up to redirect it with matching force, pushing it down and away from her.

"Were that it was only myself I had to be worried about, then what you say would be true, but,"

She moved her head from the second jab, slipping to the outside of his arm she responded with her own job to his side.

"I have children, Gerra. It is for them, that I fear." She stepped in the sweeping kick swinging for her lead foot connected hard, a move she would normally be able to recover from, but these legs were still not hers. Her arse hit the mat and she used the momentum to roll backwards and away from any follow up attacks, coming back up on her feet, the frustration back in her expression.

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The blow to his side ached, delivered by a fist no longer wholly organic. He didn’t advance on her, giving her space to rise back to her feet and regain composure.

“Hm.”

His brow furrowed at her words.

“The children, these are the ones in the Empress’ care?”

Gerra grunted. “What world does she hold them on? We can sail within the next two days and deliver them from her grasp.”

Eyes like twin suns regarded the Chiss.

“All you need is but ask.”

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Ansisa's expression softened at the possibility of seeing her children as she allowed for the briefest of moments to hope...

Then it evaporated, her gaze dropping from his to the floor as the question followed her that had followed her since she woke with her new limbs.

What then?

She felt a lump form in her throat, swallowing hard against it before looking back up. "Why would you offer such a thing? What is it that you want?"

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

Why…

A strange question for a man such as Gerra, who strode the hyper lanes to take what he pleased, when he pleased, and thought nothing of the suffering left in his wake.

“Because I only do what I wish to,” he replied simply, the timbre of his voice a rich and oily bass.

“And I wish to please you.”

The towering Vahlan did not hide the way his eyes regarded her beauty with admiration and hunger. She emerged from the crucible of suffering and battle and loss stronger than before, a risen phoenix.

But he did not name a price or put some tax upon her for his aid. Not in her reincarnation nor in any aid he would lend her to recover her children. He did only as he did because he wished to do so.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Ansisa's lips parted in surprise, feeling her skin burn under the heat of his gaze. She had never been one to blush, in fact quite the opposite. She and Malum had been anything but loyal to one another and had the circumstances been different, she would have taken the unspoken invitation without hesistation. Yet Malum had always been the one to hold her heart in the palm of his hands. He had always been the one to squeeze and crush it. Now he was gone, and she wasn't even sure if she had a heart anymore. She dropped her gaze, a humourless laugh escaping her.

"I see."

She took a moment, wrestling with angry tears that threatened to fall, before looking back up at him.

"What then?" she asked, her voice trembling. "What am I supposed to tell my children? That the future they were promised has been turned to blood and ash? That everything I stood for has collapsed, everything I would train them for," she took a step forward "What future am I supposed to give them now that I have nothing?"

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

A moment passed as her last word fell into the gulf between them. Tears welled in her ruby eyes, making their glow a hateful shimmer of aimless fury.

Gerra watched her, his features as remote as a mountain peak, as solid as stone. But when he finally spoke his voice burned with inner fire.

“One you carve from the galaxy by force,” he held out his fingers and curled them into a fist.

“The Core is weakly defended, crippled after Atrisia. But their worlds are fat with undeserved riches. Join my armada and we will plunder them dry. House Marr will be rebuilt upon that looted wealth.”

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

There it was.

He might not have stated it when she asked, but that was what he wanted. Ansisa was presented an opportunity to fall in behind another man, to fight for another man. "I don't give a fuck about House Marr." she replied, her tone cold. "My children are illegitimate, they hold no claim to it. I don't want to rebuild anything that Malum made. Not after he..." she trailed off shaking her head.

She fell quiet, considering the option laid before her. To become what? A pirate? A Warlord? Was that what she wanted for her children? Or was it simply a foundation from which she could build. Provide something stable so that when the time came, they could rise to take what it was they wanted. But she would not fight or heed the command of another man. Not again.

"You would have me answer to you?"

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

Gerra snorted. "No."

If he wanted to create a tributary state out of Marr's remnants, he would have taken a different approach entirely.

"I can spare you three capital ships to do with as you please. You will have to find crews, but you would answer to no one."

He spoke the truth, though he could not force her to believe his words.

"If you care so little for Marr, then leave that name in the hall where I found you. Seize for yourself something new. Forge your own name in blood and fire."

His eyes came awake at these words as he stared past her into some middle-distance. Many among the Vahla held the powers of a seer, seeing into the possibilities of a future. He saw such a vision then, of Ansisa at the helm of her own vessel, burning her name across the galaxy.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Three capital ships, no strings attached. A fresh start, freedom to carve her own path.

All of it felt like a cruel trick, like a trap laid to ensnare her into something she could not quite make out.

She shifted from one foot to the other before taking another step forward. "I don't understand. You pluck me off the scorched halls of a home that is now dead to me, you waste no expense seeing me rebuilt. You offer to allow me to bring my children out of the Order, grant me the use of three ships to call my own, and you want nothing in return?"

There was a beat, a moment of silence in which her read eyes searched his face trying to find an answer.

"I don't believe you."

She stepped in again, moving faster than she had before coming within his reach to strike at his abdomen and chest.

Hasuras Na-Gerra