First Reply Selective Interest

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania
​

Lysander’s words landed with more force than he likely intended. Motion in the room faltered. Blood, bone, flesh, hovering in their contorted states and her grip did not fall. It stopped, in that moment. Then came more sound. More wet slithering. Not toward the collector now. Away.

All streams drew back toward various containers scattered throughout the room. Mortyra did not like waste, and so she would save what she could. Especially the thread drawn from Lysander. It was singled out, folded into a vessel close to her.

Shadows that had formed and engulfed the room followed. All of them did not vanish at once. They receded, peeling away from the edges, pulling inward toward Mortyra.

The collector moved before he understood why. His hand slipped from the blaster at his side and rose to his chest, fingers pressing over the frantic rhythm beneath. When his legs failed him, from muscles pulled so tightly that they now felt like jelly, he dropped hard to the floor. Fear still poured from him, and still Mortyra drank it. Not visibly, but still.

“Thank you, my lady,” he managed, the words catching and breaking as they left him. “Thank you… thank you.”

Mortyra’s head turned sharply away from his voice, making her frustration obvious despite how much she hid her emotions earlier. Her eyes, burning as brightly as twin suns, locked onto the subject of said frustration: Lysander.

“I send away my men,” Her voice was low, sharp like a knife, “and I still end up counseled.”

A rough sound followed, something close to a growl, pulled from the back of her throat before she continued, “The next one who tries might find their neck snapped.”

She lashed out at him because she knew he was right, and didn't want it to be true. What she really wanted was release. But those words would have come from her master in this very moment, if he were still alive. Not that she always listened to him. Far from it.

Her gaze broke from Lysander and snapped back to the collector. "Where is it?" Every syllable dripped from her lips like venom from the tips of snake fangs, already plunged into prey.

He inhaled sharply, once. “There…” His hand lifted, unsteady, pointing across the room. “The—”

She was already moving. Her sudden motion caused him to flinch. His entire body shrunk back instinctively from her while his voice died in his throat.

Mortyra reached the case. For a moment, she did not open it. She stood over it, looking down, her stillness returning in a different form. When her hand moved, it was slower. The container responded to her touch, opening with a soft hiss.

Inside rested the tome. Her fingers brushed over it, too. She traced the edge first, feeling the slight unevenness where the material had aged differently. Then the center, where the markings were deepest. When she finally took it into her hands, her grip was firm, but not tight.

What Lysander likely still wanted from all of this, she assumed, was the collection still stored in the vault, along with more answers from her and the collector. But now she had the most important thing she had come for. So she remained where she was and waited, calculating the possibilities of what might come next, and what she would do.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Meya Liefi​

And so the room continued breathing in crimson light, each pulse of the saber painting the pointed-eared woman’s silhouette. Her anger hung between them, heavy and ever viscous, though it conjured no fear out of Lysander; only a darker thrill at witnessing raw power. Perhaps, the kind a man might feel watching a storm across open waters.. knowing full well it could kill him. There was even a tremor crawling beneath his skin, seeding in the cut drawn across his palm earlier.

A slow coil of breath was drawn back into the lungs, muscles readying themselves.. half in deference, half invitation. How could he not register the collector’s ragged exhalations? A pitiful sight if he ever saw one, already broken where he stood, appearing as some devout worshipper of fear at an altar. Such broken devotion was almost poetic.. if you were a Jedi.

The soft slush of spilled ichor pulled back into her waiting vessels, though the blonde gazed drifted to where she cradled the tome; was this the fulcrum of the galaxy for her? There was certainty in the way she carried it, enviable in some ways. Of course, he was curious as to what synergies might slumber in those pages. Behind his chest, there was no debate blooming. What kind of Sith would be be, to cower beneath her power, when he could easily meet it head-on with reason’s blade. Strangely so, another lure called to him in the room’s darkness, daring him to understand the wellspring of her wrath.

His free hand rose, brushing a slick of sweat away from his brow. ”If you intend to sunder him, then do so. But leave his tongue intact.. there are truths he has yet to speak, and I would have them in clear sentences. Unless you know another path to unearth what he hides.” Pain could has a way of introducing someone to confession, stacking revelation upon revelation.

“I answer to no one in the Covenant beyond this need. There’s no report awaiting my return. What you do with him once I have what I came for.. is entirely your affair.”

The abyss hummed between them with possibility. “I would find myself disappointed if this night brought no further benightment. So, what will you do now?”

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania
​

She exhaled through her nose, a faint edge of irritation in it. “You wish to see more. Learn more. That’s why you’re discussing this with me instead of simply helping yourself to him.” There was certainty in her voice, in the way she judged him. If he tried to claim otherwise, nothing in her expression suggested she would believe it.

Those golden eyes slid back to him, unblinking. As they did, her shoulders angled slightly in his direction, the shift pulling the light of his saber across more of her lithe form in a slow wash.

“The information he holds is worth more to you than it is to me, so it will cost you,” she said, cold and even. “And keeping his tongue and mind intact enough for your purposes… will require more than you think.”

Her body finally turned fully toward him and stepped forward, closing some of the space between them without hesitation. The crimson glow deepened over her as she moved, spilling across her delicate features, catching on the droplets of blood that still clung to her face, and tracing the surface of the tome now held against her chest with a possessive firmness that left no doubt as to its value.

“I’ll need more of your blood.” Stronger. Younger. No further explanation followed. She didn't believe he needed it, and if he didn't understand? Good.

Her chin lifted slightly, gaze narrowing as it traced over him, taking in details others might overlook.

“And a payment. Some of your hair. Plucked at the root. Not cut.”

Mortyra had not forgotten this was his territory. Her disadvantage was noted, measured, and dismissed for now. Another risk, yes, which had not stopped her from making demands before. It would not stop her now.

“I wont accept anything less,” she continued. If he said no, he could deal with the information extraction himself. “Because the truth is, beyond parting after tonight and never seeing one another again, what remains that I would want from you… are a few of your components.”

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Meya Liefi​

Lysander watched her draw near, carrying a sharp syllogism as if it were fact. There was truth there, he would grant her that; he did not linger out of idle curiosity, nor weakness. Yet the woman errs in believing her interpretation is complete. The gap between her judgment and his own reality widened not with deception, but something else. There was no prize sought, and not without formality.

She had already given him more in this exchange than the prisoner slumped in the corner ever could have.

Another bead of sweat crawled across the ridge of his temple. Not a single sign of her closer proximity would display that he was unsettled. The red glow would need to stay; extinguishing it would invite darkness, and he didn't care to lose whatever this vantage may be. The bloom was an ally in vigilance. Or would it return too the illusion of ignorance?

Ears pricked for footsteps once more, but there were not more, no other breath that wasn't hers, stepping fully into his sphere. Droplets of blood on her skin clung like jewels. Perhaps, another red light crawled across her tome, was because it was eager to graph its secrets. But she guarded a queen might her crown in a realm of shadows.

His jaw tightened, and through the nose, a breath was drawn.. to stall the question that wanted to slip out. What was insulting, was she spoke of payment as if he were a merchant at her whim. Lips parted with the gravity of his own choice as his emerald gaze studied her profile once more.

"You mistake me for someone who came hunting for his own advantage. If I were here to help myself only, I wouldn't be speaking to you at all." The voice was devoid of warmth. "I would've already taken what I wanted and left you to your work. "

His tone remained threadbare calm. "But here we are. So tell me.. why must you carve out my flesh to fuel your.. magic? And what guarantee do I have that you'll.. honor this bargain once you've taken what you need?"

Shifting his weight, a half-step closed the shrinking distance. A single scrape against the cold floor. "As for whether our paths diverge come morning, I would not assume that is yours alone to decide, Meya."

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania
​

Mortyra did not move when he took that half-step closer or spoke one of her names. His answers set more thoughts in motion, but they did not show on her face. Few Sith were not purely selfish. A rarity, from her experience. Still, she sensed some truth in what he said.

His last comment held some truth as well. At least, the possibility of it.

Some heartbeats passed before she shifted the tome from her hands and secured it against her harness, resting it in a place clearly meant for it. Both of her hands rose after, slowly, until they were held fully between them, close to his free hand without touching.

“You want assurance, then you will have it.”

She stepped closer into his space, enough to feel the warmth of him again, the faint heat of his blade brushing across her form. “Your blade is lit. You have the advantage in physical strength.” The meaning was clear without being spoken further. She’d placed herself within his reach, accepting the vulnerability of it. Any movement from him would leave her precious little time to react. And he might.

Spoiler: If he allows her

If he allowed it, her hands moved again.

Cold, slender fingers slid beneath his hand. Her touch registered the roughness of his palm this time, earned from years of lightsaber training, while she lifted it slightly, her other hand settling over the top a beat later. Contact that was... neither gentle nor rough, on her side, at least. Her eyes closed as a connection formed.

Something would press against his mind, not tearing or forcing its way in, but finding an allowed point of contact and expanding through it. The room they were in remained, but it changed in the same instant. Light did not simply dim. It thickened, deepened into a heavy red that filled the space, swallowing edges into a haze and pushing everything else into the background.

Mortyra stood before him still, though not entirely as before. Her entire form had taken on the same color as the markings around her eyes, a deep, consuming black that drank in the red around it rather than reflect it. No longer a fixed figure, she was smooth in some places and shifting in others.

Farther back, near the edge of the room, another figure stood. Taller. Broader. Masculine in shape, though less defined. Almost the same darkness as hers clung to it. Almost, but clearly heavier, more solid, nearly beast-like in its presence and the sense of it. This figure did not move or speak. It simply watched them with a presence that carried its own authority.

Separate from the other figure, the collector remained on the floor… frozen, it seemed.

​

“You’ve visited this realm before?” Mortyra questioned, her head tilting slightly as she studied him, strands of her darkness that had once been hair shifting with the movement. “In meditation, perhaps? In sleep. In exhaustion.” Those sufficiently connected often visited the Force Realm without consciously trying.

Here, her intent carried more clearly than her words. He'd be able to feel it as much as hear it. Some thoughts of hers were stray, even. This realm was not entirely under her control.

I do not go for a Sith’s throat unless it is necessary. The galaxy’s darkness benefits me. A thought of hers carried through the space with a low, unnatural echo

“You will have your answers,” Mortyra spoke again. “And I will have my collector. He will obey me without hesitation once he is mine.”

Her attention shifted briefly to the contact between them before returning to his face.

“Your blood has power,” she finally answered his earlier question. Somewhat. Mortyra did not wish to give him the clarity he likely wanted, even if here it might not be entirely within her control. “Greater than what I have collected today.”

A slower breath in, suggesting a growing tiredness, then she continued.

“It will allow me to shape him into something more than I could without.”

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Meya Liefi​

Watching her place the tome away was more reassuring than the words themselves. A boy's logic. "You're not wrong. But power, at least here, isn't the question for me." The question he didn't ask was the more interesting one.. not whether she could harm him, but why she had chosen to stand within reach of the answer.

The red haze pressed against his vision, thick as spilled wine, suffocating the edges of the chamber until Meya's shape was reborn in obsidian relief. The choice was registered in the curve of her fingers; he detected no weakness in this. Nothing so simple as that. Ice calibrated, pressure steady, and offered without apology. That was enough to drift further into this ritual.

And maybe, without speaking, he'd already accepted that the collector belonged to her; for he was a useless cipher now, until she willed otherwise. Behind her, the collossal shadow figure held its ground, the kind of presence that expected to be feared. "Your fascination with him is noted. His obedience, or his ruin.. will not sway the Covenant's purpose."

He released a slow exhale. "I have," answered in a low tone. "Not with this clarity. I've brushed against its edges in meditation, and in sediment of dreams I can not name." Lysander's gaze swept over the shifting red. "But I have never traversed it unencumbered. Or with company. I know it.. but not its depth." Stray thoughts reached him through the joined contact, like a frequency he hadn't tuned for.

The mention of power displaced his thoughts astray in ways that were taxonomic. Naturally, he valued himself.. his cognition, his discipline, and even his bloodline. Never to be seduced by the word. But the way she said it.. the way the realm corroborated it, it stirred a question yet to find voice.

Something of a promise followed; answers for himself, dominion for her. "Blood may confer potency, or it may designate a target." Though his knowledge was limited, he could gather this much. "Tell me plainly, then, would you see me as an ally only a resource?" Truth was, there was little patience for endgames built on subjugation. If the man's purpose was so trifling, why this grand parade of shadows? "Do be careful you don't find only a reflection of yourself in the collector.." Another instrument to be wielded and discarded. "I would grant your.. queries, within reason. But you should know, my cooperation is not a gift; it is a contract. And those generally demand terms.." He wouldn't list them, bet left for her own interpretation. Truthfully, they could carry weight in both directions.

Even so, there was more to say, regardless of one's decision; because he sensed the ritual logic twisting around them, a lattice of intention he could read, legible enough to trace.. sure.. and somehow resistant to full translation. "Why bind yourself to a single point of contact when this realm opens to clear sight? Why not trust what you evoke rather than bind it through me? Explain this, Meya. Is there something you forfeit if I step back?"

Twin emeralds shifted to the altered face, studying the shifting darkness framing her features. "If the galaxy's darkness, benefits you," he continued, "then consider the Covenant." Lysander's voice was calm, and carried no urgency; urgency was for those who doubted their offers. "I could lend you the Covenant's discreet network.. our archivists, our strategists, our masters of occult lore. Think on it.. a path wider than this, one that serves you more surely than a single specimen ever could." The dark between stars.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania
​

His answer about the Force Realm further brought into focus the differences in their training. She had spent years worth of time within it, with her master. To the point she had begun to resist him. Fought him over entering it…even nearly smashing a vase over his head one time to escape him, because he pushed it so much, again and again, day after day.

Yet this Sith’s experience was vastly different. Brushed against it. Touched its edges. Never forced to remain within it long enough for it to press back.

His following threat did not go unnoticed. Mortyra was beginning to recognize that she had made certain missteps while interacting with him. Misjudged his interest. She had expected curiosity, then distance.

Not… this.

That realization did not stop her next words.

“Ally. No, never ally. Not truly. You may try to challenge that. Push me to question myself, as I have begun to notice is your inclination. But as far as I am concerned, you will always be nothing more than a resource to me. The level of your importance, however, will vary, and with that, how I respond to you.”

Her expression did not change. Her voice remained steady, unconcerned. Even if he chose to respond with anger, it would not shift the way she looked at him. Truthfully, there was no insult meant in what she said. No attempt to provoke him. It was simply the truth as she understood it.

“If I answer your questions, more will follow. Then more, yes?” That was all he got back, at first.

One lingered, however. Why not trust what she invoked? In truth, she did not fully understand what he meant. Did he mean why she did not use her own blood? That thought… It did not remain contained. It slipped through, carried into the space between them.

Her eyes flickered, just once, a brief edge of irritation cutting through the stillness as her gaze shifted toward the other dark figure.

My training did not allow the use of my own blood. And the… contract, as one might put it… to learn the magick forbade me from knowing why.

Her gaze held on the figure a moment longer than it should have. She was angry at him for holding back, even now. Years after his death.

She forced herself to shift her focus back to Lysander. His offer struck more than one place at once. Irritation. Recognition. A quiet, unwelcome understanding of exactly why it would work… and what it implied. Betrayal of what she had been taught.

"If I accept your offer," she continued at last, placing slight emphasis on if, before her voice returned to that same even steadiness, "then leaving your Covenant later, if I see fit, will not be an option?"

"That would be a steep price, even for what you offer."

What she chose to say next would likely come across as abrupt. The problem was that the longer she sat with the thought, the more she felt her control over it slipping.

"If I create him with your blood… or another suitable specimen, I can propagate the process through him. Again and again. It would elevate my work. Their lethality. An army that does not understand pain, not fully, with varied capabilities. Promise me an exit from your Covenant, and that I will never be obligated to share all my… secrets. In return, your people will have these creations to study, use… and... replicate." The word replicate left her tongue with a sour taste, so bitter she almost felt herself recoil. Even so, she was fully aware that everything came at a cost.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Meya Liefi​

Another inhalation of the Force Realm filled his lungs, and the blood hued haze pressing at the edges of his awareness. The shifting border of that realm quivered like living embers around her altered form; behind her, the colossal shadow loomed, fingers of darkness draping the frozen collector in silent vigil. Or was it something more? Or was it something more? He could not say, though the stillness stirred questions. His own flesh burned with afterheat of a saber, binding him to reality even as stray thoughts slithered between them.

Lysander allowed a slow smile to curl one corner of his mouth. "Resource," murmured like molten metal. "An apt word.. they hold value and demand respect for their.. utility." No true Sith would bristle at her choice. "You will tap into my people's archives; I will draw from your creations. Our pact need not be sealed in blood.. spoken terms and mutual vows will suffice. This way, we both preserve our sovereignty even as we share power." There was no point trying to pry open a door her doctrine had firmly shut.

He shifted his grip. "He forbade you because he wanted your strength bound to him." Such was the way of those steeped in the Dark arts.. contracts veiled as protection that became prisons. Perhaps understanding that would help her see his offer differently. "I will not lie to you as your Master did. I gain nothing by hiding the truth, nor by taking what you do not offer.. and I do not fear being known."

Beyond words lay another true prize: an army of blood born creations. Indeed, an army that feels no pain is as perilous to its creator as to its enemies. If such forces were permitted to proliferate unchecked.. ambition would demand oversight.

His tone deepened. "The Covenant binds by purpose, not by chains. Should you ever choose to leave, no one will drag you back, not even me. As for the specimen you shape.. that is your craft. Your dominion. The Covenant will study what you choose to give. Nothing more. Your secrets," added thoughtfully, "remain yours alone. Neither the Covenant nor I claim them. You reveal only what you wish. Accept my offer because you will it, not because you are trapped. As Sith, I believe we are stronger together."

The hum of his weapon stuttered and died as he depressed the release. A crimson blade recoiled with collapsing plasma with a sigh. "Take it now, the blood of kings, and before them, conquerors. Let it seal what speech alone cannot, in a bond that neither time nor death could ever sunder." With the lightsaber clasped upon a belt, he reached up with the free hand and drew out a lock of hair.

 

[Meya Liefi]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania


​

Lysander gave her another reason to hate her late master.

Which triggered... a memory without warning. She could still remember the first moment the blade entered him, the resistance of flesh and muscle giving way beneath it. Then the second strike. The third. Again and again, until the act itself dissolved into something feverish and indistinct, the room around them drowned beneath rage and years of restraint finally breaking apart. Her right hand twitched faintly, remembering a pain that no longer existed. Ache had never truly belonged to the wound itself. It had come after, from understanding too late how much of her life had been built around his control.

...and still, even dead, he lingered in everything.

The Realm seemed to murmur around her while Lysander spoke more, red haze curling and shifting through the dark like breath moving beneath water. His offer pressed against too many fractures already opened inside her to be ignored. Access to archives. Knowledge. Freedom from the rigid isolation her master had demanded. Terms. Structure. An exit, if his word held value.

How could she refuse?

Mortyra slowly withdrew her hands from his. The separation pulled against the connection between them, dragging both awarenesses back toward the physical world waiting beneath the Realm’s veil. Stone and cold air returned in full. Mortyra's eyes opened to the sight of his lightsaber collapsing into itself with a sharp hiss as the blade recoiled into the hilt.

She watched his free hand rise toward his hair before her attention shifted lower, toward the arm still extended between them.

Then, with his permission left hanging only in implication, the nail of her index finger dragged cleanly across the inside of his wrist. Blood surfaced immediately.

It would be subtle at first, only a spreading numbness beneath the skin around the cut, but the lacquer coating her nails had never been intended for decoration alone. In weaker beings, enough exposure could travel farther, locking muscles or collapsing limbs entirely, stopping hearts. Against someone like Lysander, it would likely remain local. Dulling. Heavy. Perhaps enough to soften the pain.

Numbing pain had not been her intention. Speed had. The blood welled faster than a more careful cut would have allowed, and Mortyra wasted none of it.

Those first droplets never reached the floor. They halted in the air between them, trembling violently before twisting upward into thin streams that coiled around her wrist like living threads. Immediately, the room answered her.

Containers throughout the chamber ruptured open one after another. Seals burst. Glass shattered inward. Blood drawn from countless bodies surged free from storage vessels in thick streams while preserved strips of flesh, fractured bone, harvested organs, and half-finished components tore themselves loose.

Everything moved toward her. Then beyond her. Toward the collector. The man screamed before the transformation even touched him. All the streams struck his body at once.

Blood wrapped around him in tightening spirals while pieces of harvested flesh slammed into his frame hard enough to throw him backward against the floor. Bones followed next. Not placed carefully, but driven inward by force. Sound that followed were wet, dense, catastrophic. Cracking. Splitting. Re-forming.

His spine arched violently. One arm elongated first, joints wrenching apart beneath rapidly growing muscle while black fur burst through skin in uneven patches before spreading across the limb entirely. Fingers fused, then separated again into thicker claws capable of puncturing steel plating. His jaw distended with a horrible series of popping cracks as new teeth forced themselves downward through bleeding gums.

Mortyra lifted her hands higher. Everything around her, including the building, answered with a groan.

Somewhere deeper in the tower, structural supports screamed under pressure as the Force flooding through the chamber intensified. The floor beneath them trembled hard enough to shift debris across the stone. Hairline fractures spread along nearby walls. Overhead lights burst one after another in showers of sparks.

Bodies elsewhere in the tower answered her call. Corpses. Dying guards. Anything with blood still inside it.

The streams came from every direction now, snaking through corridors and ventilation shafts alike before funneling into the chamber in spiraling currents. Flesh struck the growing creature and disappeared into it instantly, absorbed beneath expanding muscle and darkening fur.

Lysander’s blood remained separate from the rest. She drew from him carefully at first. Then greedily. Every drop changed the creature faster than ordinary blood ever could, and she would continue taking every drop he allowed her to have.

The creature’s body swelled larger. Still Mortyra pushed harder. The tower shook violently. Stone cracked overhead. A section of ceiling collapsed somewhere nearby with a thunderous crash.

Still she did not stop.

She could not give up this… opportunity to mediocrity.

As a cost, her breathing had grown uneven. Sweat mixed with blood across her skin. With time, everything stopped. Her movements. The Force. Then came the quiet, save for the groaning of the building and the heavy breathing of the monstrosity before her. The silence held only until Mortyra began to stagger forward.

Her legs nearly failed beneath her before she forced herself forward, stumbled, caught herself, then continued again until she finally collapsed against the creature’s side. One hand pressed into the dense fur while her body leaned heavily against one of its massive arms for support. The texture was rough and warm beneath her palms, thick enough that it dragged against the exposed skin of her inner arms and thighs where her dress had shifted during the ritual. Her breathing came shallow now, exhaustion finally forcing its way through the control she had maintained.

The creature did not react to her touch. Not even slightly. To it, she was simply part of itself. Its focus instead shifted toward Lysander. There was no hostility in the stare. Lysander was simply something separate. Other.

Mortyra swallowed once before speaking. “Tell him.”

The creature’s maw opened slowly. Its new voice emerged layered beneath another, distorted by a throat no longer meant for human speech. “It is she who commanded my former flesh-form to steal your Covenant’s relics.”