Srina handed her cloak to one of the attendant droids that greeted her in the foyer of Sinner’s Well. Her expression was light, unclouded, and touched with a blush of excitement from running her speeder throughout the wildlands of Ryloth. Darth Metus had requested that she take stock of the people in some of the nearby cities to ensure their well-being. For the most part, everything seemed to be going smoothly, despite tensions heating up with the Galactic Empire. Trade was up. Crime was surprisingly down. It was a task that could have easily been completed by someone beneath her standing but the young apprentice had long since accepted her Master’s tendency to send her out on the strangest of hunter-gatherer missions.
Personally, she just assumed that he needed a little space. They were always together, unless some sort of Confederacy business, or a personal matter, drew them apart. It was mid to late afternoon and she’d departed not long after breakfast. It had been mere hours and she already missed him. The silver eyed woman moved through the halls of her Master’s home with familiarity, first choosing to visit her quarters, so she could change and shower. She was covered in dust and dirt and felt a little sticky from the heat.
When she emerged from her rooms a little over an hour later, droids scurried past, and immediately collected her soiled garments and set about to cleaning her already pristine living space. It seemed as if they were desperate for something to do and the pale-skinned woman simply chuckled to herself and allowed it. The attendant droids were the only ones that truly got on her nerves. They loved trying to dress her, like a doll, and seemed almost offended when she tried to decline. Often, she found that her wardrobe had been either plundered or added to without her consent.
At least they had the good sense not to touch her armor or weapons without permission.
The faintly sweet scent of plumeria and sandalwood incense teased her nose as she felt through the Force for her Master. He was here, somewhere in this vast fortress he called a home, and Srina could feel herself relax in his presence. Her white-gold hair had been left free, unbraided, and it fell down her back in rolling waves of liquid moonlight. Her
clothing was less plain than she would have liked, but fit enough, for spending an evening in, where delegates and possibly members of Viceroyalty may call. One day, the droids would understand the notion of practicality over shiny.
In her arm, she carried a little bag of treats that she’d secured from the marketplace. There was some sort of candied nuts along with long, thin, sticks of sugar crystals that had been grown together. The vendor had called it sweet rocks and while Srina’s sweet tooth was not as evolved as her Master’s she still thought it enjoyable enough to bring him home a few. He seemed to like things with a certain kind of crunch. Though, not as crunchy as her Namana cookies, as it turned out.
“Master?”, she questioned sweetly, knocking politely on the doors to his bedchambers, a little surprised, when it whooshed open of its own accord. Srina stepped inside, stockinged feet soundless, as curious eyes swept over the empty area. The bed was made—But the rest of the spacious room was filled with his usual organized chaos. The door to the refresher was open. The light was off. She couldn’t hear anything.
“Master are you here?”
Still, she could feel him. The young woman set down the spoils from her city-adventure on the edge of the desk, still a little proud that she hadn’t been partially skewered this time, and crossed her arms. Her sense of awareness when it came to Darth Metus was never wrong. Out of all of the things she had gained an affinity for, locating her master, was possibly her most developed skill.
As she wandered toward the sunlit window she heard something. A whisper. At first, she passed it off as the breeze winding through the corridors but eventually, she realized that it was in the bedroom with her. Calling her. Before she could process what was happening, or even begin to resist the darkness, she found herself padding softly over to a mahogany workstation that she had seen a dozen times before. Her skin tingled as she stepped through it.
Through, what appeared to be solid wood, and stone. Silvered eyes trailed along a dimly lit staircase that circled down. It wasn’t dirty, as the solid blocks of rock seemed fresh cut, but the walls had a layer of something over them. Grime? Or was it soot? She could hear things that she hadn’t heard before, the workings of simple machinery, animalistic noises, and almost human misery. The Echani lifted the material of her dress and descended down into what felt like a portal to the netherworld. It ate at her core. Stealing away the warmth of Ryloth from her skin, robbing her of light, leaving a cold pit of irrational fear in her stomach.
The voices kept calling her. Taunting her. They wanted her to follow. Why? The further down she went the closer she felt to her Master. Her heart beat in the cage of her chest erratically, like the wings of a terrified bird, and she could do little more than lay her free hand over it, as if she could coax it to stillness. A wave of heat splashed against her body like a wall…But it didn’t warm her. No, not when everything in this place seemed designed to chill her to the core.
Srina saw tools first. Hanging neatly. Then animals. Creatures, plants, and things she couldn’t describe.
Then she saw a man. In a cage—Chained and gagged. Raw with fear and terror.
Silvered eyes lingered on the prisoner as something unnamable slipped into her mind. Into her heart. She could hear someone moving. Her head turned, slow, as if time had stilled, and she lay eyes to her Master. He worked around the forge as easily as a culinary droid made its way around a kitchen. Tenderness and horror crashed together in her being as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. This was her Master. She could feel him, she knew him, as well as she knew the back of her own hand.
Or at least she thought she had.
`What. Is. This.`
She spoke to Darth Metus telepathically because she did not trust the stability of her own voice. Her hands began to shake from the physical effort it took to hold back the Force that she felt welling inside her. It reacted explosively, unstable, and with little regard for those in its way. Bit by bit Srina seemed to turn to ice. He would recognize her expression from the battlefield. Her mind closed itself off to the man who had taught her how, becoming a steel trap, save for the almost agonized voice that would echo in his cranium.
Srina felt a number of things. Deceived and betrayed were the least of it.
[member="Darth Metus"]