Private Stellar Exchanges

[Astra Sadow]

Astra smirked across at Lysander. She lifted one hand until two fingers sunk into a pocket of her shirt to draw out a pair of glareshades. "Why not? This is your concern to impress me, Lysander. Having not even finished the first lesson, you want to complete the second." At his bold request, she extended the glareshades across the gap between them.

"Once they're there, your next lesson is how to pull something out. I want you to retrieve Nightstar. If you get the shades, you will put them back and try again." A smirk followed as she sat there, watching him. "I'll leave it up to you to figure out how. I'd advise you to think about how you'd take possession of something you can't see." If he was so confident he didn't need her to give him excessive hints, did he?

It'd be amusing to see if he managed it, or what he might do next. They had plenty of time.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Lysander took the glareshades and glanced down at them, turning the frames over a couple of times. They were curious things; not good or bad, exactly, just distinctive. Only one other person came to mind who wore a pair with any regularity.

"Fair enough. I suppose jumping straight to misuse would probably be a little gauche."

Amusement brightened his expression at the challenge. Those tended to bring out some of his best work in any arena. And Nightstar, conveniently enough, was one of the objects he understood best in the galaxy. Its shape, its weight, the balance..

"I am taking the lesson seriously, by the way. I just reserve the right to enjoy it." The distinction was worth making. Time and circumstance probably had something to do with it. Had he been taking the Emissary role as seriously as he once did, forever pressed for time, he imagined Astra's instruction might've received a more solemn response.

"Small wager, then?" Lysander rolled the glareshades between his fingers again. "Something civilized. Tea. Bragging rights. One inconvenient favor. You're the teacher. I want you to set the price."

While Astra might've considered the terms, he returned to what worked with Nightstar moments ago.

 

[Astra Sadow]

Astra scoffed as she leaned back onto the palms of her hands. "I'm teaching you hold to fold reality in on itself, and you want something more if you manage not to kill yourself in the process?" Playful arrogance. Back home she would had gladly reminded them which was in charge, but out here... well, Lysander wasn't part of her Family so they were just two friends sharing information.

"A simple favor or a direct question," she replied after a second. That should be worthwhile without placing everything at risk. Lysander didn't want to risk it all up front, after all. Nor did Astra given she had quite a bit to wager; some of which neither he nor Mercy were aware.

"And your wager is... that you'll retrieve your blade in one try, is it?"

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Yes, the blonde was always asking for something more, wasn't he? Highly possible there was some Sith ambition buried in him after all.. only his often took a different shape. Another door left cracked open just far enough to wonder what waited behind it. Others could collect titles and worlds. Most of those conquered by the Covenant just ended up burning anyway. Lysander found himself fairly content collecting possibilities.

"Astra, when you put it like that, I sound so incredibly ungrateful. Besides, you gave me a challenge. Improving the structure does fall under my job description." The most Emissary thing he'd spoken aloud in weeks.

Lysander's smile reappeared. "Sure. Direct question, then. None of that 'in time' stuff, though. I've heard that one enough to recognize the escape hatch."

By the time those words left him, he'd focused long enough for the glareshades to Fold out of sight. Even if something happened to them, he doubted Astra would miss them much. If memory served, the woman owned several pairs for whatever reason. He wasn't planning to investigae.

"Ready to find out whether you just sold me a question too cheaply?"

 

[Astra Sadow]

Lysander wasn't charming his way out of that one. Then again, Astra wasn't going to hold it against him either. She's wasn't his Master, which meant she had no obligation to teach him and he had none to show her sacrosanct respect -- except for the fact she could stop instructing him at any time for any reason. They'd been awfully considerate and free with their words so far, so why shouldn't she expect him to be 'playful' in his learning as well?

The glareshades vanished and Astra nodded slightly. Once could had been luck. Twice showed promise. If he could do it again and again in the near future then she could trust he had a grasp of the storing part. "Ready to see if you can conceptualize what the inverse looks like," she corrected with a smirk. What she'd put on offer was far more than a cup of tea. Astra was prepared to continue their open exchange, however, even if he won the wager.

Hopefully Lysander wouldn't regret which question he asked.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Lysander felt as though he were earning this strange lexicon one word at a time. Hopefully Astra would pardon such reliance on peasant terminology. Either way, the names were almost secondary; she was actually guiding him toward the substance beneath them.

Who would've predicted sitting in the grass, discussing reality itself, would rank among their more compelling dialogues? Though, to be fair, all of the exchanges had been interesting. This one just happened to be more literal.

"Fine. Bogan forbid I call it 'getting my sword back.'"

The levity slowly drained out of his expression. Sight was probably the wrong sense to begin with. He knew Nightstar better through his hand, or touch. The feeling against his palm, how the pommel felt when his fingers closed. He began constructing what it meant to already be holding it.

Excitement sparked as something solid formed against his flesh. And then the hand disappeared.. not violently.. his forearm simply ended at the wrist? Lysander froze; there was no effort in trying to pull back. Some part of him refused the evidence. ".. Astra."

Emerald eyes traveled back to the woman across from him. Less amusement rested there now.

"Good news. I can still feel the hand. Bad news.. I appear to have.. misplaced it?"

 

[Astra Sadow]

Astra's golden eyes sharpened as she sat up straight on the ground. "You feel it, yes? Then it is there. Do not move it. It is yours. It is part of you. Think it. See it. Know it. Know it is there, because you made it so, and it will be."

Lysander probably couldn't see it -- though he might feel it if his thoughts weren't elsewhere -- but Astra focused her own powers into that place as well. Prosthetics were common, but unnecessary. Astra did not find metal-men attractive. Droids were nothing but tools. So, she would prefer Lysander not indulged to even the smallest degree that which Arris no longer had a choice. And what had she said only a few minutes ago? There were perils placing the living inside the fold. So it was that Astra sought to prevent the worst.

She would hasten him, but haste would only distract the mind. There were... things in these places that would all too eagerly find living tissue alluring. Tissue that was no so appetizing or obtainable constrained to their 'material world' -- their dimension.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Piece by piece, the absence that had been Nightstar thinned. Muscles coiled in Lysander's arm with the stupid urge to snatch itself back. Wanting to do it was the part that stuck. Yet nothing held on at all. A caught wrist in a door, that would've made sense. There would have been pressure to lean into.. something solid to fight.

Trying to flex the fingers only made it stranger. According to every ordinary sense, the wrist stopped precisely where it should. Underneath that, his more insistent awareness argued the opposite.. that the hand kept going, extended somewhere else entirely.

Understanding was there, or so it seemed internally; what was needed now was simply to slow the pace, steady the mind, and move through it step by step.

"Nightstar ends somewhere.. I just need to figure out where I begin."

 

[Astra Sadow]

Astra grimaced a second before her right hand reached toward Lysander's face. And the world winked out.

There was no wind that caressed Lysander's face. No ground beneath his feet. Only a sense that the contents of his stomach rolled over themselves as if he were tumbling through space. With no landscape or markers of any kind who could say whether he was falling. Even the very air he breathed was thin.

At last a flash of light illuminated the void for a split second. Something dark moved to one side. Something bright to the other. Then they were gone. No sound. No tremors. When the flash came again, perhaps he'd spy one or both creatures that clashed nearby. They stood taller than most towers on the grandest of galactic realms. One with eyes that adorned the length of their body. Another with venomous tendrils that struck in unison from multiple directions. And in the distance, as Lysander tumbled sideways, the shimmer of a blade.

Darkness enveloped him once more.

Another flash, as bright as the last, but now with the two figures a sixth his size. Were they at a distance now, or had they shrunk? They moved no slower than they had as giants, and their struggle continued unheard.

And darkness came again.

Go back, a voice shook through Lysander. He was the only solid thing there. Him and the blade. There was nothing else to feel the vibrations of speech than his body and the scant dew of air that accompanied him.

Flash. Lysander found himself caught between giants. Between them. Among them. Serpentine limbs struck through the void at the obsidian creature with its countless red eyes. The light lingered. Or time slowed. Perhaps he perceived swift movements faster than before. A maw of many fangs spread wide in the face of the creatures whose fingers were claws that could slice through entire worlds.

Now. Return. Push the folds apart and go!

Lysander von Ascania​