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​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

It is there. Lysander whispered deep in his mind. It is mine. Part of me..

The sensation was strange, but sensation was still sensation, right? Even if sight denied it. Somewhere beyond what his eyes insisted upon, the hand obeyed. He'd even nearly begun constructing a reply to her in his head. Something about how aggressively reassuring know it because you made it so sounded when applied to missing anatomy. Clearly, this was a neural hiccup, but negotiating with his own limbs was a bizarre experience.

Mid-thought, he looked over to Astra; a second later, the rest of existence folded.

His gaze tore outward, scavenging the edges of the void for light. Air pulled slowly through the nose, borrowed from the old pre-spar ritual. Offer the body something predictable and the mind might be coaxed to follow. Except.. even breathing felt alien here. Every fighter's instinct grasped for tools with no substance to hold.

The vision walloped him hard enough to drain all cognition. He'd seen Sithspawn countless times, aberrations that birthed nightmares; nothing had ever made scale itself feel so... inadequate? That alone spoke volumes given the procession of horrors collected across star systems. Even his analysis of them failed.

Yeah, the words 'go back now' registered, and plainly every scrap of evidence sided with her. Logic obviously belonged to Astra. Another part of him wanted five more seconds to process the impossible. Curiosity often possessed soft and insistent hands. What could a handful of seconds truly cost?

The rolling knot in his stomach protested during the surreal voyage. But.. discomfort had worn far crueler faces, that was for sure. Compared to broken bones, burns, blood loss, and everything else the galaxy had thrown at him, nausea hardly qualified. Not yet, anyway. So, the most familiar response surfaced.

Ignore it until it mattered.

Only her command did not land on his ears alone; rather, it moved through him like some violation that pricked at his pride. Sometimes, adrenaline did little favors for self-preservation.

"Define now. Are you fearful I'll learn something you probably never planned to share anyway? What happened to 'there are no limits'?" Strange how easily the woman's words stuck with him. "You've been baiting my curiosity for weeks. This one's on you, Astra!"

 

[Astra Sadow]

Suddenly a clawed hand with fingers as long as limbs caught Lysander's neck in the web of their grasp. If there was no ground, the shadowy visage with infinite, red eyes certainly seemed to find purchase enough to 'lift' his feet from it. Two rows of three eyes on its face focused on squirming mass held there. There are no limits.

Suddenly a reptilian, white tendril struck the burning dark creature that held him. She jerked, under the blow, but held fast until Lysander was flung away.

A ball of writhing serpentine forms thick as tree trunks emerged out of the abyss. One after another it shot forth. Even when they missed their bodies twisted and bent to form a maze about their prey in an effort to constrain its movements. Obsidian claws sliced through their scales spilling oceans of green blood.

Then they were gone.

The air grew thinner. Silence reigned.

Seconds or minutes or days passed.

There was no sound to fill the void. Only the pumping of Lysander's own heart. Nothing until a faint vibration shook his body. A foreboding sense of something coming. Of inevitability.

Ahead or below or above a white ball started to grow. It seemed to be getting closer. Closer. Until faint definition of the ball being stitched... no, made of something. Something moving. And it continued to grow. And grow. And grow. How close was it when it began to fill his vision? When the faint stitches were found to be the rounded surfaces of countless serpentine bodies as they writhed together. Heads lashed out from the wall of scales and fangs. How much longer until they were close enough to strike?

If he dared looked back to contemplate fleeing, Lysander would only find the fathomless void replaced by one filled with eyes from one end of the horizon to the next -- if there were such a thing in this place. Only a faint sense of motion that tickled the brain rather than were perceived by the eye -- unseen except when a stray strand of dark passed over one of the eyes -- belied the churning mass of shadow that hungrily clawed at the space ahead.

Two endless beings with the empty space between them growing ever narrower.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

For a time, Lysander waited for another voice to reach him. Some answer to the challenge he'd thrown into the void. It'd been a jest, for the most part; a provocation with a kernel of sincerity buried in it. Maybe he'd been foolish enough to believe Astra would catch the spirit of it.. even if she chose to punish his wording?

Stubbornly, breath came ragged through gritted teeth. Inside the skull, thoughts hammered against each other without order. This was not real, this could not be real, and somehow.. the cold of those claws were real enough to bruise. Closing his eyes began to feel like the only defiance left, a childish refusal really, but even so eyelids slammed shut. Perhaps the darkness behind them would be more merciful.

Beneath those closed lids, other horrors sharpened. Heartbeats were thundering loud enough to flood the emptiness. Directions lost all meaning as ahead and below and above blurred into one unknowable somewhere.

Some detached corner of awareness wondered if this was another test. Sith loved those, after all. Even if this one was invited knowingly. All philosophy became irrelevant with the next wave of pain. Something internal began sealing shut. Fear was excised first, then every single protest the body tried to thrust into Lysander's thoughts. Whatever did not serve survival.. was cut away.

Pressure crowded behind his eyes. Everything was just happening at once. Lysander had no real idea how long he'd been holding himself together by then. Seconds? Minutes? Maybe even hours. Impossible to gauge. Eventually, keeping everything pushed down started taking more effort than he could handle.

Anger was what broke through first. If the woman learned nothing else about him here, let it be that surrender never came naturally.

"Astraaa!" Her name tore out of him before anything more articulate could.

 

[Astra Sadow]

In seconds, the two walls of light and dark filled every inch in sight if one dared to open their eyes. Somehow they were visible with no sun. Somehow they stretched infinitely in all directions. And somehow there was the sense they were still growing... still filling the gap between them with the inevitable collision and Lysander stuck right there in the middle.

A massive snake's head, taller than Lysander himself if he stood upright bared its fangs and forked tongue at the morsel that hung there. Whether it registered him as something distinct to devour, or merely sought to lash out at the nearest thing that wasn't part of its endless self who could tell?

As it stretched forth, ready to devour him, a tendril of pitch black smoke curled over Lysander's shoulder. Despite its wispy nature, it had enough pull to drag him away from the hungry, gaping maw before him. It drug him back into the abyss. The cold, hungry emptiment with infinite eyes all turned in toward the figure they'd snared.

And then the sun light struck. The faint musk of wild fields filled with molds, fungus, mildew, and pollen returned in force. The wind blew, and air could be greedily consumed once more.

Astra, however, wouldn't be found when his eyes opened. She no longer sat on the ground before him, but stood three feet behind Lysander. Her red, leather jacket fluttered in the wind about her legs. Astra's back was turned toward him; her features obscured from sight.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

One side was consumed by light; the other by shadow. Lysander dangled between them like some mistake in whatever this design was. Every nerve snapped, exposed to too many eyes; he was nothing and everything all at once. No sun shone, yet white and black flames burned side by side, stretching forever. How could infinity still multiply? The thought spun him further off balance. Ahead, the serpent reared. Whether the entity saw prey or loathed anything that was not itself didn't really matter. Death circled close.

Stubbornness rose in answer, a stupid and knotted cord that refused to break even as the mind begged for release. The rage registering in his gut was ugly. Was this torture wearing some grand mask?

Then smoke snaked around him like shackles. Had Abaddon rebuilt itself around Lysander in fragments. Grass beneath him. Wind skated against his skin. Sunlight slammed his eyelids shut by instinct this time.

Each inhale gulped more air than the last. Tension dripped away with each exhale. Their morning training once offered clarity; now even that felt distant. Fatigue crashed over him. Palms dragged across his face. No blood or sweat; there was nothing to show for it.. only hair left wild.

Minutes passed, maybe more, before he planted his palms and rose to his full height. Afterward, he turned to face Astra. Lysander already knew he'd failed. Clearly, there'd been something in there she wanted him to see, whether provocation forced the woman's hand or not.

"No. You don't get to just turn your back on me after that. If there was a lesson, say it. If you're angry with me.. say that too. Don't just leave me guessing." The next question left a sour aftertaste. "Did any part of you enjoy watching that happen?"

Anger still burned under the surface, and recognizing it, the better choice became silence. Some words, once spoken, could not be taken back; perhaps that threshold had already been crossed.

"Forget it."

 

[Astra Sadow]

There was a slight turn of Astra's head though not enough to see even the corner of her eye. Just enough to suggest life. Attention.

It only lasted a second. The slight turn of the head. The breath that followed Lysander's last word.

A moment, and then Lysander's feet left the ground as Astra turned in place, stretched out her hand, gathered up the clothing just below the neck, and lifted. Little room was left to see anything other than Astra's eyes, which glowed a scarlet red; faints currents of pitch swirled in those scathing rings.

"A lesson?" her breath was an airy hiss as she drew Lysander down and closer to her face. "You defied my command to leave. You lingered in a realm where to chance but a glance at the wrong entity would shatter your mind like crystal on a beskar plate. You were not meant to be there, Lysander. Your hand drew a predator, and I did what needed done."

Red lips twitched as her lidless eyes bore into him for a moment.

Suddenly his feet found a perch on the ground once more. "Your gratitude is humbling," her deep, husky voice growled. Astra's fingers loosened about his clothing so he could move freely once more.

After all that rather than gawk in wonder or tremble in fear, he complained about the peril of a hungry wolf she fended off while his hand was snared in a bear's trap. Perhaps she should feel accomplished at fashioning such an effective mask that he mistook her for a considerate soul full of mercy and understanding. But standing before him now was the reigning predator that yearned to sink its teeth into something soft to feel the life ebb from its broken body.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Lysander's feet left the ground and both hands snapped up to seize her wrist. And.. the grip was useless. He knew that immediately. Shoulders tightened as every muscle searched for leverage where none existed now. The fighter in him knew a base was required for that. His feet bicycled once in empty air anyhow.

For one foolish second, he thought he'd begun to cool down. Then the anger returned, surging through him with the violence of a struck nerve. Because humiliation burned worse. From his perspective, anyway.

Narrowing his eyes, Lysander held Astra's gaze. "So what if I was a fool?" The admission came easily, even if it cost him more air. "Who cares if I stayed when told to leave? I overestimated myself. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop asking questions."

Astra released him and knees bent on impact, boots scraping the ground. Breath returned unevenly. More waited behind his teeth. Far more. "I didn't even know if what I was seeing was real. Wasn't sure if you were real anymore. Didn't know if I was coming back."

One term was lodged in his mind. Command? Well of course something in him rejected it on principle. A battlefield order made sense, so long as they could explain the threat. This was more authoritative, demanding obedience.

"And meant by whom? The Force? The Fold? You?"

Vulnerable words pressed against his tongue, and he hated that she might hear the truth underneath them. So, a scoff escaped instead. Lysander broke eye contact, looking off to the side as if there was something worth studying.

Astra claimed there were no limits; he reached past one, and she panicked. "Maybe I wasn't the only one who learned something." The coward in him wasn't about to unpack it either.

One hand lifted in a dismissive gesture, palm cutting once through the space between them. "Save the lecture. I heard enough of your wisdom the first time." Despite the barb, nothing in his stance suggested retreat.

 

[Astra Sadow]

"You listen, but you do not hear," Astra replied curtly. "There are realities above and beyond our own. Ones that do not obey physics or logic. You -- your body, your mind -- were not made for them. Just as the creatures that lurk there would lay waste to everything they touched in ours. Are you not humbled by it? Do you not fear it? You should, Lysander! Only fools boast about being so mindless that they fear nothing."

"I never demanded you to do anything, Lysander, until then. Consider that the next time someone breaks character. Consider whether they have reason and why they might care enough to do so." And how his bold words only jabbed at someone whose humility had been cast aside, cross at being ignored and her wisdom so casually dismissed. Worse, Lysander had no wherewithal of the effect that place had on her as well; nor where she had been in however short or long a time had passed. Effects such as old, familiar lures and flights of fancy that would bring some of that which lay Beyond home.

Astra tried to calm her voice as she stood there and added, "Do not return there, Lysander, of your own volition. There are fates worse than death." If he'd do nothing else, he should heed that. Of course, someone so stubborn would likely disregard such a warning. Astra couldn't watch someone as though they were an infant. The warning was given. A peek at what lay beyond was had. It should be enough for a rational mind to know they did not know enough to dare set foot there again.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Standing in front of someone irritated was something of a specialty; in an odd sort of way. Over the years, from his Padawan beginnings through to this moment, he pressed enough people to where disapproval just felt like some old acquaintance. Did he not listen to her? Well, lately half of their conversations seemed to file themselves away inside his mind. The curse of a good memory.

"Fear alone doesn't humble someone. If it did, no one would ever need to learn anything." No malice tinted his words. "We'd just stand at the edge and call it wisdom. Call me reckless or arrogant if you want. Both would probably be fair. I've earned them honestly enough over the years to not argue the charge. But don't mistake it for thoughtlessness."

Some of the fight was slowly draining from Lysander as she spoke. He inhaled slowly then let the breath escape through his nose. Eye contact finally broke; his gaze dropped to the patch of ground between. There, he considered what she had to say. Or rather, tried to truly absorb what she offered him. This called for something more sincere than a quick, witty reply. More care. If the silence stretched, maybe it was only to prove to himself that he could.

"Well," and a trace of amusement returned to his expression, "there remains one small complication with that plan. A practical one, I'm afraid."

The smile that followed thinned at the edges. "I do require a return trip, you see. My sword remains lodged in another reality at present. Unless you propose to furnish a replacement, I will eventually need to retrieve it." The idea of going back wasn't enough to turn his stomach anymore, but there was no urgency either. He doubted those entities would concern themselves with a discarded weapon.

Both hands laced behind his back as his torso twisted, chin tipping up to look at Astra again. Probably too innocent for the conversation they were having, certainly too soft for being a Sith. Somewhere in the gesture was an attempt to lighten the air. Making the effort was important to him.

"I'd hate to leave our first lesson incomplete, Astra. Especially since you're stuck with me now." His tone carried more warmth as emerald eyes stayed on hers. "I don't exactly have…" Lysander's tongue brushed the inside of his cheek. "Never mind."

 

[Astra Sadow]

Glibness. It wasn't that Astra didn't understand or found it sickening; there was just a deep seated desire to sink one's fangs into something that smiled too much. As much as she talked up the philosophy of life and existence, Astra had multiple sources of instincts that desired to inflict pain and ruin on everything that lay before her. Because she could. Because it was there. To feel the life squeezed out of something would bring untold joy to her existence. Not because it improved the galaxy -- because it robbed it of the potential to improve.

It was pretending to be more than all her ravenous desires that gave her higher-reasoning purpose. Indulging in lengthy discussions proved she existed apart from the monstrous hungry and desire to rend everything and everyone apart.

The sharp shadows that cut across her face softed with the slightest lift of the chin, and suddenly the all too clear golden eyes that bore into Lysander returned with a blink. It wasn't anything he'd necessarily said or done. It wasn't Astra drawing up a deep reserve of patience, long-suffering, or moral authority. It was something far simpler; far more... mercurial.

A hand lifted, but it didn't even get halfway up between them before the Nightstar appeared in it. The tip of the blade weighed on Lysander's left collarbone. "Never go back." Astra met Lysander's eyes for a moment. The tip lifted off his collar and pivoted away from his neck as she extended the pommel in his direction. Her fingers uncoiled but for her thum and index finger to keep it aloft.

"We'll try again after you reflect on what you've learned. Try to remember what I said before you nearly lost a hand." Namely, Lysander didn't need to go anywhere or do anything to retrieve what he'd stored. In fact, if you knew what you were looking for, you didn't even need to be the one that put it there. Though there were creatures that would notice an intrusion like that. Lysander needed to get proficient in storing and retrieving before they spoke of more nuanced control.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Astra Sadow​

Interesting how the smallest shifts might alter one's expressions; for a moment, her look no longer seemed wholly devoted to the argument, having wandered elsewhere entirely. Returning Nightstar to the space between them closed no distance at all.

Right. Never mind all the talk of choice and possibility. So this was what she was too, only better spoken, more articulate until the patience finally gave out. Maybe that assessment was dimly unfair; some reasonable corner of his mind conceded as much, but he let it sit there anyway. Lysander could tolerate hostility; he rarely granted it enough importance to take offense. What bothered him was something else. It just kind of sucked to offer someone the possibility of being different and watch them reach for the familiar instead.

His shoulder rolled beneath the sword's tip. He didn't need his own weapon being used as an instructional prop to understand the warning, one that carried an absolute quality he found difficult to swallow. Evidently, comprehension alone wasn't enough; the verdict arrived pre-sealed.

A humorless line graced his mouth, a wintry quirk before thinning back into nothing. His attention slowly settled on the pommel proffered toward him, more inspection than acceptance. Whatever meager warmth remained withdrew entirely, leaving only the cold, clear green of jewels untouched by spring.

"Keep it," came low and hollow and strangely tender. "I heard your warning. Just be mindful of how you deliver the next one to me." He did not care if the pressure of the blade was light, for the meaning behind it was anything but, especially when he had been hoisted by the collar moments prior, the insult still fresh upon his skin.

"You said I should reflect, yes? Consider it underway."

Fingers loosened and both arms fell to his sides. One thumb pressed deep into the crease of his palm, testing for feeling, only to find absence. Then he took a step backward to create space, followed by another, before turning finally toward the transport.