Private Tarta de Sangre

[Soah Ty’Jyn]

How Dare You
Interacting with: Kasir Dorran

The Alazmec woman swung in Soah's grip like a discarded carcass, the ropes biting into her wrists. The Felacatian dragged her within her maul without care, muscles rolling beneath her pelt, every step silent and deliberate in her cold simmering fury, her tail flashing in warning as if the whole corridor should know better than to get in her way.

The Felacatian had hunted to burn the rage out of her blood. Instead, the stench of them clung stronger when she returned. It fouled the air, scratching at the back of her throat until her lips peeled over sharp teeth in a low, warning snarl.

This was her territory. Hers. Every muscle itched to leave her mark, to rub her scent against the walls, the corners, the very floor beneath her paws and drown their scent beneath her own. She nearly turned away again, ready to disappear into shadow, until another smell caught her.

Blood tarts. Cooling on the counter. Her work. Her Tribute. Her nostrils flared and the inky shadows reacted to the shift of emotions that bled from the teenager as the savory tang of pastry fat and sugared spice kept the rest of the scents at bay. That aroma curled like a tether around her neck, dragging her back from the brink.

A low chuff escaped her chest as her shape shifted once more. Bone cracked, sinew folded, fur retreated. In the span of several painful breaths, the predator collapsed into the slender frame of a teenager, dusky skin flushed with the lingering ache of change. She tugged her tunic over her head, fabric clinging to her dusky skin, then padded barefoot across the deck.

Without a word she tied on her apron, knotting it tight as if binding herself. The Alazmec she had dragged in lay bound and cast aside but Soah's focus had already shifted to bowls, fruit, and flame. She carved, she stirred, she tested the glaze with a fingertip and licked it clean, tasting the tang of the compote that coated her mouth like too much like blood.

The silence pressed heavy around her. Every stir of the spoon was a pacing step. Every clatter of a pan was the echo of claws against durasteel. Anger and resentment raked over her skin as though her fine fur might bristle through again at any second.

But she forced the predator to heel. She had work to finish.

Soah baked. She glazed. She moved with the precision of a huntress setting a snare, blocking out every stinking trace of betrayal with the only weapon she had left, her focus.

For the galley was hers and she would not yield it.

 

[Kasir Dorran]

Territory means nothing to me
Soah Ty’Jyn

Kasir had spent most of the evening sealed within his chamber. The air there was heavy with familiar perfume of old incense and the faint, metallic ghost of dried blood. Shadows clung to the corners like living things, curling and uncurling with the slow rhythm of each inhale and exhale. He sat unmoving on the obsidian floor, eyes half-lidded, listening to the volcanic heartbeat of Mustafar.

The Sangnir would feel the groan of molten rivers beneath the enclave’s foundation.

By the time he rose, it was without urgency. The room, full of dark and gloom, would open with a heavy sigh, and so he stepped through the door. The corridors were dim, but to Kasir’s eyes, this was of no hindrance.

Every edge was seen with perfect clarity.

His passage was silent, the only sound being the whisper of robes along the floor. The air shifted as he moved, and with it, arrived more tantalizing scents.

The closer he drew to the galley, he noticed something else. Sweetness clung to it. Sugar. Heat. But it was the glaze that truly captivated him, impossible to ignore.

He stepped into the kitchen without announcement. The vaulted ceiling arched above, beams blackened, shelves lined with jars and iron implements. Soah was there. He noticed her immediately, as he always did, but said nothing. Over a year of proximity had taught him to read the smallest shifts in the Felacatian’s presence, but he seldom intruded. Whatever storm she was working through, he would not demand an explanation.

Allowing himself to drift closer, he leaned in just enough to see what she was working on, indulging with his senses. Then, as if she were not there at all, he moved on.

Icy hands began opening drawers and cupboards without care for the order they had been left in.

Crossing to the far counter, his fingertips skimmed the cool stone, tracing its chill. The first drawer opened with a scrape of metal on metal; the next, with a sharp pull that set the line of jars rattling.

Then, he crouched at the lower cupboards, shifting through stacked pots with loud and dramatic clangs that echoed off the walls.

A narrow drawer slid open to reveal only folded cloths.

Useless, he thought with annoyance before slamming it closed.

Infuriatingly, the scent of the glaze lingered on his breath, taunting him as he crossed more shelves, turning different jars so the labels faced the wrong way, Kasir wasn't sure what prompted such, but a satisfied hum managed to escape him, it wasn't a tune per se, but it certainly filled the silence his apprentice was keeping. Still, not once did he bother to acknowledged her nor the brood. Somehow, the girl made every movement feel like he was trespassing, as if this galley was more sacred than the entire enclave.

Drawing closer once more, he glanced down at the bowl of glaze. It was warm and gleaming, calling to his very essence. He dipped a deathly pale finger into the mystical sheen, then drew it to his mouth, brushing it lazily against the tip of a sharp fang before licking it away with deliberate slowness. Meanwhile, his black orbs fixed on the far wall.

A far as they could possibly reach.

Back to the hunt. Another drawer banged open, this one holding her perfectly arranged utensils, and he shifted them just enough to ruin their order before letting the drawer slide shut.

 

[Soah Ty’Jyn]

This Audacious Bat!
Interacting with: Kasir Dorran

​

Soah's spoon hovered over the tart, every movement precise and held taunt like the coil of a spring wound too tight. The glaze clung to the silver, dripping sanguine crimson sweet onto the blood tart's delicate surface. She tried, truly tried, to focus on the work in front of her. The steady rhythm of glazing, the scent of sugar laced with iron, the quiet ritual of order.

But every drawer slam cracked across her ears. Every jar rattled like a taunt. Every careless shuffle through the galley sent her nerves scraping raw.

Her nostrils flared, and amber eyes flashed sideways, narrowing into molten slits that cut over Kasir with a ferocity she didn't bother masking. This was her space. Her domain. He might own the enclave, but here, it was hers.

The Felacatian glazed another tart only to hear more clatter. Another twitch at the corner of her eye.

Soah gritted her teeth, the tattoos writhing like serpents across her arms, gluttonous for her irritation, stretching farther across her bare skin in dark, living waves. Smokelike tendrils lifted and curled off her dusky skin, restless and hungry, and on one shoulder a singular eye opened. The ink blinked slowly and deliberately, fixing on the Darkseeker as though mocking his intrusion.

Then Kasir did it. The audacity. Dipping a finger into her compote bowl, bringing it to his mouth, tasting as if the bowl had been made for him alone.

Which, yes, it had been, but still, the gall.

Her claws bit against the spoon's handle, the glaze lightly trembling at its tip as she exhaled through her teeth a sharp, thin hiss of air. A growl rumbled low in her chest, vibrating through the galley's tense air. Her tail lashed once, hard enough to snap against her leg with a muted thud.

Finally, her voice cut through the din in a guttural and edged tone, words clipped and heavy with barely contained simmering rage.

"What. Are. You. Looking. For."

The tattoos flared with each enunciated word, flowing with smoky tendrils that slid over her skin, almost as if curling like a net of shadows ready to strike.

 

[Kasir Dorran]

Keeper of Utensils
Soah Ty’Jyn

At first, Kasir remained silent, crouching lower with the usual deadly grace. Pale fingers curled around the lip of another drawer, no different than the way when anticipating the next kill. With a sudden, sharp snap, he pulled it open, and the clang of metal rang out like a symphony. It echoed off the ceiling. But to the Sangnir, this was of little consequence. His head tilted, waiting for the voice of the cornered cat. He scanned the trembling spoon, and traced the writhing ink that slithered across her body. "What am I looking for.." Each syllable was drawn out like it was a sweet poison, much like these treats that were all for him. "Whatever I please."

Once more, unhurried, he stood from his perch. A hand drifted lazily across the counter, nails scraping like whispers, before finding another drawer. With a crack, he yanked it open, the pots and jars rattling. He did not flinch. Such a reaction was unknown, for his body was but a puppet to the darkness within.

“You guard this place as though it were sacred,” he murmured. “Clearly, order is a fragile thing. One slam.. and everything.. unravels.”

Another clang. He sifted through her neatly arranged utensils, shifting them just enough to ruin their order too. A pause, head cocked in challenge. Kasir even studied the contents inside, as if they held the secrets to the universe.

All this, for a drawer?

.. For glaze?

“You bare your teeth as though I’ve trespassed, a guest in my own place.” Amusement tainted his tone. “I.. simply do not comprehend. Are you prepared to bleed for it too?"

One more challenge.

A low hum slipped through his lips, not quite a tune.. not quite mockery, but a rare sound that even surprised himself.

The more he ruminated on it, the more it chafed at him. "Do you protect the galley, or does it protect you?" Words were slick. Kasir’s finger dipped into the glaze again, gliding slowly across his razor sharp fang before sucking the sweetness off in a languid display.

“Mmm.” His tongue clicked softly. “Hunger endures.”

This was the second, or perhaps even the third best flavor he had ever experienced.. a very close runner up to the crimson sustenance that fueled his cruel existence.

But as he brushed past her, his gaze drifted away dismissively, as if she were nothing but the smoke rising from Mustafar's volcano, her recent undertones of jealousy just another boring ripple in the air.

“Something’s missing, not quite the same as before. You’ll find it eventually, Soah.”

He would never venture too far, well within striking distance. “Maybe you shouldn’t bake with anger.”

 

[Soah Ty’Jyn]

Kasir Dorran

​

The sound of metal against metal filled the galley, with every deliberate test on what would break first, Soah's patience or the space itself.

Soah's ears twitched. Those amber eyes followed Kasir, every movement filed away and memorized. The anger, jealousy, that resentment of being excluded that had bubbled forth as he deliberately provoked and challenged had its intended effect. Instead of boiling over as it had before, it now found a new focus. It funneled down and crept into a precise refined blade. The way he had taught her. Control the fire. Don't let it control you.

But even control had limits.

The light caught in her eyes, turning them molten amber with every scrape and every careless -- ungrateful -- word he spoke, landing like sparks against dry tinder.

Fine.

That dark head tilted just slightly to the right, her braids shifting over her shoulders as the ink across her skin continued to stir, curling and twisting like smoke tasting the air. He was still talking, but the words barely reached her. It was the sound of him that set her off. The rhythm. The mockery. The knowing.

"You're right," she said at last. The words came in a quiet and seemingly controlled, but her tone carried something dangerous underneath that didn't fear bleeding.

"Something is missing."

The spoon slipped from her fingers, landing in the bowl with a soft clink. A splash of glaze spread across the counter like a stain.

"Gratitude. Makes this useless."

Soah moved without warning. Not toward him, not yet, but with a sharp flick of her arm that sent the bowl and spoon flying. It shattered against the wall, the sound cracking through the air like a blaster shot.

The Acolyte didn't look away. Didn't blink. Just stared at her Master, her chest rising and falling and that tail curling slowly behind her like smoke.

"Mere trash," she murmured in a final tone that baited Kasir to continue.