ᴄ ᴏ ʀ ᴠ ᴜ ꜱ
THE BRUISED & THE BROKEN
Viper & Corvus: Prelude to Inquisition
MOUNTAIN CAVERN — WILDS OF ODESSEN
902 ABY
Post-Collapse of the Dark Empire
Outside of the regimented days and often secretive work that once filld his days as a Knight of the Remnant, time stretched between the self-directed missions had been undertaking since the betrayal. Without the greater underpinning of resources and personnel Idris used to have access to, his resourcefulness and ability to survive and succeed while throwing himself into the hunt alone were tested and had not yet failed him. Unlike everything else that had put him here. Figuratively here. Since he’d parted ways with all he’d known, swearing to himself what would happen to them in accordance with his oaths.
Odessen was one stop of many across this uneven period of his existence, a place he’d tracked his present quarry to, and where he was just landing when the message came. Yellowed eyes stared at the ident burning on the readout screen after the engines were powered down. He chewed on thoughts of his rage that day, and of steadily growing silence that followed the split. He thought he knew her. Thought he knew them.
Idris let the message play, listening to her words and cadence, seeking any sliver of ulterior motive, or falsehood, while snuffing the part of him, the frayed bond, that thumped distantly at the mere sound of her voice. A thing he wanted to cut out of himself, if only he could, once.
Kader wanted to meet. She wanted to talk. Harnell had nothing to say to the Kandaran, but the crimson at his side did, well and truly bled after years of wielding the argent blade. No longer did he have to balance his darkness, but this control practised in his waning years in the Remnant served him well, now.
He felt more himself than he had ever been.
After some moments, Idris input his current coordinates as the sole content of his reply, knowing she’d be able to track him down from here in the Wilds, a considerable distance from the mountains. The message was sent off, then he rose to head out on the last leg of the hunt.
Later…
His quarry had been, as expected, evasive. Trying to escape the darkened Imperial, as he had at every turn of this chase… but with only one good way in or out of this cavern that’d been set up as a sort of base, the prey was out of options. Idris had finally gotten this filth cornered at the rear of the long, vaulted and stony space, and had the tip of his crimson blade poised in threat under his prey’s chin. But it was the weight of an unseen pressure that kept the smaller, twentysomething Sith pinned in place against the rocky wall.
The once Knight-Inquisitor could taste the fear, but fear did the opposite of quieting the Sith. One moment the filth was spouting defiance, the next attempting to appeal to his humanity, and the shred of likeness between them: the darkness in differing stripes that they both possessed power over. Smaller hands pressed in futility against the wrist, trying to keep the heat of the blade at bay.
“We are not the same,” came the calm, quiet, and coarse reply, before Harnell released the pressure, allowing his victim to slump in scant relief as his blade drove up through the skull. He stepped back as the body slid to the floor, the smell of cauterised flesh, bone, muscle, and grey matter not an unfamiliar bouquet. The Scion crouched down, pulling the glove off his other hand with his teeth and tucking it into his belt, then reached for a belt pouch on the corpse, and undid the closure. A few fingers slid under the lid and into the pocket, feeling around until they nudged against an object that was firm.
Idris hooked the uncut crystal with his fingers and pulled it free, sparing it a moment’s inspection until he stood to gain better light other than the wash of his blade, which was thumbed off the moment he rose in full. He held the crystal up between two fingers and a thumb, as if that would allow it to catch some of the light spilling light over the centre of the space.
It was unbled, that much he could see in the dim, and further analysis would have to be done on his ship. But just as he was doing this, a dark presence pulled at his attention. Boots clicked cautiously against the rocky floor at the other end of the cavern, and the light echo caused by each step changed its spread and resonance, as the owner of that gait passed beyond the threshold.
“Don’t.”
The command of a single word to not progress further, emerging from where he stood, shrouded as he was in shadow beyond the edge of the cavern lights. He didn’t turn, not yet. Thoughts parsed, thinking over where she must have been when the message was sent. He’d expected he would have to wait longer than this. Idris clipped the hilt back onto his belt, passed the crystal to that hand, then pulled the glove free from his belt and slipped it back onto the bare hand as he turned around, clutching the rough crystal with just a few fingers as he tugged the leather into place.
Golden yellow eyes, burnt at the edge of the iris, peered across the space at his former mentor. Once ally. He stepped out of the shadows and walked further into the artificial light keeping the late evening at bay, the picture of unsettling calm as he gave the unrefined and unbled crystal a better look, followed by the instrumentation and experimentation that lined both walls.
“We should have been here with Intelligence, processing this place,” an idle comment full of the refined cadence of his voice, a comment that needed no explanation as his eyes wandered expansively over the setup for a moment. He then turned to the Kandaran abruptly. He wasn’t some Sith, wasting breath and time on prose and threats. “You know what it means for you to come here, Amena.”
Not here here, but to him. Words that were all but snapped. Idris took her in after he whirled, observing from where he now stood, to better look at her and sense the newly dark flavour of her presence, his attention unsplit. His eyes narrowed, all too ready to make the assumption of what that meant, but he made no move to call upon his blade. Fingers curled tighter around the uneven shape of the raw crystal, and not out of possession.
“Why now?”
Why now after the Dark Imperial collapse? She could have hunted him down at any point. He hadn't done much to be hiding himself, all this time, either.
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