The Crucible of a Dark City

[Reverance]

Was this a competition?

He watched, in silence, at the after affects of the damage that was incurred. The force was now invisible tendrils, ribbons spinning out from the mind of the mentalist, as they wrapped around the empty space that surrounded the cultists. How quickly things had gone against them. In the flash of a second, blood and sinew seeped from nooks and crannies of deteriorating and etched walls. All because the former Voice wanted to prove a point. Or show off. Or maybe both.

Within the confines of the spiral staircase, wails echoed throughout. Turning to look at Carach, he shook his head. "Hard to beat that..." He cracked his knuckles as he stepped down the first stair. And then the next. And another. Until boots hit a puddle of blood. Kneeling over, he picked up one of the weapons and inspected it. A makeshift ax with a sharp spike on the opposite head. Another pair of cultists moved upward.

The ax moved from his hand, turning over on itself as it began to slowly spin. And as it picked up speed, the cultists stopped their ascent. The ax moved so fast, within stationary position, that it gave way to an image of a blurry floating ball - only occasionally giving hint to its original form. Without so much as a warning, the ax flew towards the two. Hitting the first across the chest, it deflected off the inner core wall and into the other's back.

The first slumped over, grasping at his chest, as he divided into two unequal halves. The other dropped to his knees as Reverance approached and knelt. He placed a hand on the cultists chest, feeling the head of the axe pushing through the back and the chest. He gripped the blade and applied a twisting pressure.

"You've died for this. For nothing."

The man spit up blood as it dripped from cracked lips. Before he could offer retort, Reverance pulled the ax all the way through. Blade and handle and all. Where the mans chest once was, a gaping maw now stood. As he collapsed to the ground, he turned over and rolled several steps before coming to a stop. Looking back to Carach, after inspecting the weapon within his bloody hands, Reverance shrugged. "I think yours was better."

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

Carach observed impassively as the low-key slaughter continued and then concluded within the span of several breaths.

A shrug of the heavy shoulders followed his approach, stepping over a blade here, some entrails there and then rested next to the Wrath. He petted him on the shoulder after his words. "Ain't a competition, brother, even so..." The Sith Lord studied the remains and then smirked. "Yours was by far the more interesting thing to watch, rest assured."

One squeeze and then the Sith brushed past, over the bodies and descended down the stairs. It was deep, the shadows only mildly kept away by small torches interjected in irregular intervals.

The farther down they went the louder the chants became and the heavier the air became with essence.

It was difficult to explain otherwise, but the Force was strong here, it clung to the walls, seeped into the duracrete through long periods of intense exposure. Whatever had been happening upstairs, outside the secret sanctum? It had been nothing compared to what was happening here. He could smell the blood, ashes, smell figments of salt and iron.

Tasted bad on the tongue, like ancient corruption just waiting to burst and explore.

"I think we are closing in on the source of fear." Carach dryly remarked.

 

[Reverance]

He wasn’t looking to be comforted. Though if there was one relationship that might have led to such, it could have been this one. It was an odd thing, given those he often shared his time with. A grouping of collective few, touch and embrace far removed from simple exchange. He hadn’t gotten much older in the days since the One Sith, particularly in reference to his actual age, but he was feeling the mellow of life seep in. Even with his hands drenched in blood, mind racing with the desire for destruction and death.

After the moment of touch and reassurance, he returned with a smirk and silence. Following in the man’s footsteps, his gaze drifted to various symbols revealed by poor lighting. Footsteps echoed to the sound of crackling fire and flames licking stone. His right hand dragged down the wall as they moved, pressing in for tactile response and the scrape of rock against finger tips. But all the sounds, the sensations, were defeated by the ever increasing proximity to the belly of the chasm.

Where ambience was nearly deafening, now it was overtaken by the sound of chanting and tribal drums. Coming to a strong gust at the base of staircase, Reverance listened to the words of the former Voice but let his hands guide him. Pressing against wood and frame, he scoured the surface for a handle. With no light in their vicinity, it was easy to see light on the other side. And with the grip of metal, he pulled and the door groaned.

“This place feels older than New City or the Slums or anything on the surface.” He remarked with a high degree of confidence, understating the tones of the force that permeated outward like a sultry heat. As the door creaked fully open, it gave birth to a hallway that spanned a good distance. Lined with mortared cobble, instead of smooth duracrete, Reverance took a step inward to the sounds of ritual, vibrating along the length of the corridor. But now, it felt like they were in the funnel of a megaphone, quickly approaching the mouthpiece that spoke ritual and sacrifice.

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

They were six and two and four.

Six standing in a hexagon and four making an outline of a square surrounding them, but within those two shapes was a third one, formed by a single old... man. Old in the shape of his face, heavy lids dropping down like the weight of the Galaxy's misery pulled them down, lines pocked deep in cheeks not from laughter but from the grimace of burdensome pain and hands formed into claws, with long nails that dragged and were colored crimson.

In front of the old one the second figure locked the duality in. She was dressed in white, beautiful mold purity, arms bare and back naked aside from the deep carvings etched into the skin. Black, equally clean as brushed obsidian. It was her voice that gave Carach paused within his stride.

The Voice listened to hers and found an equal. No. Surpassed through high crescendo and demanding force, this one could shake the very foundation of existence.... and walk away in apathy. It was the void that she called or was called through her. A presence so much more expansive and large that either of them had ever experienced. Whereas both of them had felt the touch of the Dark Lord, his essence channeled through them at the very apex of his might.

"You stand in the presence of greatness, postulants." The old broke through the ancient and left it silent. In that moment all Carach would have done everything to hear her sing again. "Your time has not yet come."

A smile, ugly and stenched with red teeth, flashed next.

"But we can amend that."

 

[Reverance]

Stone formed beneath their feet as the hallway opened up into another chasm, though far more shallow than the descended steps. A ceiling of crudely cut rock, granite and marble, hung lofted over a small stage. Around them, ever extending concentric circles of stone seating for the audience. It felt like an old amphitheater, once used by the populace during the great times of Maena, but now stood as bastardized sepulcher for sacrifice and offering.

The former Wrath looked over to his current counterpart, dark amber gaze fixed upon the woman. But it felt more than just a thing of aesthetics, chiseled features depressed for the replaced expression of awe. A voice sung out through the acoustics from a gown of white, a back carved in twilight runes, and a visage that remained hidden. Toothy and chatty, the old man announced the men with passive condemnation.

You stand in the presence of greatness, postulants…

Your time has not yet come.

But we can amend that.

Reverance crossed arm over arm, in defiance of the physical stimulus of other otherworldly cadence and ritual. “This ceremony is over.”

“Oh. The Leviathan speaks, toothless, while the Dragon remains silent. He at least understands gravity!” Blood coated fingers accused the Voice and admonished the Wrath, though condemned both to the events that would follow.

Reverance’s sardonic smile turned into a frown, the twitch of the upper lip showing irritation at this spectacle. The force gathered to his hand, ambient air funneling into the center of his palm, as he lurched forward and launched a Kinetite in the old figure’s direction. The man stood, rust stained teeth apparent in a Cheshire smile, as the robed woman turned to face them with an over the shoulder scowl. And the Kinetite disappeared.

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The ebony markings seemed to dance before his eyes and they formed the sight of a dragon.

Captured mid-flight as its wings coalesced around itself as a form of protection. Above the serpent's head was a gem, it rotated around its own axis in a lazy twirl that called attention to it. He knew it, the moment he saw it, but could not yet figure out where he had seen it before.

But before Carach could see more she looked over her shoulder.

Later they would call her the Lady-In-White, but it was her eyes that would always be burned in his mind. Pure sapphire with not a speck of white to be found there, like the endless ocean deep... just waiting to swallow you whole with its vastness. It was this that caused him to snap out of it.

Just in time to see the storming ball of kinetite to simply disappear.

"She. is. mine." The sudden lurch in hunger was overwhelming, taking him completely off-guard. But the clawing against his chest, the itch against the deep markings on his back, his throat constricting... Carach didn't know he was jumping over the ledge, until he was already in the air and rolled with the fall.

"Mine?" The scowl of the Lady turned into a smile as patient as the tide. "I don't think so."

She made it seem so trivial.... when she flicked her hand and overwhelming force swept into the Sith from the side, sending him flying into a wall next to him.

[member="Reverance"]

 

[Reverance]

Reverance lowered his hand, moved by the cool glance of the woman as she starred back at the two men. Moved enough to bare his teeth in her direction, resentful and angered over the ease at which such an attack was negated. Like it had never existed in the first place. But just when he was prepared to step down into the inner chasm, [member="Carach"] stepped forward.

She is mine.

Rev lifted a Voxyn hand and smiled, dismissively. "By all means. You can have her. I'll take the old man."

Stepping off just beyond Carach, his leap took him far over the chasm and to the opposite side. Where he landed, he turned to find almost all of the involved parties still deep in the notions of ritual. Crimson eye looked up as the gangling old man turned to him, hands off colored and crudely used for repetitive sacrifice. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Carach was easily swept aside. He immediately blamed poor footing, fool hardiness, or the disparate way his gaze fixed on the woman. Mind distracted by voice, eyes distracted by glistening of sapphire.

"You have defiled this sacred house with your arrival. This is for the flayed spider."

"Yeah, I noticed the markings..." He threw a blackened thumb up over his shoulder. "Somewhere back with the other cultists that now lay dead or dying."

"Those were acolytes! Training in holy practice!" He stated such with a roar, stepping down the first step. Reverance's left hand lifted to force push the man but felt a void in the center of his palm, a loss in expertise. As if the power had been removed entirely from his repertoire. And as the robed figure lifted his blood stained hand, Reverance felt the power return, as he was flung back into the audience. Crashing down on stone seating, he let out a grunt amidst the plume of dust.

Rolling to the floor, he snarled as he dropped his right hand beneath the chair in front of him. Lifting, the stone groaned and quaked, the Voxyn snarled, and the CERS motors kicked in. Until the item broke free and was launched towards the older man.

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

Pain... laced against his side, collapsed against the rock wall, something broken... a bone? Rib... multiple ones. Breathing was hard, but the cold on his cheek bit him the hardest.

His eyes fluttered open to the Lady crouched next to him, her soft hand cupping his chin, thumb brushing against his lips. It seemed gentle, warm, he felt safe in that moment. Knowing the embrace would shelter him from any more pain - the cold seeped into his bones, frosting over and dulling the pain aching at his mind.

"There, doesn't that feel much better?" She whispered to him while her other hand traced his chest, brushing to her right and pressing down. "That silly pain.... the Dragon knows what is truly important in life, doesn't he?"

"Dragon?" He whispered in a husk of smoke.

"Mmhm, the silver-tongued, the collector, the-" The Lady blinked in the middle of her sentence, but before she could continue or do anything, Carach's hand already swept in. Large force pressing against her stomach right before he pulled at his own might, sending it crashing against her smol body.

She was send flying through the air.

Passed the halfway point, before crashing into the rockwall herself this time around. Carach groaned as the pain immediately seeped back into his bones, the cold disappearing and replaced by hot steam in his veins. He pushed himself up - attention still with her, he couldn't see anything else in this room. Already the Lady was rising once more, scowl back at her lips, but sapphires shining in distinct pleasure. Not even her dress had been ripped in the crash.

"I see I will have to break you after all...... good."

 

[Reverance]

He watched, somewhat removed from any notion of amusement, as the old man swiped his robed hand to the left. In the flash of an eye, the flung chair was knocked away, battered to nothing but rubble. Clenching his teeth, Reverance's vision narrowed as he caught the sounds of what the woman was saying. Dragon. Leviathan. Spider. Flickers of molten fire danced in shadows around the chasm, contrasting with the chilled tones of a great dragon - speaking of haunting intentions.

"I wonder why they chose you..." The robed figure lifted his hands, speaking through sharpened expression and gaudy mannerism. "Unworthy. Both of you!"

Reverance didn't respond, he hardly moved, as the force coiled into his presence and body. Just then, he stepped to his right, catching something out of the corner of his eye. A flash of silver snaked across his sight, filling the chasm with shades of red and black. His voxyn hand punched out, blindly, as he struck cloth and sent an acolyte flying across the room. Blood filled everything as he pressed a palm across his eyebrow. A gash now wept, running from brow to jaw and down the cheek, streams of bright red. He felt the wetness on his hand, blinking to clear his sight. Everything was murky, wafting in streams, and dark.

Flexing his hand, he stopped, opening the palm of the voxyn hand wide.

"You are to be blind, after all. The process will be easier this way."

Reverance looked down, closing his eye and doing his best to overcome the blinding hot pain coursing across his face. Now wasn't the time for this. But instead of falling deep into waves, crashing across his body, the carbuncle opened it's eyes and he let loose a laugh, to the sound of the robed figure moving down the steps upon final descent. 1 inch in the other direction and the eye might have been gone entirely.

"You find this amusing, heretic? Defiler! You will see the way!"

Reverance focused, vision shifting to one that originated from his palm. Fish lens and fixated on the ribbons of force presence, it was almost blinding. Almost. With a snap of his force power, speed cut him across the room, as he appeared before the orator. Lurching forward, his left hand aimed a punch a center mass. The figure caught it with blood drenched fingers, face contorted in dismay.

"I am not blind." The voxyn hand reeled back and pressed forward, powered by inhuman force of Vong and CERS combined. The man made attempts to catch it but even then, Reverance felt the bones of the wrist and hand crack. And then it met stomach, knocking the old man back and crashing into the steps he just descended. From the hand that the holy man had managed to catch, slivers of flesh were ripped from Reverances wrist and forearm.

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The Lady and the Dragon stood before each other, in silence, quiet contemplation apparent except of the tension in Carach's shoulders.

Brief hunched as the muscles in his back stood rigid forcing himself up and standing, instead of kneeling. Their fight had moved from the physical to the mental and whilst to the uninitiated it seemed they were simply studying each other... the Force coiled heavily around the duo. Once one of the acolytes tried to intervene, low-cut dagger stabbing for the lower-side of the Sith Lord's back, but the mistake was rectified immediately. The cultist acolyte collapsed to his knees, fuming while clawing at his eyes - the horrors visited by sheer proximity too much for the fledgling spirit to handle - and from there none of the acolytes approached any longer.

You are strong.... mmm yes, you are.

But you will bow, eventually.

No witty retorts, nothing.

All of Carach's focus was on keeping her out of his head, while pushing into hers. It was like a game of Dejarik; one would abandon a position to reinforce other places on the map, sometimes they would sacrifice a piece to win a campaign, but Carach was losing. One by one his positions were abandoned: memories, feelings, left beyond the lines of battle, retreating to the very basics of his psyche.... and throughout it all the Lady-in-Silver approached. One step after another in the physical realm with a pleasant smile plastered tightly to full lips.

"Bow now, my Dragon, it's your destiny." The Sith growled, knees slowly buckling as a tension was applied to his brainstem, pressing down with no mercy. Her hand was on his chest again, beneath the skin the Heart of Graush pulsed in anticipation of new power burning against it.

"My Lady..." She tilted her head, curious and pleasant. "Yes?"

A gasp, breath escaping her lips, before she looked down. "Touch necessitates permission." Carach twisted his arm, ripping through meat and breaking internal systems apart by strength alone.

She collapsed, into his arms, eyes bleeding white where sapphire gave away for green orbs surrounded by parched snow.

"W-what?" The girl, her voice so much softer as the serpentine shadow left her shoulders, seemed fearful in his hands. "It hurts..."

Some of her hair was brushed away, almost tender. "Not for long. Don't worry."

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

"Unworthy postulant!" The words came through a spattering of blood, dripping from cracked lips and crooked teeth. Eyes sunken in old aging skin, grey hair draped down in thin lines of sweat and grease. "Defiler..." He said in sudden despair, streaking blood across his white sleeve in one quick swipe across split lips. Orbs of hollow gold, sparkling with flecks of orange, spoke of a fear that Reverance could smell from across the earthen stairs. With every step that he took, the man climbed back up the staircase. Fear laid thick in the air. But it wasn't fear in the Leviathan or the Dragon, or whatever gospel these cultists spoke. No, the Wrath could smell it like a fine fragrance. Like the scent of something he knew, all too well. The fear of a God.

"Stay back...you..."

"Heretic." Reverance interrupted. "Blasphemer. Apostate." He took another step up. "Wretched and vile thing." He was finally standing above the man, eye closed for the drying of blood that blinded him. Lifting his nose, nostrils flared for the sweat and stink that poured out from the man. "Your savior. Your..." He reached forward, gripping the man around his thick neck, as he pulled him close and turned. His feet dangled for the steps below, ever hopeful with bare toes stretched out. "...End."

Reverance wasn't an idiot. There was more to this than simple monikers offered by crazy individuals, drunk on acute obtainment of power through nefarious means. However, those means were worth understanding. There rituals were worth understanding, their origins even more so. What could catalyze such power, such stubborn resolve for something evidently divine. Spider, Dragon, Leviathan. Was there more to this than that, more beings that were granted adopted title?

"But not yet. You have great lengths to go..."

"As do you, Leviathan." The old man laughed, despite his circumstance.

Reverance smiled as he lifted a Voxyn nail, coated in neurotoxin. Plunging the nail deep into the mans cheek, he dragged downward, marring flesh in similar vein to his own. Once it was apparent that shock and pain was setting in, he released the figure. With a smack against the stone and arms flailing from inertia, the robbed figure rolled down to the bottom of the chasm.

@Carrot[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

Carach looked the woman in the eyes.

With the presence gone, her eyes the shimmer of the forest emerald, she seemed so small in his arms. It was difficult to see... her within this little fragile creature, she seemed to vulnerable now. But the tears were gone, pain was gone, all that remained was a cold body and the line of her neck twisted at a wrong angle.

It had been fast for her.

Faster than it would have been with a fist-shaped hole in her stomach anyway. The cascading noise of a body rolling from one side to the other down the stairs was not lost on him.

"This was no mere cult, Reverance." Carach stated the obvious without care. "He's still alive."

Not a question, just a statement of fact that was followed by a nod. Surprised him? Maybe a little, years ago the man he had known wouldn't have hesitated about execution the old man. But... as he already had said, this wasn't a simple cult. There was more at hand here and they needed to figure out just what was happening.

"She was more powerful than anything I have ever seen." Which was a lot.

 

[Reverance]

"Yeah..." He stated quietly as he stepped down the stairs. Leaning over the robed figure, now writhing in a seizure like fashion, he ripped a white sleeve free from the garment. In a huff, he set down on the stairs and rubbed at his eye. With the Voxyn carbuncle now closed beneath clenched fist, he needed to repair his vision. Blood continued to trickle from the wound in pulsing ooze as red caked into the slight growth of beard.

The white rag was quickly awash in red, dark scabs forming and fresh arterial flow. "He seems like more than a mouthpiece...though..." He leaned forward and kicked the man hard across the ribs, sending the man rolling over with a muffled yelp. Setting back down, he flattened out the rag on his lap and rubbed at his eye. "He was a pain in the ass."

Blinking free the debris, he rubbed a fist against an eye that was redder than normal. His vision drifted over to the woman, a neck bent in an abnormal fashion.

"I must admit..." He stated plainly as he looked up towards Carach. "When you laid claim to her on the balcony, I wasn't sure whether your desire laid in carnal or visceral." He opened his eye wide as he ran the bloody rag against the tear duct. "I gave it a 50/50 shot to go either way."

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

With a grunt he ripped his hand free from her, sticky, red, parts latched onto it.

Carach frowned at that, before beginning the long journey of cleaning it with her own dress. Wasn't like she had much use to it... not where she had gone after this anyway. "Don't blame you." Rip, tear, fabric pulled off and rubbed against his arm, rince and repeat, over and over again, until there was no more dress left and his arm was clean.

Mostly.

"But no, she knew me." He rose, stepped over the unconscious man, settled down next to the Wrath. "Moment I looked into the sapphire, she recognized me."

"Her power.... similar to mine? But more, so much more."

Hand rubbed his beard, scratched absent-mindedly before Carach shook his head. "I am worried, Rev."

 

[Reverance]

"Truth be told, you don't seem the worrying type..."

He winced, eye shutting as he force pulled one of the torches to his hand. Setting it between his feet, torch upright, he pulled a blade from the cuff of his boot. Starring at the blade, blinking through drops of blood, he looked over to Carach. "Which should have me worried..."

He paused as he turned the blade over, hovering the cutting edge over the flame. With handle made of thin wood and wrapped and leather, picked up from the cultists earlier, he was in no immediate danger of burning the Voxyn hand. Though if he were being honest, the hand probably deserved it.

"But it doesn't have me worried." He nodded, chewing on the side of his cheek as his lips pursed. "That old man was pretty powerful and by your words, so was the woman. But they fell, just as everyone else does."

The blade turned molten red and he turned over, to give the other side proper attention. Blood continued to weep from his wound. "The acolyte did the true damage here." He turned to Carach. "So you are worried. You faced a foe that was better than you and you prevailed. Does that not mean that she was, inevitably, not your better?" He looked towards blade and grimaced. "You know, I think I would prefer a needle a thread...this seems as likely to do harm as good."

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

Carach looked on as the edge of the blade heated up from red to orange to white hot, scalding and probably intense enough to cling.

Not a pleasant way of fixing a wound, but a quick one.

"I did not defeat her." Once the words were spoken Carach knew them to be true. "Temporary? here? Maybe, but I wasn't fighting the body... I was fighting what had wormed itself inside of the girl." The Sith had felt that ancient presence, as thick and enduring as the ocean's tide. The pressure of eons behind it, apathetic, uncompromising, but without cruelty. Not because it was a force of good, but because cruelty stemmed from a place of humanity.

The tide had no humanity... it simply was.

"I am good with a needle." Carach mentioned, almost casually then, before his hand went for the knife while his eyes was on his. A sudden switch, perhaps, but Hunger had no pause and at least for the moment? His old friend was right.

They had prevailed.

At least for now.

 

[Reverance]

Large fingers wrapped around his, encircling the hilt and Voxyn fingers in a firm grip. Reverance found the steel of Carach's gaze, the intensity of his expression, as it lurked beneath deep spiraling lakes of amber. He believed every word he was stating, the impression of a great beast lurking beneath the ocean of sapphire.

He blinked, his gaze shifting to the dagger and the way it ran hot beneath the metal. Oranges and reds, backdrop to earthen stone of the chasm and the torches whispering on the fringes. "Good with a needle...is that it?"

His grip loosened beneath Carach's, ever fleeting in desire for cauterization. The marring of his flesh was pronounced as it was, there was no need for further damage. Lest he become someone else entirely, more scars than flesh and bone. More so than he was now.

Blackened finger curled beneath the bristle of Carach's chin, turning from caress to something more visceral and carnal, entwined.

"With a better time and venue...show me how good you really are..."

[member="Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

He was reminded of the first time Ygdris and him had met... the world's name escaped him, but it had been during the Akala Crisis.

Billions (if not trillions) of sentients gone from one moment to the other, taken by a malignant entity more powerful than they could ever imagine, but as often was the case... the Sith thrived during those moments of chaos and destruction. They had swarmed the Core with the collapse of the Republic's hold there. Then, he had been Darell Irani, adventurer and businessman of two counts. Irani had impressed Ygdris - his force of will and appliance of violence in the absence of any mastery of the Force. They had... bonded over the slaughter of rebels, consummating it deep within the rebels' stronghold. Still bloody, violent, on top of cooling corpses as they took out the rest of their adrenaline on one another.

"I will be sure to approach it from numerous angles." The Sith retorted as he studied the sharp cut on Reverance's face, humming softly as he tilted his head in response to the touch of skin. The knife taken away, he squeezed tight on the Voxyn.
Hard.

It made a sound between a growl and violent intent, but Carach just chuckled before rising and pulling the Wrath with him. "If we were ten years younger I would have pinned you right here." A shrug of the shoulders as his attention shifted towards the unconscious cultist. "Responsibility can be exhausting." With the flick of his hand invisible wraps of power wrapped themselves around the elderly man, slinging him over his shoulder.

"Come, we can be back at the tower in no time."

 

[Reverance]

He bared his teeth as Carach clutched the Voxyn hand. Not out of some residual pain, though it was ever apparent. Gesture was made in response to the chemicals, coursing between Vong and Kiffar, that indicated some connected anger. Damage to the Voxyn was damage, vicarious, to the wearer.

Pushing off the stairs with the help of Carach, he chuckled and shook his head. "Yes, you're so old now."

~~~​

​

He lifted the tumbler to his lips, orbs of ice clinking about in the glass. As the amber fluid sloshed, his crimson eye shifted around the scenery of the room. The distant smell of lacquer, the old time feeling of antiquity that nestled deep within the stars, and the give and take of supple leather. He shifted as he looked towards the former Voice, though it seemed such title would always bind him. Powers, connections, networks.

"Careful for the eye..." Index finger lifted from the rim of the glass following a sip, tapping on his temple. "It's the only one I've got." He smiled as he took another sip, preparing for the suture across delicate nerves.

"Leviathan, Dragon, Spider...what did you see when you looked into those eyes of hers?"

[member="Carach"]
​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Reverance"]

Carach smirked.

"No pressure at all." The Sith assured him, while sterilizing the needle. It hadn't been a joke - once you spend battlefield after battlefield on one planet or another, cut off from medics or force-assisted healing... you picked up a thing or two. Carach would never be as good as Raj, but something as simple as knitting a wound back together?

That was something he could do with relative ease.

His hands moved, firm and controlling, tilting Rev's head just right for maximum coverage... while his other brushed the line of the neck, following the slope down just as focused.

"I saw the endless tide swallowing the Galaxy whole." The words were devoid of emotion now, just as precise and overwhelming as his touch holding the Wrath still. "I saw deep apathy bordering on lethargy. The implication that our end has not come, because they gain too much amusement playing with us... for now."

The tip pierced and Carach hummed to the tune of the tide.

"What concerned me most was how... right she made me feel."

All the Sith had to do was give up and he would have been welcomed into the collective as a brother... no, as a ruler amidst them all, power granted freely and with ease.