The Dance of Fifteen Blades

[Scherezade deWinter]

Citadel
Golbah City
Geonosis
Little after dawn

Scherezade didn't do much of the sleep thing these days. While it was true that she was no longer chased by the Darkness in her dreams, she still felt a gigantic discomfort with the whole being unconscious thing. Sleep never felt safe to her, not since the day she was broken out of the pebble, and it continued to feel unsafe without a Shield of Darkness to give her some sanity on the matter. Yet where her heart had for so long bled at the thought of that, there was now a certain numbness. It was not a scar, not yet, but the wound was closing. Sometimes she wondered if it would ever truly heal.

She had woken up long before dawn, fretting around her little kitchen to prepare more of her air dried sausages, before taking her Loth Wolf Baal on a morning run. They'd returned just as the sun was rising, but there was still no rest inside of her. Running from mission to mission, doing double, sometimes triple work, on top of other obligations she had and was counting down to when they would be over, the idea of having a few days off was entirely foreign to her, and was enough to cause anxiety.

So she'd packed a bag full with her weapons and blades, and headed to the Citadel. At that hour, there were very few organics there anyway, which means she could pick the training room of her choice. Quickly enough, she found her favorite one; the last one down the hall. It was small, and offered less options than some of the bigger training rooms, but she liked the intimacy of it, the privacy of it. To find it taken by others on occasion almost felt like she was getting trespassed.

Not bothering with the door, Scherezade set the area up. Bullseyes floated all around the room, and she closed her eyes, balancing one of her Czerka Knives in her hands. She didn't even have to look anymore. All it took was just focusing, and throwing.

Her first Knife hit the bull's eye right in the center. As did the ten that followed it.

She called it warm up.


[member="Isadora Lycinius"]

 

[Isadora Lycinius]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Isadora was pissed. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]After she had begrudgingly agreed to work with some other hunters towards a bounty -- one she [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]totally [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]could have done on her own -- one of her so-called team mates had tried to defect as soon as the target was dead. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Needless to say, Isadora had two heads to deal with that night. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]She ditched the man's body behind a building -- it was worthless to her -- and collected the money that was owed to her for the target. She was far from over it, however. She was still furious with the betrayal, but she was more angry with herself for trusting at all in the first place. Though she had been up all night, the adrenaline still coursing through her small body wouldn't let her rest. Stopping at the small apartment she was staying at only long enough to make herself a cup of Caf, she went to make her way towards the Citadel. Enough damage had been done that night -- though what she truly wanted was to see the whole damn city go up in flames, training was a more productive -- if not necessarily less lethal -- outlet than arson.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]A flash of pink bounced out of her dark hood as Isadora tied her hair back, walking up the stairs towards the Citadel. Her player was blasting music into one ear, though she was still mostly aware of her surroundings. The place, though pretty deserted right now, would probably become busy soon enough -- Isadora didn't want to deal with newcomers encroaching on her space, so she strode down the hallway until she came to the room she had been in yesterday morning. It might have been small, but as long as she could be alone with her sharp toys Isadora didn't particularly care. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Pulling her hood away from her face, Isadora walked through the open door -- and suddenly froze.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]A knife had embedded itself in the wall, not half a foot from her face. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]And the source of that knife was standing in the middle of the room with her eyes shut. Isadora did not move, but swore quietly under her breath. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]She was still for a moment more, before she turned and pulled the knife out of the wall. [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]"Terribly sorry for intruding"[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt], she said, not entirely joking. "Awfully badass way of greeting someone, though. Does everyone get the honour?" [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Isadora was still slightly terrified, but she'd be damned if she was going to let this lady see. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt][member="Scherezade deWinter"][/SIZE]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Normally, Scherezade was hyper aware of her surroundings. It was rare that someone managed to sneak up on the Blood Hound when there was nothing severing her connection to the Force. Yet that morning, her mind was not as focused as it could have been. The few days off were unnerving to the Sithling and her brain was not dealing with it as well as she could have hoped for.

She continued to throw her knives, her eyes still closed as she did so. Only at the end of each round did they open, making sure each and every bulls eye was hit, and then she yanked them back out with the Force, sometimes opting to hold them in her hands, and sometimes opting to have them fan around her.

Yet despite her focus on the actual throwing, she was not overly focused on what was happening outside the room, nor did she give any attention to the fact she'd left the door itself wide open for anyone who could enter at will. So it was not that surprising that when one of her knives landed not half a foot from [member="Isadora Lycinius"] ' face, Scherezade had no clue about it. Whoops!

Only when the woman began to speak did Scherezade realize there was an actual person there, and glowing green eyes snapped open, her hand mid-throw with the next knife. Since the woman was still at the door she'd have been safe from the next throw, but still…

"Nah," she grinned, "sometimes the greeting comes with the knife between the third and fourth rib."

Walking from the center of the room to the woman, Scherezade held her hand out and plastered the most innocent of smiles on her face. "My knife, if you please," she asked, and looked the woman over. Scherezade, like her sister, had a knack for faces and names. She remembered most of them. But she was very certain that she'd never seen the woman before, which was… Strange, when it came to the people who showed up early to anywhere.

"I'm Scherezade," she introduced herself, "who're you?"

 

[Isadora Lycinius]

Isadora had never seen a knife like this. Her stash of knives was large but not expensive, consisting of mostly stolen blades that were certainly more mundane than this one. The woman standing in the center of the room had a veritable fan of knives spreading around her, and Isadora did not particularly want to approach. She also didn't want to throw her fancy knife across the room, catch it though Scherezade may, so she gave no indication of her pounding heart as she strode across the room to her. The smile that made its way across Scherezade's face was anything but comforting, and created an incredibly dissonant image.

"Isadora Lycinius," she responded. She quickly mentally berated herself -- now that she had begun to work with the Confederacy she had to make sure she was a bit more subtle about herself, and giving away her full name was probably a bad idea. She had enemies now, more than just the families of her kills, and had to act that way. Whoops.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude. I'm not from around here."

Before she went to leave the Citadel (and, well, the whole damn planet), her curiosity got the better of her.

"What... what kind of knife is that? I've never seen anything like it, and I've seen a whole lot of knives..."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Isadora Lycinius. Scherezade nodded. Cool names were cool. And when the other woman offered her the knife back, she smiled, taking it back. While she hadn't thought about it a moment ago, she supposed that she could've guessed that Isadora wasn't from around her. Her demeanor was slightly different, and there was that whole thing about Scherezade not having seen her before.

Still, maybe her joke hadn't been taken as such. There was no reason for her to put a knife between her ribs, and while on Confederate grounds, Scherezade did her best most of the time not to randomly start killing people. It worked most of the time.

But then Isadora asked about her knife, and the smile on Scherezade's face was almost pure-child-like, full of joy.

"This specific one is a Nastirci combat knife," she beamed with pride, throwing it into the air and catching, "tiny, light, made for quick kills. Get one of these babies into your opponent's chest, it releases a shockwave, BOOM, enemy dead!"

Scherezade bit her lower lip for a moment, and then flipped the knife in her hands, offering it to Isadora, "To play with. Now. Not for keeps," she said, making sure her intent was clear. She was never good about acquiring friends, and while much of the hallway mocking had stopped, she still didn't have too many people. If she could bond with someone over pointy knives? She was not going to mess this up as long as she could help it.

[member="Isadora Lycinius"]