The Sorcerers

[Seydon of Arda]

In another life, if she’d taken the Trial of the Waters, Rosa Gunn would have made for the finest example of their guild, Seydon was certain. He shut down the holo-portrait, passed the emitter disc into Rosa’s hand and returned to the holo-table still tinkling with hard light. The matter was settled in totality. And they were committed, wholly. Seydon gauged Panatha slowly rotating on an exaggerated day-night axle, then shunted the power off. Panatha and all her unseen, myriad horrors, ghosted into photo-motes dissolving against the backdrop of high flagstone walls and depowered data-banks.

“We’ll need to scrounge out anyone we can call in favours for,” He said, as they took the lift up to their private dormitories. “I don’t expect they’ll offer much help outside of logistics. It will be you and I putting our boots down, Rose.”

The lift braked to a halt, jolting the carriage, waiting for a sigh of hydraulics to lock the carriage into place before they removed the caging gate and walked up the passage. Seydon was already taking inventories, stocking his meagre Dunaan instruments against Panathan PDF and probably countless local militia equally well-armed, well-stocked, and viciously indoctrinated to throw themselves under the feet of their ‘King’. He slapped the jamb lock-pad and stepped with Rosa into their rooms, locking up, setting a ‘Do Not Disturb’ general code to the Foundation staff still labouring in the arched vaults down below.

He gripped a pad and inkwell pen, settling on the edge of their bed. Something sharp and black took the light out of his eyes. Seydon shifted, filled with the Path of Embers, subsumed by the culture and methodology of the Absolute Hunt. The pad was drawn and quartered, rapidly jotting considerations for their journey, while Rosa hovered close.

“We’ll need camouflage: idents, permits, anything that will deflect local attentions, screen out anything passive. I’ve some funds we can convert to platinum or gold bars. If we try using our credit-chits, a data-traffic hound could flag us. Maybe Jorus has a safe house or two we could co-opt. ...We’ll need reliable local transportation, a stable network connection to their holo-webs, nav-maps, everything and anything that’ll help us stay mobile ahead of local powers. ...We’ll need someone or something ready to bolt us out of the system, as soon as we find the child or at least discover what’s happened. Portable rations, as much good, light kit as we can fit on ourselves without impeding speed or giving us away at a glance. ...And we’ll need a place to start.”

Seydon looked up, paused. “...And we cannot be merciful.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"I wouldn't have asked anyone else to." she commented quietly following Seydon's comment about it being them who would have to set foot on Panatha. She began running through her lists of contacts. The Heavenshield's had had more than one run in with the Zambrano's it was possible that they might be able to provide some insight of what they could be walking into. She was pretty certain Siobhan and HK-36 had also had run in's with Kaine and could perhaps be convinced to provide aid, though if truth be told, the idea with tangling the Foundation's supporters with something far more personal seemed...wrong.

They'd need to rely on old friends, Jorus, Jaxton and the like. Hell they'd set foot on the planet themselves if Seydon or Rosa gave them headway to do so. As for camouflage, she wondered if Kaili would be able to produce something that could trick the toughest scanners. Her own mind ran through a hundred possibilities, who to call, who not to call, ow much detail they would give them. Not because they didn't trust them, but to protect them should things turn nasty.

She'd padded to the writing desk as Seydon had looked up, amber eyes piercing the back of her head. No mercy. That went against everything she preached, everything she believed in and he knew it. She turned slowly to meet his gaze, thumb running over the holo disc clutched in her hand. She dropped her gaze to the floor, mind drifting to the back of her mind where not so long a go, Layil had lurked. Could she do it? Without giving birth to something like that again? How far was she prepared to go to retrieve this boy?

"I can't promise that." she said, slowly looking back up. "I can't promise to be merciless, not without..." she trailed off and shook her head, turning back to the data slate. "My most merciful gift won't work on the Epicanthix, that's the best I can give you. I'll send a few messages, see if i can't get Lola to hold the fort while we're gone and find someone who can get us idents."

She glanced over her shoulder. "Might be worth hailing Jorus to see if he's got any ideas on the best camouflaged transport we can get in and out."

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

After listening, he stood. And he didn’t resemble her husband for a moment. The pall of the Path was a dark corona in his eyes, straightened yet slack with a terrible energy thrumming under his skin, hands steady with a promise of flashing, bleeding steel and the blunderbuss roar of bursting ammunition. Seydon’s gaze strayed to Winterfang and Razorlight waiting by the door jamb. Tonight, before bed, he knew he’d be combing through his private storehouse tucked away deep beneath the converted dungeon-ICUs.

A part of Rosa feared the dark waiting on Panatha. No, Seydon thought, not the dark, but the implications of striding into unyielding animosity. What it would force from her, compromise her hard won mores, all the vows she’d taken to uphold the writ and code of the Jedi mission: to serve, protect, and heal. Their enemy ranged from the merest toady-thing scrubbing refuse from the foundations of the Zambrano palaces, to inner court flunkeys rendered corpulent from excess taxation and the lavishness afforded by their ‘God’-King’s seemingly inexhaustible war coffers. To the judges, to the powers responsible for enforcing planetary law, to the every day peasantry working the privilege of their jobs and supplying taxes to their venerable lords. The occupying Imperial presence. The assassin clades, mercenary houses, the family armies waiting in barrack wings for an inevitable conflict between their patrons and their rivals. The doctors, poisoners, surgeons, mad creators granted licenses to operate on horrors, the vast ‘healthcare’ system that shielded a different brand of terror from a knowing, complicit populace.

Panatha was their total enemy. The safety of their charge required speed, surety, and a certain brand of ruthlessness. Seydon trusted in his cunning and Rosa’s ingenuity, their knack for surmounting trouble together. She perceived defects and imperfections in a stratagem almost innately, managed their finances with a deft flair and steely nerves. He did not doubt her bravery. She had married him, after all, him. ...So he promised, wordlessly, that she would be merciful. And he would be not. He’d be every terrible action their mission required. Her proxy phantom, able to crush and maim, fight like a devil. She’d be the force to temper that wrath when they met their enemy, so he wouldn’t go under.

Out of all the things he’d accomplished, meagre as they felt... This felt the weightiest.

The Dunaan strode over and leaned in, catching his chin to her neck and shoulder. Arms folded over her midriff. “We’ll give all of them a call in the morning. At least leave a message, and then wait as long as we dare. If we’re left on our own, so be it. We’ll manage somehow. There’s enough to do in the meantime. ...Imagine all the lunches I’m gonna have to pack.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

A smile tugged at her lips and she drew her hands away from the data slate, standing upright and leaning back into his embrace, her own arms resting over his. She love that he made light of such things, that he tried to draw her attentions away from the darkness that was settling over the both. H'd not pressed the matter of her mercilessness and she needn't have asked why, in her heart she knew that s had just laid that particular assignment as his feet. Sh felt a touch of guilt at that, recalling the way he had shattered, drowning under the guilt of his work previous. Was it fair of her to burden her Dunaan with such things? Regardless of whether he had gone through the Trials or not to become this thing, she worried for him.

She tipped her head back against his shoulder closing her eyes. "Hmm," she agreed "Lunches, breakfasts, dinner. Not to mention the medical supplies we'll need." They might have to travel light in terms of what they carried on their person, but she would make sure whatever ship they took was stocked and ready for the worst. Her eyes opened at the though of what the worst might be, a sharp intake of breath and she twisted in Seydon's embrace, locking her arms about his neck, lilac eyes dark and foreboding as they bore into him.

"Whatever happens, we come out of this together, or at all. Agreed?"

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Agreed,” He said, and let her dark bangs and thick trestles encase him, running his touch up the backbone lumps of her spine.

We’d better come back, he thought. We had better, because our work’s not done. You have your Foundation, all the eyes of hopeful refugees looking for home, any home. I’ve my workshop, all the knotted and strange affairs I have to manage with the other Schools and their disapproval, waiting contracts, that need for just one supreme pot of good credit to build our true home. Kilia IV, as out of place and out of time as anywhere, and where we can retire unbothered. You and I, Rose, with an acreage and a good land plot, and I’ll run hot water for your baths every morning and cook until you’re too full. Seydon pressed into her, sliding her lips apart with a kiss.

He heard her murmur something about inventory. Seydon replied they would get to it, soon, equally hushed and slurred. Soon enough. He just wanted the moment. Their feet brushed over smoothed hewn stone blocks, the back of Rosa’s knees catching against her neat office chair. The Dunaan called upon all the grace and sanctity his filthy peasant-stock soul could muster, to keep from straying their energies. Later! They would have time enough when voyaging! They pulled from each other, lips full and swollen. Seydon wiped his mouth with the back of his knuckles, eyeing Rosa Gunn with his most explicit stare. Tonight, for now we’ve to look after our chances. They’d begin running stock over their small armouries, call out to friends, allies, anyone they could twist with a favour, draw on whatever materials were available on Panatha.

But tonight, he thought, in case we never see this room again, I will love you until you cry out.


~Three Weeks Later : MM-005 Light Freighter ‘Corellia Hound’ : Final Approach to Khedal, Cule Island, Aezejian Sea~

“Flight control speaking, beginning final approach to KLSI. Advise all passengers to ready idents and all pertinent electronic permits and related documents. Be prepared for randomized security searches. Will be landing in five.”

Inside their cabin, Seydon adjusted the last belt to his work vest and checked their luggage: three tall suitcases lashed with fading, cracked leather binds and brass cornering, looking appropriately quaint and maybe a touch poor. They ran on small spoked rims he’d greased the evening before. One held some of his waiting gear and the majority of his trade-clothing, the other Rosa’s chosen belongings, her own mixture of stowed kit and dress. The third case held the rest that couldn’t be fit in their individual trunks alone, and all were specially lined with sensor cloth and passive, anti-sniffer nodes embedded in the aging wroshyr wood.

Their cabin was spartan, narrow in accommodation, allowing for two thin bunks, a bathroom, and a small portable stove laid in a cabinet under steel-brushed console desk. It was two-point-five class arrangements, and the cheapest housing Rosa had scrounged up. Full third class was public seating, little privacy, every amenity shared between four hundred bodies and a few of the crew. Seydon’s only qualm staying them from accepting the crowd seats were their luggage, and the possibility of hired eyes mingling in with the tired, stale crowds. When they’d taken their berth quarters, he immediately swept and combed for spying devices. Sure enough, he pried a small micro-pin out from under a false screw-head mounted in the ventilation duct. Nothing further turned up. They travelled in deep quiet. The Dunaan adjusted the small electric engine turning their desk fan, hoping its rattling volume would help enough to mask conversation when necessary. He slept with a longknife in his grip, buried under his pillow.

He collected their idents from the desk, checking over their security ear-marks, hoping Jorus’ contacts had thoroughly replicated Panatha’s unique passport profiles. Seydon enjoyed a kind of anonymity. Dunaan were rare enough, and he kept to the fringe territory worlds and bypassed most territorial cordons. Rosa he feared for. She was the Foundation’s foremost owner, operator, and lobbyist. Several intergalactic H-zines had profiled her work. Most diplomatic outfits undoubtedly had her identity noted. The decking shuddered under his boots, drilling himself with mental exercises, breathing techniques. He concentrated on the sound of his wife’s heartbeat through the bathroom door.

“You about ready, Rose?” He called.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Her heartbeat was slow and steady, she could feel each beat pulsing through her body, it should have been faster, should have reflected some level of nerves and fear but to her own great surprise, Rosa was not afraid. The task they'd laid before themselves was by far one of the toughest things they had ever done together. Panatha was laid out before them, a great orb of darkness and a vast place to look for one small child. A seemingly impossible task with a great many obstacles between them and their charge and yet...

She stood up straight, inspecting her appearance in the mirror, plucking a stray thread from her corset. Alone, this mission might have drowned them both for very different reasons, but together...together whatever was thrown at them they would overcome, they had to overcome. It was this confidence that drove away the fears that should have lurked. Some might have called it arrogance, Rosa instead chose to call it faith. Faith in Seydon, faith in herself and faith in the force. His voice drifted to her through the door and she turned away from her reflection to slide the lock across and swinging the door open.

The cabin was small in comparison to the living quarters they were used to and the two thin bunks had proved problematic, but not impossible. He had made a point of showing her this at her complaint about the beds shortly after the transport had entered hyperspace, their echoing cries had made passing crew members blush. Smiling at the memory she stepped in close to Seydon, fingers hooking through belt loops and tugging him close, wishing for a moment that they had just a little more time to spare for her own selfish needs. Another shudder of the ship beneath their feet told them they were breaching the atmosphere ad the marital hunger that had flashed in Rosa's eyes vanished.

Time for that later.

Tiptoeing, she kiss Seydon full on the mouth, pulling away to touch his forehead to hers before unhooking herself from him. She grabbed her travelling cloak from the hook by the cabins entrance and fixed it about her shoulders. "You know the way?" They both did, but she was passing the lead to him, giving her freedom to work on averting eyes that she could. Jorus had been a great help in all of this, with his ident contacts and a place to lay low while the conduct their search. She scooped her light saber from the bedside table, hooking it at the small of her back beneath the cloak, before double checking the small leather pouches at her hips. Medical supplies mostly, though there were a couple full with a selection of seeds.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

They’d never make to debarkation in time, he knew. If they stopped for the moment, to have one another across the small, mounted cots, they’d be labouring through to sunset just to cool the fire that came so swift and easily to their blood. Rosa briefly flared hot through their bond, imparting a keening need into his soul. It didn’t help she tasted sweetly when she tugged him down for a kiss, or that she felt so strong in his arms, desirable. It took a second clearing his vision of heat, picking two of their cases up in his arms and going out to the hall.

Through portholes and sealed, armoured viewscreens, they saw the KLSI airdrome. A dozen sister freight haulers and troop carriers languished at harbour, tractored into place, two pairs of shielded umbilical corridors mag-anchored to the portal airlocks. They observed a pod of pontoon-drones repulse out of the shore waters just beyond the port, scaling into patrol and tacking wide around the docking perimeter. Heavy luggage cars already floated past along the Corellia Hound’s fuselage, to the holding bays sectioned along the keel. From their vantage, passing along, they could see the upper port ramparts had been converted into guarded buttresses. PDF stormtroopers, cradling long rifles, meandered along behind armoured crenellations.

They waited quietly in a long queue. Seydon knew they were berthed in and docked securely. What was delaying debarkation? Port authority was risking a passenger riot if they withheld service. Then again, Seydon thought, glancing at the warm bodies stuffed in closely, each holding white-knuckled to their carry-on bags and luggage cases, heads bowed and eyes dipped even lower. Any action on their part, anyone’s part, would be justifiable cause to burst the airlock open. Hose the debarkation hall with anti-personnel weaponry, cutting the line down at the waist. Or simply open up stun-fire and haul every soul out by their hair and feet, to be reprocessed at a detention centre. Kaine’s law had that power, and with Imperial Authority, backed by the support of the Ren, legality was whatever they deemed it.

A sound rode through the crowded line. Light and a breath of fresh air blew over their brows. The line-up hushed and trembled forward, toward the opened air-lock screen. Seydon and Rosa passed a quartet of armed guardsmen stationed at the umbilical’s mouth, wisely avoiding eye contact with the black helm-visors. They trekked up through a broad, throaty corridor, the walls ribbed with fiberglass locked insulation. Into a brightly lit terminal dominated by dark steel and a glassy, obsidian floor. A minder behind a plastic service kiosk urged them on; more PDF infested the concourse. They spied drone buoys, combat-grade droids in polished ceramic lattices, sensor gates. The electronic throb pounded like gnashstep in Seydon’s ears. He tuned out the chatter cacophony, shoulder his share of the luggage.

Holo-boards with sharp stencil lettering directed them towards Planetary Customs. They each readied their ident-passports and luggage permits. Seydon was certain their gear had already been tagged, logged, and scrutinized a score of times over. The shade in the terminal architecture was always a pitch shadow. Occasionally, PDF troopers waited back in the dark, as hovering spectacles glowing with penetrating hues. More sensor gates and sensor paddles laced the narrowing pathway marked on the floor by halogen strips.

They fell into their designated line: Outer Arrivals. Seydon spied conveyor belts for passenger belongings, the bodies ahead digging out their belts, shoes, wallets, any and all metallic items. Datapads were stuffed beside coats and plastileather jackets. Stormtroopers held watch, grey-uniformed port security employees handling the baggage lines behind tall, armoured booths. Just then, six aisles down, a klaxon sounded. A Duros bolted upright in panic. A trooper scaled the stopped conveyor, clipping the Duros across the temples with his rifle butt. Another three sec-troops arrived, ‘pacifying’ him with point-blank stun rounds. There was a smell of baked textiles. The Duros was dragged by his shoulders with feet dragging out behind, leaving a wet smear over the sterile tiling. An officer spoke curtly into a throat mic. The lines continued on without further delay.

“Shid me,” Seydon whispered, hauling their luggage onto the conveyor and holding out his idents. He partly wanted to bolt, partly wanted to stop and scrap. The FO, all of Panatha’s authority, deserved breaking, he felt. The Dunaan stared forward, trying to render an impassable mask.

Their idents were supposed to clear them as indentured ‘collectors’. Bounty killer retainers for the service and glory of the God-King and his Immortal Household. The Underground contact explained anything more elaborate would set off checks and balances that would give them away. ‘So sorry,’ she said, ‘but it will have to do.’ Seydon calculated the seconds it would take to loose his gear from their baggage if something went haywire...

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

The incident with the Duros sent a ripple of tension through the remaining passengers a low buzz of fearful murmurs ran up the customs lines. She felt the ripple of tension run through her husband and reached out in the force as she stepped forward to hand out her own idents, offering the customs officer a tight lipped smile, reflected in the black eyes of his helmet.

Easy...

It was a simple word, inflected with a sense of calm meant to still the rise of tension within him. They could not draw attention to themselves so early on, this was only the first hurdle and as much as she despised the situation as Seydon did, she knew if they couldn't get past this then that child, that baby boy that had been the focus of everything in the past weeks would be lost to them entirely. "You don't look like a bounty hunter." Rosa blinked up at the officer, a wicked smile crossing her face. "Looks can be awfully deceiving." she purred back at him, allowing the slightest hint of danger to inflect her voice as she reached for his mind, and the officer inspecting Seydon's idents. Grateful, for the most fleeting of moments that neither of them were epicanthix.

She watched the cogs turn in each of their minds, recognising the doubt rising in both of them she worked quickly, turning the cogs the other way towards dismissal of their doubts because it would only mean paperwork and far more work then either of them had signed up for them to do. There was a brief pause and her idents were handed back to them. "Carry on." they passed by them, heading for the far end of the conveyor belt to collect their luggage. Rosa reached back, briefly as she tugged on the handle of her own case and began wheeling it away.

Both had moved on to the next set of passengers, not bothering to take a second look at the would be bounty hunters. She glanced at Seydon, a triumphant glint in her eyes, though now was not the time to discuss that matter, as they moved purposefully towards the airdome's exit, both of them alert, Seydon with his heightened senses and Rosa with her acute connection to the subtleties in the force. The Island of Cule however, would rove to be problematic for her once beyond the airdome for the population beyond was mostly Epicanthix and there was little she would be able to do beyond feeling that they were being watched or followed.

Beyond customs a large crowd waited, some bearing signs with names in many languages, squeals of delight and joy exploded around them as families welcomed home loved ones, low murmurs of greeting welcomed business men and women from around the galaxy. They were not to be greeted however, steering carefully through the crowd towards the exit doors. Rosa made a beeline to a row of waiting speeders, Seydon grumbled something about not wanting to use more public services than they had to, but she overruled this, pointing out that most people didn't drag three cases across a town.

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Seydon admitted her point, packing their gear into the trunk space of the nearest yellow-checkered speeder, peering into the driver’s cabin. Their pilot was Epicanthix, female, not young nor old, dressed in last season’s orbital fatigues. Her face was as dour as her outfit, and seemed to form around her thin mouth and set frown.

“Heading to?” She called to the backseat. Seydon buckled a single strap over his torso, didn’t bother with the waist harness, glancing at the handful of spare chit-change in his palm.

“The Willow Downs,” He said.

Her eyes paused and blinked. “Taking the cheap seats, are we?”

He slid two deci-creds onto her arm-rest. She paused, then piled them into her hand and carefully dropped them into a pouch within her uniform vest. The pilot didn’t bother with much conversation after, powering on the under-carriage repulsor blocks. Seydon felt Rosa dip over his shoulder to take a last look at the KLSI terminal; their light-freighter discharged from the port tractor field, rising ponderously. A flight of TIEs scorched by, turned neatly, and disappeared beyond the horizon terminator.

They soared up and across Khedal. Save for the terminal, the city itself still held on to traditional maritime architecture. It reminded Seydon to great extent of Kyrikal 9; mixture of colonial architecture with low bungalows, ranch-style suburbs that hugged close to the traditional sea port hosting Panatha’s sole oceanic commercial fleet. Cule boasted a deep natural harbour and tall crags cupping round the city limits, imposing a kind of lagoon barrier that helped blunt the season typhoon’s. Khedal paid Kaine his tribute, though. Banners of the Zambrano clan hung from the tallest administrative centres. The sea-borne cheer was replaced with the blacks and reds of the First Order iconography, Rosa spotting armoured patrols tending the street level.

Willow Downs was the poorest district. It raked up into the mountain foothills, ironically the highest cast buildings across Khedal, enjoying none of the prestige that would have come with an exclusive view. The city’s population of unskilled labourers and cheap vessel crews bunked in the Downs through the winter, emerging onto the docks at spring, shipping out until the end of autumn. Seydon had worked scores of ghettos; they were complex communities wrapped around extended families and close neighbours, with their own stratas of law, protocol, and market trading. The writ of law didn’t matter and he knew, despite whatever embargos the Zambrano regime had installed, the Willow Downs traded in hidden contraband.

Their driver drove them to a courtyard square beside a brightly painted, wood-carving decorated community centre. As they got out, Seydon tipped her a third deci-cred and watched her pilot her speeder away back towards KLSI. Plaster and plank housing scaled up the hillside surrounding them. Many eyes regarded the newcomers with naked interest: short foreigners, not monied if their clothing was any indication, far and away from the milk and honey land of Canthar. Seydon regarded them in turn with a practised, steady gaze. They might make for good tavern talk that evening, they might not. He popped the wheels to their luggage cases and began walking along with Rosa.

They had purposefully given directions two blocks from the safe house. It was a quiet almshouse, nestled beside a duplex boarding home and a drug store dispensary. Despite appearances, the Underground assured the household was well reinforced, stocked, and ready for operation. He watched Rosa’s back while she made a show fiddling with an old iron-key, letting the gene-sampler in the knob taste her skin. Bolts in the doorjamb receded. Again, with a show of tourist fatigue, they plodded up the steps with their cases and shut the doorway up in their wake.

Seydon blinked in the dark coat room. “...I think we’ve made it. I think we’re in, Rose.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa's heart was thundering in her chest, and she was certain it was audible in the coat room. She laughed at herself, the noise ringing in the quiet room around them. It didn't matter how quiet or noisy a room might be, Seydon would here her heartbeat wherever they were. She felt tension ease out of her shoulders that she hadn't truly realised was there. Grabbing a case handle she swung open the interior door and wheeled it into the main room of the apartment.

A tarnished hardwood table stood front and centre with chairs enough for four,illuminated by the shaft of light from the grimy window in front of them. To their left a worn couch rested against the wall along side a desk, above it was plastered with various surveillance images collected by whomever had been here before and two doors that led off to what she assumed was the bedroom and bathroom. To their right a kitchenette with basic amenities. Whoever had stayed here before had failed to clean up some of their left over ration packs.

Pursing her lips she turned to Seydon. "I'll sweep in here, you take the other rooms." Regardless of whether the undergrounds safe houses were secure or not, Rosa didn't want to take any chances. The fact that they were here meant they had already started the wheels turning on the trap that it might have been, but any opportunity to hinder their advances she would take. The sweep took the best part of an hour and Rosa found two devices, one in the dead smoke alarm, the other in a vent that had been hidden by the images which she proceeded to take down.

While waiting for Seydon to complete his search, she unzipped one of the cases and dug out a radio, setting it on the table h flicked it on to play though she tuned her mind out of whatever was coming out of the speakers. "I suddenly feel like I'm out of my depth." She looked round as Seydon rejoined her. "I'm normally a part of extraction, not infiltration."

[member="Seydon"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“It’s a different set of rules, sure,” Seydon settled into a fold-out plasteel chair and palmed his take: another two soft rods of bent steel, peeled to reveal micro-circuitry enveloped in webs of pleated wiring, and a boxy microphone he’d pried out from behind a disused stationary desk. Each were slagged in turn, the trash refuse neatly sealed inside a spare plastic lunch-bag scavenged from the back of the mostly empty refrigerator unit. He had retrieved their own food: a pair of cold-meat and vegetable sandwiches, warmed soup cups, and fresh water.

They ate and reviewed, remarking on the pict selections and copies of printed flimsiplast annotations. “’...Cule Island prospers from a black market flesh trade,’” Seydon read aloud between chews. “’The capital sees its own share of slave influx but Khedal, and all surrounding townships, make a point of supplying to specific markets. They don’t cater to unskilled labour. Courteseans, bodies that can fulfill certain class functions, are a target. The Panathan Empire subsists on Khedal’s ability to feed their hunger for replaceable sex workers,’ fething shid.”

Seydon tore away from the read out and settled back into his meal, chewing thickly, eyes rimmed with a rare degree of loathing. A nerve of rage twitched the muscle in his arms and hands. With an effort, he returned to the flimsiplast. “’Docks are a notable place where skin is traded. Auction markets, with public and exclusive invitations. Barring that, Khedal boasts a funded orphanage centre for adolescent and juvenile refugee relief. Crowds in as many as two and a half thousand bodies. The stratas of Kaine’s empire pay through the nose for their pick of untarnished ‘joys’. Haven’t been able to procure any bills of sale, or ledgers. Orphanage is an example of terror and purposeful poverty.’”

He tucked the page under a mustard-stained tea-plate, rubbing the sudden strain pulsating just behind his eyes. It was the casual acceptance of it all, Seydon knew. Whether implicit or privately, the local royal powers and the new authority of the First Order state supported this secret predation. Encouraged by an already deep set xenophobia, enforced by state theocracy venerating Kaine’s status as living ‘God-King’, that Epicanthix were the superior breed. What did they care? It was all labour anyway. A sea gale howled over the gabled roof and sent a shiver through the joined rafters. Seydon peered through a gentle part in the forward drawing room curtains at the day’s sky now clouding with the first of many seaborne squalls. Rain began tapping down on the roofing.

“...If the boy passed through Khedal first, chances are we might find proof of it. At the docks, the orphanage probably,” Seydon said, standing, stretching out. Muscle drew taut across his shoulders, and he briefly felt his wife’s eyes running up his flank. “Cover of night, you think? We might not be the only ones prowling.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Th more they read through the notes on the slave trade, the more Rosa's appetite diminished. Her sandwich lay untouched, fingers curled round the warm soup cup, staring into its contents with unseeing eyes as her stomach churned with each passing word Seydon read aloud. Slave trade was rife across the galaxy, even the governments that tried to abolish it struggled with combating the black market, but at least they tried. The First Order seemed to just turn a blind eye to it all, graciously accepting back-handers and their own share of bodies in return for their inaction. It was disgusting.

She recalled a distant memory, an conversation between father and daughter, a daughter who's fiery attitude had gotten her into more than a few sticky situations. "You can't fix the whole galaxy, kid, its too big for one person."..."I can damn well try." She blinked, lifting her hands from the soup cup to press them against her eyes. "Two and a half thousand children...sold like sacks of meat..."

She heaved a sigh and looked up as Seydon rose, eyes travelling over him before snapping back up to his face. Maybe, down at the docks, they'd be able to do something...anything to give the kids a fighting chance of escape. Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew they'd be clapped back in irons within twenty four hours and beaten for their disobedience. It seemed utterly hopeless...

She drew in a sharp breath and rose. No, it wasn't hopeless. If she gave in to that feeling of despair then the whole mission would be forfeit and their little boy would be lost. She pulled the holodisk from her pocket, and flicked it on, setting it in the centre of the table, the babes wide eyes staring up at them. A reminder of why they were here. "Agreed. Though we've got little to go on, save for a picture. We've no name...we'll need to access their records if we can, download a copy because we'll be tight on time to go through them all there. I'll bet my life that they've got security pretty damn tight."

She moved towards Seydon, finger hooking through his belt loops and pulling him close, resting her forehead against his shoulder an yearning desire to be held. To forget all the nastiness that they were up against even for the briefest moment. A horrid thought crossed her mind and she twitched involuntarily in his arms. "We might have a better chance if we act as prospective buyers...."

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Seydon considered the idea’s merit; would a pair of armed figures appearing from foreign star lanes and demanding to see the cream of young, choice faces be anything more than a disruptive ‘ordinary’ in Khedal? He briefly separated from Rosa’s hold, tugging their luggage onto the fold-out kitchen table and the nearest seating sedan. Within, under a thin electro-spun cotton and digi-thread weaves, rested their gear. At his insistence, prior to travelling, Rosa had modelled for her own custom sewn harness and body webgear. It’d been fashioned to her gait and physicality, no more restrictive then a waist belt, redistributing the weight of her chosen kit evenly across her musculature. He touched a familiar black silk cowl; rich textile, but he knew his wife wore it formidably. His own equipment had been copiously arranged in within the third case, just awaiting collection.

“...At nightfall?” He thought aloud. “...If we play our inexperience straight, anyone will think we’re amateurs. Amateur, but looking to purchase regardless. Just first timers needing to be shown the ropes of whatever protocols they have. It might take their edge off. Maybe.”

It depended on the level of encountered professionalism. A harbour auction could be a rowdy disjoint or solemn in practice. The orphanage would have its own obstacles; appointments, secretaries, guards and ‘correctional caretakers’ within. Despite it’s airs of community independence from the politics in the capital, Khedal was still under Imperial thumb. Subject to state surveillance. Khedal could uphold it’s reputation, so long as it still bent unconditionally at the knee. Seydon thought of secret patrols, police in stealth fields waiting to make arrests, every court and atrium rigged with boxy cameras. The First Order, and Kaine, didn’t believe in subtlety. A tight bloody thirst growled in his belly, woke by the thought of challenge.

“Serpents and doves,” Seydon said, taking Rosa’s face in his hands, massaging softly across her scalp. A thumb touched her lip, pulled slightly, revealed perfect white teeth and a trace of pink tongue. His heart quickened involuntarily. “You know the drill. Volunteer nothing. Learn everything. And force them to lose face before they try us. Just another day negotiating, Rose...~”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Just another day...Her agreement came with a taught smile and a curt nod. She knew the drill, she knew the facade she'd need to pull this off and despite how much it sickened her to do it, it was their best shot. She spent every day negotiating with one face or another to get something for the Foundation, there was no reason why she couldn't do so here. Hands moved up to his chest drawing in closer, she could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers, her breath caught in her throat and something flashed across her eyes. They should focus on the task at hand...

Rosa couldn't bring herself back to it, couldn't tear herself away from those golden eyes. She'd seize the opportunity there and then to forget it all, just for a short while. Do we have time?....Time enough. Her kisses were hot, demanding, pleading even. Make it go away. Make me forget, just for a little while...He responded with equal yearning, fingers finding the skin beneath her blouse, digging into the soft flesh of her waist pulling her closer. They broke apart, breathless. I love you.

He'd lifted her from the floor with a growl, her legs coiled about his waist and he found the way to the bedroom between a haze of fearsome kisses and fingers fumbling to undo buckles, buttons and zips. A trail of clothes in their wake, their keening cries drawing the ire of neighbours who pounded on walls and demanded silence. They only got louder.

~*

Rosa checked herself in the long tarnished mirror that hung inside the wardrobe door, appearance was everything. A love for black clothing made it easier for her to make herself look the part, not quite a sith at first glance, but close enough. She grabbed her silk cowl from the open case laid on the bed and slid it into place over her hair, Seydon's low baritone's drifted from the next room as he confirmed their appointment and she shut the wardrobe door and slid past the foot of the bed into the small living space, scooping her lightsaber from the dresser as she went.


"Are we set?" she asked, sliding it into place on her belt.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

They consummated their marriage with a scorching vim that sprawled them from wall to floor to bed. Dusk took its time, affording them a grey wash of light, so they could see each other through soaked bangs. Wet limbs stroked, fighting for slippery purchase, clenching round one another in moments of cascade and fire. Seydon needed her, she him, otherwise the enormity of risk and death would swallow them up separately. He got lost anyway; in her lips, her hair, the landscape of dripping skin, in her inexhaustible appetite and energy, in the vigour and attraction of her femininity. Asahians called their linked ascension upon the mattress the Clouds and the Rain. He watched heaven bloom in her eyes as she screamed for him.

-

“Are we set?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Seydon replaced the comm-reciever onto its wall hook and walked into the tiny living room.

The Harbour Master received his call amidst a flurry. Yes, they were holding labour auctions that evening, and yes, they could find accommodation if, if, they brought proof of funds, and behaved according to the ruleset. No auction sabotage, bid manipulation, theft, extortion, sudden kagath challenges, heckling the auctioneer, threatening the auctioneer, no tampering with the commodities, and finally, no murder. The call deadened with an audible click.

He stood dressed beside Rosa, facing the front door and porch. The Dunaan was attired in antique wear; plated boots and gauntlets in sooty-brown leather, grey pants belted thick at the waist, an off-white undershirt permanently ashy from too many laundry cycles, a reinforced, buckled vest, all under a long gloomy stormcoat fixed with a blood cape across the shoulders. He affixed a cloth mask over his mouth and nose, tying off a velvety scarf about his throat. Kit harnesses laced up his frame. Razorlight and Winterfang, patiently sheathed, were tied across his back in their weary scabbards. Pistol braces showed just behind his ribs. One more item was tied off and anchored at the small of his back; a burlap parcel chained with knotted hemp rope, still unopened since Seydon retrieved it from a hidden compartment in the luggage case.

Together, they appeared exactly as claimed: a pair of ferocious bounty killers. So long as no one snooped around their claim about Zambrano retainer status, they’d travel unbothered through Khedal. At least, he thought, through the Willow Downs, and the unkempt places of the harbour wharf.

They strode out into the evening, touched by an ocean cold at their cheeks. Cheap solar lamps flickered down the street row. Beggars, sleeping destitutes, and small gangs of wild Pacanthan youth loitered in alleys, or sprawled carelessly on the still warm sidewalks. Eyes were on them now. Seydon pulled up his collars and set into an easy stroll. They’d flag a night cab or get ferried to the piers via hammock porters. So long as they didn’t stop; already a few lanky kids were peeking out from cover in the alleys.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Tension knotted its way back into their shoulders under the watchful eyes of the Willow Down's night life. Rosa kept her eyes on the road ahead of them, chin held high, looking at them might draw their ire but if they moved with their heads down it would have invited trouble. Hairs rose on the back of her neck and she suppressed a shudder as they reached the main streets. She cast a glance behind them as Seydon hailed a cab and watched the eyes slink back into the shadows. Not worth their time, no doubt.

Ducking into the speeder as he held the door open for them, she slid in behind the driver. "Harbour, please." Older than their last driver, he cast his eyes over the pair of them, lingering on Seydon clearly uncomfortable with the cover on his face. To his credit, he said nothing, repulsors kicking into action as soon as the door closed behind Seydon. A silent tension rose up in the cab, the drivers eyes continuously flicking back to them, the couple exchanged glances but said nothing.

The harbour drew up in the distance, low slung boat house silhouetted against the shore line, lamps reflecting off the rippling sea. He deposited them at the harbours outermost edge, clearly eager to loose his quarry. Rosa slipped him to correct change, plus a couple of credits for his clear discomfort and stepped out of the speeder. The sea breeze gnawed at her cheeks and she adjusted her cowl, lilac eyes tinted gold by the lamps overhead.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[SIZE=10pt]Twice, their credentials were challenged by wharf patrollers, put off by their demeanour and trappings. Rosa was a sight of dark elegance, in her travel articles starkly black and white, her cowl a dark invitation of spectral grace and immeasurable danger. How she kept her walk without her gear showing through her cape fabric mystified her husband. Beside Rosa, Seydon was tall, coarse in his Dunaan apparel, slate and grey with tinges of tarnished greaves and vambraces. Winterfang and Razorlight were on bold display. Knives showed on his belt and harnesses, with too the small alchemical palm-bombs proscribed by his guild. The brace of pistols off his hips clacked in their holsters. Refinement, accompanied by violence. Seydon kept his expression dull under his half-mask, but the eyes bright and frigid with glacial contempt.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]They chatted minimally, only when necessary. The city wharf bustled in spite of the hour. Bulk haulers anchored at multi-tiered piers extended from the immense ferrocrete dock slab. Overseers wrangled and directed slave throngs and manual droids, ferrying unbroken lines of cargo into waiting super-heavy classed repulsor ‘wheelers’. Captains, their seconds, argued broadly with wharf authorities: taxes, tariffs, the costs of berthing in Khedal, back and forth formalities that were there to save everyone face. A sprint trader with a pugnacious prow hooved into the dock at water level. Seydon and Rosa walked through curtains of white, cold mist. Briefly, they dared holding hands; she always made him feel warmer, wherever the contact. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Soon, it was discovered the auction houses were kept in the far store houses. They navigated east, through a box-angled maze of tall storage hangers. Shadows were drawn long by flood lamps mounted at each intersection. Port authority, more white-cased stormtroopers in marked green pauldrons, marched blandly. Seydon noted a few Epicanthix in sombre uniforms, crests of the Zambrano imperial family stitched to lapels and high, starched shoulders. He presumed they were already logged into the wharf’s security network. Their moderate Idents had to hold through the night. Survival, success, depended on invisibility while in plain sight. The pair walked ahead, toward brighter, grainier lights and shouts calling through loudspeakers.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Seydon saw the ‘auction house’. It was one of a half dozen. A converted glasteel warehouse shelled with chrome scaffolds linked in an industrial honeycomb pattern up the outer walling and over the slightly steeped roof. Gun-drones hovered on station overhead. Droids, their chassis dressed in worn, shield-treated cloth armour, stoically kept guard. Auction goers were an amalgam of poor agents to gilded nobility. ‘Merchandise’ were lead in shock-collars, long processions of bowed, shaved heads and naked backs. Stun-prods lashed at them occasionally. One body, Seydon saw, was nearly black with abusive welts. Heat boiled up his throat. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“…There, there,” He hissed over Rosa’s cowl. They turned, until he knew Rosa saw them too: a line of little bodies trundling after a heavy-set slaver in plate and mail. The children were being lead off to a particularly garish auction ‘house’, replete with neon-bamboo, loudspeakers pumping thudding, droning music. Another line of little ones showed through the card, another afterward while they waited to confirm unspoken suspicions. Seydon snagged a passerby and hauled them close.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“Hey, yo – Oh, oh shid, easy, guy…” The auctioneer, a Rodian in a dark, wine jumpsuit, muffled under the Dunaan’s eyes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“What’s that house there?” Seydon cocked his head over his shoulder.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“That…? Oh…! That’s – That’s the Adoption Auction. You… You looking – Oooff!”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Seydon released him, dismissed him with a glare, the Rodian all but sprinting off through the night buyer’s crowd. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“Adoption Auction…” Seydon whispered. No hiding his loathing or distaste. “Let’s go have a look. See who wants to talk about selling off certain boys…”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt][member="Rosa Gunn"][/SIZE]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa's heart leaped to her throat at the site of them chained together like they were, rags hung loosely off their skin, highlighting the shadow of bones in some of the more malnourished ones. Some eyes were still bright with fear, others simply plodded on, life gone from their eyes. Already broken by their handlers. Fear and sorrow poured off them, battering the empath without restraint. She drew in a sharp breath and had to resist the urge to take action there and then. It would have done nothing in the long run, a wasted effort that would've been made out of anger. No, they had a job to do, find one child and get him free. Yet it seemed so selfish all the same.

She made a mental note, to take all of this, all that they had seen and place it under Jorus's nose. She and Seydon were not equipped for it, but perhaps with help from Jorus they could in the future. She tore her eyes away as the disappeared behind bamboo screening, watching the exchange between the rodian and her dunaan. She gave Seydon a pleading look, she did not want to go in there. She let her eyes drift back to it and took another deep breath, drawing her empathy in close, closing herself off to it as much as possible before giving him a nod and leading the way.

The auction room was bustling, buyers ranged from criminals looking for proteges to corrupt and bend easily to their will, to fat bellied cigara smoking slave masters who paraded down the lines waiting to go up onto the podium, eyeing up the young girls checking their teeth. Rosa's stomach twisted into angry knots but she forced herself to hold fast to inaction. There were even a few noble looking couples, perhaps here to pick new slaves for their house. The auctioneer spoke with a rapid tongue, calling out numbers and acknowledging bids for a young nautolan. He'd not quite reached his teens by the looks of him, he kept his eyes firmly on his toes, not daring to look up, not daring to see what foul fate awaited him. Silent tears carved tracks down his green cheeks.

Rosa let out an almost inaudible moan, fingers finding Seydon's wrist and digging in deep.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

With his wife’s fingers nearly poking through his skin, Seydon watched the Nautolan youth bundled off the bare wood auction scaffold. A rare Arized child, in a food-stained smock, took his place next, weighed by gravity-shackles that forced a painful arch in their posture. Without missing a breath, the auctioneer launched into a pause-and-you’d-miss-it exchange of price, offers, counter offers, haggles, bargains, and dickering. He lingered on the scene, cataloguing the evil; the massed faces, the auctioneer himself on his floating podium, the girl Arized with a face dried of tears. Rosa looked fit to be sick. He wanted nothing more to take her to the nearest lavatory, ask her to pardon him for a moment, and then return to wreck absolute havoc throughout the warehouse.

“Come on,” He tugged her by the arm.

There were another four bays dedicated to further auction haranguing, a wide bistro with an accompanying bar installed along a partial length of the east-end wall, a kind of ‘cattle’ fence of electro-fields and stun turrets kept with careful guard in the farther north corner, where the ‘merchandise’, none older than ten, were corralled. In a sperate gallery were the auction offices: a plasteel and durasteel cage suspended between the corner of the warehouse wall and the capered ceiling. Not a single FO trooper, he noted. Peace and authority was kept with uniformed minders, bearing familial colours, crests, and heavy stun-rifles. Polished lance-heads gleamed under sooty light. Auction-goers could be expendable, they knew, but not the children. If even the entirety of the auction house was slaughtered to a man, they would be replaced the next evening for the draw of unspoiled youths.

Slavery and ones like Rosa are the reality, he thought. One to profit, one to oppose the insanity and cruelty of that profit. Always battling, never with a thought of surrender, because the prize is a heritage of ten-thousand years and uncountable souls. If there’s a heaven beyond Chaos, beyond the Force, Rosa will go there. Layil’s sins don’t matter. I’ve saved her. When she passes, they’ll take her to a special seat. Everyone, living or dead, will understand her strength.

He led through the crowd, taking the emptier pools that briefly appeared and closed amid the throng. Seydon didn’t allow a body closer than five paces, if he could help it. The Dunaan had the impertinence to come visibly armed; everyone else kept their hold-out pistols, vibro-stilettos, machine guns, and gas grenades carefully hidden on their persons. Neon fixtures, black-light lamps, leered the auction house with gaudy colour and glow. He tasted and scented the myriad sensoria, now a walking razor. Tuned to the hunt. Watching for signs in the crowds and bodies, in the swarm of loud conversation. Suddenly paused; locked on to a tall Epicanthix nobile. Male, hair black and lawn, drawn into a tail with a gold buckle and silver threads. Dressed immaculate, quite proudly, in a velvet coat and pants cut and designed in time for next year’s fashion season. A las-lock pistol waited holstered on his hip, beside a jeweled dagger. The gems on his cufflinks, by theirselves, would pay a coolie’s wages into the next decade.

Seydon and Rosa sidled in, his wife to one side as his subtle nod. The Epicanthix looked ahead over the buying crowds, detached from the spectacle.

“There’s no good stock,” The Dunaan murmured, after a heavy pause.

The Epicanthix said nothing. His eyes were sharp but placid, the neck too long, Seydon noticed. Product of closed house breeding. A relative of the Zambrano house, he had to wonder? In their age, what landed Epicanthix wasn’t?

“Very disappointing,” He went on.

The nobile flitted a suggestion of a glance down, still silent. Thin lips curled in amusement. Seydon noted the warmth of arrogance flush those high, pale cheeks.

“You’ve a message?” The Nobile asked.

“No.”

“You are a runner, yes?”

“No.”

“Then get out of my sight,” The Nobile smiled: his teeth were small, manicured by files, looking sharp and too-white in the dim neon wash.

“No.”

“My minders will remove you then.” The Nobile reached to snap his fingers: an electronic brace showed on his wrist, keyed to a specific aural signal.

“Then I will remove them. And then remove you, to the nearest bathroom. Where we will speak, not in kind terms. But the kind where I break your vertebrae, until you learn manners,” Seydon said, and then readied to bury his fangs. “You incestuous half-breed Zambrano pig-stock.”

“…You wish to die. Is that it?” The Nobile was nearly white with rage.

“No. I wish to talk. Here, now, with you. But you won’t speak to me, because rightly, I’m not exactly at your station. So, I have to bend the rules a little. Get your attention. We can talk civilly now. Or, you can summon your eight minders in the crowd and watch me take their heads, before I turn to you and emasculate you in a very sensitive, very public manner. Do you understand?”

“The gall and shock of you bloody bounty killers! Scum!” The Nobile kept his screech just under his breath. “Do you understand? The power of what I can bring down over your head? What will happen, soon as you leave these doors?”

“Then when we’re done speaking, I will have to kill you, eh? Do you have enemies, sir? Do you think your house will go for their throats soon as it becomes apparent you were disembowelled and beheaded in a Khedal cess-pit? While a pair of innocuous bounty killers slips away to attend their business? Let me tell you: you can hate me.”

And Seydon’s voice dropped any hint of warmth; a black creature, all Dunaan and wholly divorced from trappings of humanity, spoke up. “But not as much I hate you. But you look like you have something like taste. I’m going to ask some things. You’ll answer.”

His power swept over the Nobile. The Epicanthix nodded slightly, extremely perturbed. A threat of powerful violence wafted the limited space between them. Seydon Gunn, Seydon of Arda, looked very much like the steely, unstoppable killing-thing all Dunaan had a reputation of being. Just maybe, if he attempted to leverage his family’s forces against him for this incomparable insult, then it would lead to their destruction.

“…What do you want?”

“Tell me about the stock here.”

“…It’s extremely poor,” The Nobile went on. A tremble in his voice showed. “The slave takes have been thirteenth rate, no one you would take save for menial labour.”

“Just here? Khedal?”

“Everywhere. Pacantha is wailing for proper servants. Certain strata of the nobility can’t afford to keep inducting these slugs into the right model for servicing our needs. We must cast the net wider. Which means we will have to doll out more coin; these slavers are ravenous to increase their rates.”

“There must be better brokers then this,” Seydon said. “Who are they?”

“For that, you have to enter the Glass World.”

“And the door?”

“…The Provisional Orphanage. The…” The Nobile fought the log in his throat. “The Grey Abbey.”

“Here in Khedal?” Seydon tested. They knew of the orphanage previously: Underground intelligence had provided an exemplary, if still limited overview of the facility grounds.

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“The Grey Abbey deals in select flesh. The ones that are either prime or may be salvaged. Their take is very select and the servants that graduate from their programs rate amongst the very best. I know of a few that serve under the feet of the God-King directly. It’s a power unto itself. Only the Great House is exactly sure of the Abbess’ total earnings. It can be very difficult to snag the choice flesh before their agents do. Competition is fierce. I am very sure they have their own contingent of killers: assassins! Very illegal but very necessary.”

“To steal merchandise.”

“Precisely! Precisely... You are nascent to the Glass World.”

“Why do you think I’m bothering with a third rate fancy?” Seydon bit back, refusing to allow the Nobile’s inculcated sneer to overtake his control of the conversation. “There’s nothing to be had here. There’s an overseer to control the dock house, though.”

“Yes.”

“And where do they keep themselves?”

“I do not concern myself with that degree of commonality,” The Nobile huffed.

“Thank you. Oh,” Seydon turned, half-remembering something. His grip was beyond steel on a nerve cluster just under the Nobile’s left shoulder. The Dunaan twitched his thumb; the Nobile nearly passed out in pain. “Take care now.”

He left the Nobile gasping on his feet and walked away with Rosa. Now, the Dunaan let himself lose his colour and fight to keep his belly from retching up. Exhaustion showed in his eyes. “We can be done with this place, if you like.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

While Seydon interrogated with ferocity that would have left weaker men standing in a puddle of their own piss, Rosa was counting heads. Heads of the masters, and auctioneers, heads of the minders and taking note of where they stood. Every detail she could gather in her minds eyes she did, only half listening to the conversation that was being had. Her jaw clenched tight, her eyes glittering with anger. Do not act. Do nothing. Observe, learn what you can and know that you will be able to save others with this.

Her hand twitched as club fisted brute backhanded a child that refused to walk, the force catapulting him and two of those he was chained to, to the ground. He did not get back up. To act now, would be to do so in anger. Her fingers lid into one of her pouches, two soft seeds between her fingers, she withdrew them. She took a soft step away from the interrogation beside her, gaining a better view of the child and reaching out.

"Gorram it." the sullustan muttered as his rodian companion slid up to unchain the boy who was laying too still for Rosa's liking. "Boss'll have that outta my wages. Little chid." One seed flicked from her fingers, bouncing unseen to the ground close by. Seydon shifted behind her and she stepped in close, sensing his weakness as her anger found strength hands taking his arm, her mind focused on the seed as it made roots beneath the soil.

"See what happens when you don't do as your-" The plant erupted, great black branches shot out impaling the sullustan through the leg, chest and neck. Screams erupted from the patrons as they all scrambled back. Rosa did not look at Seydon, she didn't look at the sullustan or the children either, she tightened her grip on his arm and led them away from the scene quietly.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]