The Spider and the Chiss

[Atham'aali'kema]

Byss

Ruins of Erudol Citadel

"You bleed when I tell you to bleed..."​

"..."​

"You scream when I tell you to scream..."​

"..."​

"You pray when I tell you to pray..."​

"..."​

"Good."​

​

~~~​

​

Maalik wasn't one to often follow the perverse synapses and feelings attached to the inflow and outflow of the force. It was blasphemous, a harbinger for a temptation that struck a painful cord within him - likely an indoctrinated response that didn't seem to occur to him, not at this time. But where temptation resides, the desire to act upon it will always found fertile grounds within the weak of heart and mind. And who could blame the man, he originated from the Chiss after all.

The Slayer Ship, force imbued in and of itself, found a perch to rest upon as it set down on Byss. Upon outcropping of weathered granite, the Vong ship laid in waiting and restful vigilance as the Slayer dehooded himself, placing the Tall-Yor softly against the fleshy seat. Stepping out, the wind upon the crest ripped at his armorweave cloak as he gave a fleeting glance to the melancholy and gothic stylings of the facility with which he found some form of resonation. Foundry and mortar had withstood a test of time far exceeding anything he would live to see, wind burnt and scraped clean of original facing by the blast of sun and debris. And in the nights sky, it gave the most beautiful silhouette he could fathom, alit with decorations of orange lights and slowly burning sconces.

The doors from the courtyard would open to preface his entrance, body set to idle as he moved absent any purpose. The clap of his boots echoed softly across the placed formerly used for the breeding of something, a smell he couldn't place. Like an animal with a scent, he caught it with a lift of his nose and the glimpse of firing brewing within the hollow and gaunt sockets of a man torn and tortured. It was for the better.

As he moved through the courtyard, he pushed open the doors into the main estate. The wood creaked, inviting him in with a wine of rusty hinges, as he left the light of the moon for that of hallway mounted braziers.

"Hello..." The words were hushed and whispered, but escaped his blue lips nonetheless. He had no interest in the beacons of the force that seemed as alien to this place as he was. No, he wanted to know what being would call this place home.

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

The tranquility of Erudol had been quite disturbed as of late. The Sith had found Eske at last, so it came as no surprise that others had come to call. Found her library and archives, they had - deemed them worthy of further investigation. Her own approval of their continued presence was likely well-met though unnecessary.

Eske was certain had they wished to they would have exterminated her pestilence upon first sight. She'd given them no reason to and saw fit to be of no trouble to them. Though she liked her various trinkets and took great pride in the wealth of knowledge collected over the years, it was not part of her need to be ...

How did the humans call it... materialistic?

But her passive nature was not without price. What knowledge taken must be replaced, be it the new and unknown or the flesh off the bone.

Fair was fair.

Webs respun hung like lace about the halls traversed by this newest visitor, the most tender of vibrations alerting the Arachneri to his presence. She might have missed his greeting were she not already hanging just over his head in dreadful silent stillness. Eight beady red eyes watched him move with great intensity, noting the cloak trailing from his shoulders.

Another Sith? My but weren't they so endearing in their black robes.

"Good evening..." the words were soft, somber, echoing as two simple notes through the cavernous frame of the citadel, "who now enters my home?"

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

"Is it...?" He said, speaking softly with the drop of his cowl. Black robes yes - Sith merely by affiliation. "Evening...that is?"

The Yuuzhan Vong shapers had no iterations of such concepts. It was merely night or it was day, the sun was up or the sun was down. The taste of something different wasn't particular to the Yuuzhan Vong, knowing only things in black or white. It either was or wasn't, there was no in between. He, of course, knew the term - it had just been so long that he had forgotten what it sounded like. Evening.

As his cowl dropped, he looked up the point of origin of the soft yet unknowingly sensuous tone. Where she had 8, he merely had 2, though they would depict no surprise or shock across his face. Mixing of blue and black and white, his visage was a unique and often stigmatized feature while in the presence of either Yuuzhan Vong or Chiss. It was humbling to say the least, fuel to the flame that was his cold burning anger. There was a similar species back on Selvaris to this figure, the Harvester, that tended to the lambent fields with unusual passion. Passion - A concept foreign to this chiss, repeatedly hollowed out for the efficacy of it.

"Maalik..." He said, not rendering the full name for this meeting quite yet. She had his interest for now, the call of the force most assuredly pointing to her, or what he assumed was a her. He didn't know whether to be irate at such a calling or interested that she could pluck him so easily from his former vow of celibacy. Yun-Yammka would be ashamed and yet, Maalik seemed to not care. "And who calls this place home?"

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

A sanguine smile stretched across the arachnid's face as she glanced briefly to the image of the moon through the open window sills, long since lost their glass.

"Indeed it is ..."

Eske studied him from her high perch, watching as he removed his cowl and turned to face her. The mannerisms of her visitors had brought some strange amusement. How polite they were. If the tales of Sith were really so true, why not had they attempted to slay her? Why not burn this place to the ground? What brought them here if not for furthering their own goals? Surely she was but a ... sizable bump in the road.

"I have been called many things," she began, tone easy and quiet, "...creature...monster..." her smile persisted, faint if not a bit mirthless. Slowly she dropped from the shadow of the arches within which she nested, gliding with a delicate grace down upon the threading produced by her spinnerets carefully tenured by eight white legs.

Slowly she descended in a clockwise turn until her human portion hung just above and before Maalik, out of reach but so very close. Long platinum hair fell in braids, leaving her breasts bare of cover.

"...abomination."

The smile vanished as eight eyes took him in half-lidded from their upside-down vantage point, following the markings of his face. She'd never seen a man like him before and were it not for her limitations of visual colors she might have noted the blue skin. Alas, no such identifying notion came to her. He was, to her, simply another unique specimen, a source of curiosity and perhaps...more.

"Call me what you will, Maalik."

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

Her hair, metallic and shimmering. He wanted to touch it but, for the moment, she had requested his presence from the singular perch and he would only falter so far. It wasn't time for another lunge.

"Creature...monster..." He searched her form as she hung before him, clawed to the ceiling with appendages he couldn't seem to make out. "Abomination..." The almost incantation like presentation of the names struck a chord with him, remembering those very terms used on him. "Heretic...blasphemer...nothing..." He's eyes diverted from her unclothed presence, as intricate as it was simple, a cacophony of soothing silence, as he looked towards the very glassless window that she peered from. "Shamed One...Kanabar..." The tongue of Yuuzhan Vong filled his mouth with gutteral and harsh pronunciation, far from the more delicate nature of basic.

Of course, for most, the term worker wouldn't be an insult. But for a member indoctrinated into the Warrior and Slayer Caste, it couldn't be further from truth, barring on being called a shamed one, which he had been called numerous times before. For the flesh they stripped from him, removing the traces of Chiss, they replaced it with something just as bad. Or maybe it wasn't, but the self hatred and loathing was a nearly unbreakable component of his persona, rooted deep and clenching hard in expressions of pain and nausea. At times, it was just easier to accept it.

Straightening out in the face of something he didn't understand, he tilted his head to the side and attempted to mimic the expression she employed. A smile. "You have a name, do you not...?" He ticked, a small spasm as if he was a droid who had lost it's programming. "I..." He did it again, searching for a word. "I..." He looked back to her, trying to discern which eyes he should focus on for contact. A sense of confidence washed over him. "...desire it."

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

Was he speaking a tune of self-reflection? This man before her seemed far more natural to her eyes than she deign to admit. Were he not so ... veiled in his habit and cloak, she might've thought him something beautiful. His markings reminiscent of the handsome Basilikarchs and their exotic striped and patterned figures. Long had Eske admired them, envied them for her own pale and plain self.

Why mother did you gift me with no beauty of your own? queries from her youth.

Age taught her that there was beauty in the unmarked and unpainted. Majesty in the pristine.

Noesis had shown her the fault in her thoughts.

Maalik reminded her of him. Something in those eyes...

He spoke of desire. For a name?

"Do you?" her words drew slowly from her lips as she drew closer still, silk strands lengthening as the Arachneri dropped further from her nest, "So many deign to grant one yet so few bother to ask." A breeze drifted in from the open window bays causing her to sway gently from her drop-thread.

She was close enough now he could reach out to her if he wished, her hair hung within the stretch of his arm, her pale body aglow in the light of the moon. She saw him tempt a faltering smile, causing her own lips to stretch. Curious man, she thought, and then offered him a word in her language he would not understand - though word was not quite the proper way to describe it. It was a hiss, it was a series of clicks, it was a flash of venomous fangs in a strangely non-threatening manner.

"I fear there is no word for it in your tongue. What manner of beings saw fit to call me friend have also called me... Eske."

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

Between the flesh and the metal, that is where he would reside. What peace he could claim came from the mere cessation of consciousness, his mindful thoughts plagued by things he should have done or the things he couldn't do. Regret would be appropriate, if not for it's lack of sincerity. It was something much worse and what was this action, if not another piece of kindling to the fire. Would fear cross his mind as he lifted his hand slowly, blue finger nails with a palm of ashen white. The movement would part his robes to reveal pants and a bare chest, muscles etched in the affirmation of Yuuzhan Vong presence. Black and white and blue, raised ridges of scarrification processed the importance of pain for the Shai Domain.

The leading domain of the Yun'Do.

As he lifted his hand, he would attempt to touch the pearlescent strands of platinum, as if bracing the weight of clouds in fear that his touch would end their presence forever. That it might be so fragile as to recoil from his touch, blasting away into bits of rigid glass, sprinkling the ground in debris and dust. As he did, he would study the artifacts of her lineage through the strands of hair, so long as she would allow it. Based off her anatomy, he would assume his assumption of her gender was accurate from the beginning.

"Eske..." He spoke absentmindedly, a child learning to speak again. "And what fate would curse you to exist in such isolation..." He piped up, his orange and burning red eyes a lit with sudden realization. "Or are you not truly isolated in this place?" He continued. "Do you not know of beings that would refer to you in such manner...as Eske?"

She was close now and despite his intent to not experience her in the most simplistic of ways, he couldn't seem to help his own bodies form of expression. Weak of mind and weak of heart, as always.

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

What innocent questions from a man that she would have expected from a child. Was he so virgin to this galaxy that his answers were not self-evident? Two pairs of eyes, those closest to her hairline, closed in mild pleasure of his fingers in her hair, gentle and curious. It would be quite soft to the touch, meticulously kept and clean despite what one might think.

"Cursed? Is that what you call solitude and peace?" a low, thoughtful sound was made; not quite a chuckle but intimating amusement, "My kind are solitary creatures. Rarely do we keep the company of those not intended for rearing, eating or..." her open eyes followed the motion of his hand as he parted the cloth of his cloak, revealing the slashes of chiaroscuro upon his flesh, the raised scarring.

Eske absently drew closer on her drop-thread, giving him reach now to her face, "...mating."

"Friends are a rare commodity for one like me. They come and go as quickly as the seasons. I remember my last friend well. His bones lay here in this citadel and have for many years now. I would welcome that name of friend again. What of you, Maalik?"

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

"Peace..." He tried that smile again, failing but improving admirably - at least he would think so. "A temporary illusion for those who seek it." He didn't believe in any form of the Sith Code, didn't even know it truthfully. But he understood the concept of peace - merely the time spent between disputes, like absence of pain between the tear and cut. At the revelation of her question, he tilted against his own delicate nature. That despite how strong he thought himself, he was still weak for all the power that existed in the universe. As he starred at the face hanging before him, he blinked in tunnel vision, starring not at her but through her.

"Once..." He paused. "I think I knew of friends and family, more than just objects of affection or purpose..." He bared his teeth in remembrance of his fondness of such weak individuals. Chiss. "People of my original ancestry...Chiss." Venom steeped between the syllables of that entire phrase, admitting that he had ascended from such an ignorant and naive raise. He dropped his hand from her soft hair, softer than anything he could rightly recall, and balled it into a fist. He would walk past her hanging from the thread to breach the room of the interior structure, an old archive that was as much dust as it was knowledge. Not to say that it wasn't expansive - it was quite impressive the way it extended from floor to raised ceiling.

Approaching a wall mounted brazier, he lifted his fingers in suspension over the fire. Closing his eyes, he cracked his neck in the embrace of the heat - it felt right, it felt normal. But then he remembered that he wasn't here for normalcy or comfort, he was here for that calling. As such, he walked over to a rack of books and looked across the bindings. If there were words against it, he couldn't make them out from the symbols. The transference to Yuuzhan Vong had removed his ability to properly read, the idea of feeling and experiencing knowledge was more advantageous than reading it. Perhaps, with effort, he could recall the symbols.

"You said a friend lays here in the citadel...How long have you called this place home?"

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

Chiss.

Eske knew well of this race, yet not as well as she would have liked. Noted for their beautiful blue skin and red eyes, colors she could neither seen nor experience, their's was a people of ingenuity and pride. Famous shipwrights and Captains of their kind populated the stars from as deep as the inner core to as far as the outer rim. She was sure in her years traversing the galaxy that many of those faces she recalled belong to this people.

But she never would have guessed this of him.

"Nearly forty years now," came her answer, still above his head, high in the webs woven amidst the towering stacks. Eske quietly settled herself near the center of the chamber where the threads weaved through what remained of an ancient chandelier. Arachnid legs splayed out around her, she leaned her human torso belly-down within a sling of webbing, arms crossed to cradle her chin.

One set of red eyes remained ever watchful while the remaining closed to rest. Her gaze followed him as he moved below.

"What you find here are the remains of the Lusethem legacy as well as my own collective."

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

"Forty years..." He would have expressed surprise if he were capable of such explicit emotion. He felt it's raw sort of complexity, wavering against his tethered sinew and stubbornness. "That is a long time to be alone..." He looked over his robed sahoulder to find her, once more in position above, as his burning gaze traced the discrepancies of the web she had spent time weaving around the center piece ornament.

"The Lusethem Legacy...I do not know of it..." The armorweave itched, more than he cared to admit. With a unclasping of the broach, he placed the garment down upon a dusty chair, feeling his own weight against creaking beams of treated wood. Turning slowly, he stretched upwards as he pulled a book from the shelf, the fire highlighting the raised scarrification and ridges across his back, painted with tattoos of black against blue. For her though, she might just see grey against darker grey, the subtle nuances missed. Sitting down on the chair, he lifted his leg to rest upon the knee, inwardly expecting the cloth of the seat to respond to his weight - like the living cushions back on Selvaris.

"Tell me of your collective knowledge...how do you define yourself?" He traced the etchings of the parchment with his blue finger tips. With enough time, he looked back up to Eske, finding only a single pair of eyes to lock with. He found her a comforting distraction, his self loathing put on hold for the interest in this person he didn't quite understand - Not yet. "Beyond mating, eating, and rearing...Is there more to this life than isolation and confinement?"

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

Eske chuckled - a low, svelte sound over a chorus of soft clicking.

"Do I strike as dull and morbid?"

With a tilt of her head she eyed the man, amusement evident in her gaze as much as intrigue and curiosity to the newly exposed flesh. Lovely, she thought, admiring his markings and the details of the scarring. What manner of purpose did these things serve, she wondered, what symbolic value did they hold?

"I have survived the depths of the Kashyyyk jungles and the comet fields of the Red Nebula. I have dined with the Shapers of Kro Var and hunted the deadly warriors of Togoria. I was sold as a slave in the underground Markets of Tattooine and reclaimed my freedom with the help of the Mercenaries of Mandolore. I stood upon the soil of Zenoma Sekot and explored the wilds of Felucia. By the time I reached Byss I had visited all four corners of the galaxy and I was ready to make a home. My collective is the very definition of my life. All manner of experiences recorded upon the pages before you."

Eske motioned to the library around them with a gentle wave of an arm, "I spent three decades filling those tomes and I have spent the last four decades memorizing all that these others have to offer. However, the Lusethem Legacy is hardly a complete repository of knowledge. Much has been lost to the ravages of time and the desolation wrought by Darth Moridin over four hundred years ago."

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

"Dull?" He spoke quietly as he internalized the message she iterated, with something resembling glee. "No, not dull...you seemed to have lived a very fulfilling life." He said, an ounce of envy imbuing his tone as he attempted to avoid eye contact with her - burning holes in the parchment with a hard stare. Whether she was morbid or not, that remained to be seen.

The pages, stuck together, resisted his push as he attempted to turn them. A vestigial of another life, he lifted his finger to his mouth and slowly licked his thumb and index. As he did so, he failed to realize any importance of the action, as he reached down to easily turn the page once more. A man on auto-pilot, distracted by the beautiful imagery and writings of things he didn't understand.

"I have never been to Kashyyyk or the Red Nebula. I don't know what the Shapers of Kro Var are and I can't even imagine what Tattooine was like. I've heard of the Mandalorians in passing but I've never seen images of Zenoma Sekot or Felucia." He barred his teeth as he tilted his head, feeling the slightest sting for how limited his life had been. "I've lived on Csilla and when ambition claimed any form of thought, I crashed into Selvaris. Years spent there, beneath the hands of the Shapers of the Yuuzhan Vong...I was molested and mutated into something better." He paused and jutted out the bottom of his jaw, looking into the fire.

"Better...complete...and empty."

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

A shadow of appreciation stole her expression.

A fulfilling life. Something one could be proud of. Eske thought for a moment on the many places she had seen and the things she had done; people she'd met and goals she'd accomplished. Thought of her mates and her offspring and now - of her home that she had grown so very fond of. Did she feel fulfilled?

Yes, she suppose she did. Even now at the prime of her life.

Would she die happy today? That was a little more difficult to say. There was still so much left to see, learn, and experience. Especially now that the One Sith had finally come knocking.

Her mind wandered back as his voice began to echo through the stacks again. She listened with the utmost care for his every word, a second set of eyes opening again in some curious concern for what suffering he'd endured.

"Can one truly be complete if they are empty?"

The idea of emptiness disturbed the creature deeply. Emptiness implied a need and she was quite ready to see his needs taken care of.

"Would you not desire to fill that void? With knowledge, memories, emotions..."

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

"Can one truly be complete if they are empty?" He mouthed the expression, turning from the fire to the being that hung above. "I am no philosopher, Eske..." He paused, contemplating the idea of stepping out from the box crafted around him by the Shapers of the Legion Yun'Do. "I have only what I've been told..."

What had he been told?

"You are nothing but what we make you..."​

"..."​

"You are nothing..."​

"..."​

"And in that, you are perfect."​

"..."​

​

He blinked steadily, looking back at the images on the pages. "A knife is sharpened to cut, a nang hul is made to hurt, and amphistaff trained to kill and inflict pain. These things are not interchangeable." He stood, closing the book, as he approached the shelf and reached up, sliding it back into the empty slot where it once resided. Stepping down from his tip toes, he pulled the coufee from his robes. Holding out his left hand, he dragged the blade against the palm and like etched steel across marble, only the slightest mark was left in the wake. He did it in a way that Eske, with her numerous eyes, could watch.

"Chiss do not come standard with such things..." He tilted his head and smirked, but not for the emotion of happiness. It was entirely sardonic. "The shapers informed me that I was complete, their training and shaping having ripped apart what made me...me." Placing his not so wounded hand against his chest, he pressed against the armored skin. "I am empty, a cup to be filled with purpose when it is needed. And in that, through the eyes of my 'makers'..." He spoke the word with venom of his own. "I am complete...until I am sharpened or trained once more."

He pulled another book out, the bindings tight in the shelves for the volume stored. Mid struggle, he stopped. "I can't remember a life without that void..."

[member="Eske"]

 

[Loxa Visl]

"What you've been told..."

Plump lips pulled into a frown as the remaining four eyes slowly slid open, contemplative in their gaze. She watched in silence as he displayed for her his unusual invulnerability to the very things he described. True, a Chiss was not born with such strength, such immunity - one was made to be so. He was made to be so. Against his will? Perhaps, but that was neither here nor there.

Here was now.

There was history.

And one can only do so many things with history...

"A knife cuts, a nang hul hurts, an amphistaff kills," Eske repeated, rising slowly from her bedded webbing and stretching forward to slowly descend down the levels of cross strings until she gently, silently, touched upon the tops of the stacks, "an empty cup holds that which is put within."

Soundlessly, gracefully, the arachneri's long white arachnid legs stretched forth, allowing her bulk to settle down within the open area between rows just behind and beside [member="Atham'aali'kema"], a slow and rhythmic clicking sounding as she moved closer.

"What to fill it with, hm?" Eske lightly placed her human hands upon the man's shoulder, her own body curving down around his left side to look him more closely in the eye. Her own nature was quiet and gentile for how monstrous she was, showing no signs of threat to raise his concern, "Purpose is a valuable bounty to hold, but often it is fleeting. Memories are invaluable - but over time they come to fade and dry up as their relevance serves you no longer. Emotions," Eske leaned in, eight eyes drawing at half mast as her lips brushed past his ear, "ever unpredictable."

Slowly she leaned back and around to his right, her right hand lifting to barely outline the trail of markings at the side of his face, "So what do we fill this cup with then..."

Around his left side one of her spider legs reached upwards, ever so gently ticking the stubborn book off the shelf.

"Knowledge, dear Maalik, knowledge stands the test of time and is the single greatest constant in our galaxy. We need only share it, teach it, learn it. I would share and teach if you would but desire to learn."

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

Squinted eyes would conceal the burning pupil beneath, blue eyelids departing from the wide eye doe expression he had adopted upon entry into this home. There was an interest there, hers spatially removed except for the moment that they would now share. Sharing, was that something he could understand? Or was it merely the act that represented something far beyond him. Would idle hands and body go through the actions once more? As his attention followed her path and movement, he remained steadfast as stone, quivering against the notions of touch - something previously associated with pain. Only pain. Yet where it was so readily given, now it fell upon prickled skin, absent the predicted misery.

How odd, he thought, as he listened to her words pushed out through the gesture of clicks and alien mannerisms. The Yuuzhan Vong cared little for knowledge beyond the practice of tradition, and the Chiss cared for nothing but the expanse of technology. In the middle, he felt the swelling pressure of uselessness in attempt to accommodate his own diametric nature. Two extremes pulled at his core and he struggled to compensate for the limbo that now represented his existence.

Yet here, words would soothe the sort of viciousness he was often expected to exhibit. And where one falls asleep, head rocked against the divot in the stone, the mind would grow suspicious at the notion of purpose beyond what was ingrained in him. He was but a monster brought to the forefront of battle, carved from marble and pushed to the vanguard as a limber statue - what purpose could knowledge have now for a person so readily condemned? Why, now, would such softness replace rigid rock beneath head?

His nostrils flared as he reached forward with his left hand, the binding falling softly into his open palm. Starring down, integrating the words into the qahsa that was his mind - the only interpretation that made sense, like a sponge that couldn't seem to block out the rain. Blinking steadily, his hand dropped as he continued to follow the eyes of the being before him. Old, monstrous, sacred...beautiful. Like the Harvesters of Selvaris, he couldn't understand her but he couldn't pull his eyes away, like the inscriptions on the bindings - the red book now resting at his side with the gold embroidery, lit by the licking flame.

"What good is knowledge...if I am damned?" He tilted. Not his head, not his body, but his entire persona. Because where the indoctrination solidified itself as something wholesome and right, he would question the festering roots that clung deep within. The shapers had done their job well, duracrete consumed by the yorik and born into something living and healing and persistent. And he would tremor at the thought of it's uprooting. "Why are you so confident...yet here I stand, trembling?" The armored skin was marked by raised edges now, the allure of enticement visibly present in goose bumps - a response to her touch. And he couldn't seem to understand it.

[member="Eske"]​

 

[Loxa Visl]

"Oh, tender naly..." Eske's voice cooed with concern at his question, "what good is knowledge?"

What a terrifying question, indeed. It struck her at the very core.

"Knowledge is everything, it forms the very foundations of civilization. Every culture, every race and people, stand upon a base of knowledge. Even yours." She refrained from direct comment, having noted the span of expressions the mention of his own people grew upon his face. The struggle was evident and very real - yet she was not here to remind him of that. She was here to open his eyes, broaden his horizons.

As one Sorcerer had said of her many years ago: It is the will of the Force.

Eske did not know of the Force in the same ways that the Sorcerers of the galaxy did, but the idea of a fated arrangement had always intrigued her.

"Even the damned may rise on the wealth of knowledge this life has to offer. To live on only what you are told is not to live at all," an easy gaze of eight eyes dropped to the book in his hand that now rested at his side. Eske gently reached to lift that hand and the treasure it held, grasping both of her own around it and his fingers, "you tremble for all the things you have yet to experience, all the things you do not yet know. Life is but one long, harrowing encounter, and if you do not tremble at some point, then you are not truly living."



[member="Atham'aali'kema"]

 

[Atham'aali'kema]

His hatred for himself, for the thing that he had been made into - was fierce, intense, and without regret. The self-loathing, either an artifact of his creation or a purposely implanted notion, was something fortified by pain and the implied purpose. That what was done to him, the shaping and the manifestation of the Yun'O across his body and mind, was something completed with the premise that he had earned every cut and every strip of flesh and muscle. For if there was this force, if there was some divine thing that would have others so readily claim fealty through repetition of code or practice - how could it lead him down such a path, one so undeserving? Unless he rightfully deserved it.

In that moment, he was faced the opposition of two theorems. That either life had no guidance, no purpose, and the fate of the universe rested upon the fruitless attempts to control what couldn't be controlled. Or that the universe was controlled by some pressing force or presence and that this being had deemed it necessary for Maalik to experience a testament to pain that no one should ever have to undergo. And for some reason, he couldn't shake the latter option from his mind - as if he was inclined towards the path that was most likely to tumble him deeper into the revered self-admonishment. Creature, monster, abomination.

His eyes followed the book, her hands around his, and his heart fluttered for the expression of touch once more. One he could no longer refrain from reciprocating. "You have lived, Eske..." He didn't need to choose a set of eyes, he embraced the entirety of her expression as his right hand lifted idle to touch her left cheek. "I have merely existed...I don't know what your life is or what mine might be."

It struck him that he was so quick to trust this being, as nurturing as one he had ever known. It's said that when life is perceived with the persistence of pain, the absence of it can be seen as pleasure, no matter how timid. And he wondered if it was somehow this association, the perception of pleasure in the absence of pain, that empowered her now to his attention. Or perhaps it was wholly deserved and cynicism reared it's head inappropriately. Either way, he seemed fixed. "Do I deserve knowledge because I have purpose...or because all things deserve it inherently?" Both questions frightened him - he wasn't sure he wanted confirmation of either. Dreading the answer for the query, he squinted and searched her for the keys to the door he feared opening. Its bravery. Or was that another useless thing told to him as a child? As a slave.

[member="Eske"]​

 

[Loxa Visl]

A slow, soft, rhythmic clicking sounded in response to the man's touch. Six eyes slowly closed at the sensation, leaving the bottom pair to gaze on balefully.

"Only the mortal man creates his own limitations of what he deserves and what he does not. Knowledge rises above this mortal construct. No one deserves knowledge, my dear," Eske leaned in, gently pressing the book within his grasp to his sternum, "and no one is undeserving of it. It is simply there, ripe for the taking, should you or I or any other desire its bounty and contain the wherewithal to harvest it."

"Purpose is only what we make of it," she said quietly, leaning in to speak into his ear, "we can rise above that which others have created for us to make our own. I would guide you if only for the asking. That can be my new purpose - would you give it to me?" A soft squeeze of her hands over his own upon the book, Eske drew upwards to place a bare, feathered kiss at his temple before she released her grasp and withdrew.

[member="Atham'aali'kema"]