Private The Tyrant and the Pale Lady [Ophidia]

[Darth Carnifex]

Dissection Laboratory, Malsheem​

Within the bowels of Malsheem lay a myriad of unspeakable horrors. Half-formed beasts writhing in silent agony in blood-slicked dens, masked men and women in robes prodding exposed flesh and nerves. Vaults of artificial beings bred only for submission, their entire lives controlled by their insidious masters. Wings of test subjects injected with horrid chemical concoctions, their symptoms recorded and studied to produce even more potent biological weapons.

Perhaps most grotesque of all were the dissection laboratories, charnel houses filled with slit cadavers and pieces of meat suspended in translucent fluid. In these laboratories, all manner of species were studied and systematically dismantled. Humans were present just as much as any alien on the cold metal slabs, uncaring doctors tearing them apart with scalpel and saw. Some were even still alive when the knifes cut into them, the gruesome analyzation of pain thresholds and the body's reaction to excruciating trauma.

Mostly, this work was left to those of the Biological Science divisions of the Kainate, but it was not entirely out of the ordinary to see members of the Family present in those grisly halls. This time, however, the laboratories were graced by the presence of the Tyrant, the Dark Father. He desired solitude, and He was obeyed.

It is here where He was found, His Sith vestments discarded from plain surgical garments, elbow deep in the cadaver of a terrifying monstrosity. It was one of many alchemical experiments that had perished some weeks after its violent birth, and now the Tyrant was rooting through its chest cavity to study its internal biochemistry. He was fixated on His work, the only sounds being that of the meat and offal He dutifully picked through.

"I recognize your step, Pale Lady."

His work briefly came to a stop, the Dark Lord of the Sith slowly turning His head around to look behind Him. All that greeted Him was utter darkness, ostensibly an empty room.

"Must you disrupt me?"

Darth Ophidia ​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

She had made herself heard, a courtesy for old times' sake.

"In all the years I watched you, I never saw you more focused than when examining flesh."

Her voice did not come from the darkness behind him. Rather, he would be able to feel her breath behind his ear as her head lowered from above, upside down like a sleeping hawk-bat. Her eyes levelled with his own as she looked at him, then down at the carcass. The breath from her voice was proof she was actually present and had not sent some illusory duplicate while watching from afar.

Her presence bled into existence as he saw her; she felt different than before, as if a veil that had obscured her true features for a long time had since been dropped and he could see her for what she truly was. Her sclera were not just dark by comparison to the molten rings of her irises, but were in fact black like ink.

"It is artful, the way you take them apart"

One of her pale fingers gestured to the long cut bisecting the creature's abdomen, hovering right over the cold flesh.

"We need to talk, about the future."

She moved, stepping back and around the carcass while her fingers ran over its marred flesh. Her fingertips were like scalpels, marring the outer layer of the cold, leathery skin.

"-About the past."

Her hand wrapped around its cancerous neck, half-way between a caress and a chokehold.

"-About enemies we have in common."

Darth Carnifex​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"And what enemies would those be?"

Carnifex placed the tools He had been clutching in both of His hands down on the stainless steel table, flecks of blood and gore dripping down as the instruments settled into their rest. Several of those tools were now bent, not far enough to be instantly noticed, but subtly enough to catch Ophidia's eyes. It appeared as though the Dark Lord had tightened His grip when she arrived, His restraint great enough to prevent Himself from snapping the tools in two, but not enough to stop Him from bending them in the first place.

He then slowly began to remove the surgical garments He wore over His casual raiment, undoing the straps and uncinching the cords which bound the stained apron to His broad, muscular chest. He then folded it, ever so neatly, and placed it on an unsullied portion of the table. He then walked over to the nearby wash basin, a steady stream of water rushing out from an inornate nozzle at His approach. With meticulously care He washed the blood from His hands, the sink running red as He cleaned.

"Would you be referring to the Worm-Scion? If memory recalls, I had lured Maliphant into an ambush with the intent to destroy him and his followers, but a certain assassin thwarted my strategy." Though His words were delivered with an even keeled monotone, she would have known Him intimately enough to recognize the anger buried deep beneath each syllable. "Or perhaps another of the myriad little spawnlings that crawled out from the Worm's bloated corpse? So many have been allowed to fester."

The water shut off, and Carnifex reached for a cloth to dry His now bloodless hands. He then pivoted slightly and fixed the Pale Lady with a steely gaze.

"Which would it be, Ophidia?"

Darth Ophidia ​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Darth Carnifex​

Oh she could easily tell he was angry.

She had always known he would be. He was angrier with her now than he had ever been in her many schemes and threats. This time, despite the warnings, she had actually hurt his belief in her. Then again, he should have known; a Sith is ultimately on their own. This was the woman who had served up her fellows and her masters when they rose up against what she believed.

This time was ultimately no different, except this time he was not the victor.

"All of the above, yet some more than others."

Her finger touched some of the creature's blood and rubbed it between her fingers as she examined its viscosity and colour.

"What I told Empyrean during your fight counts both ways."

Her movement stopped as she burrowed her glare into his back. "Things were revealed to me in the Netherworld. The dead thought they had be captured for good, what with the seal placed on my remains. And in their careless efforts to harm me, they told me about what is, were, and could be." "If your battle had resumed, then it would be the end of our tradition." "Had you won, then in a weakened state, you would be found and slain by the very same who slew the Worm Emperor."

She smeared the blood on the apron he left behind and inspected the bent tools.

"If I intervened, then the future opened up to new possibilities. It was darkness, uncertainty, but chance and ambition. It was a time of blood and darkness. And in that future I saw something-"

The very memory of it gave her pause.

"-Breathtaking."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He was silent for a few moments, allowing Ophidia's words to sink in. Long had He meddled in prophecy, collecting some of the most gifted oracles and seers in the galaxy and binding them to His will. Some believed He relied on them too heavily, that their visions were not total. There was no concrete method of determining what exact future would happen, only inference from what events were taking shape to make these futures a reality. His oracles could see into these potentials and relay what they saw to the Dark Lord, and He factored in what they say into what actions He took.

They were not always perfect, Ophidia's betrayal had not been divined. Carnifex would not kill His oracles, they were still far too important, but they would be reprimanded for their momentary lapse. "Always in motion, the future is. Regardless of what you believe, regardless of what you saw, this is the future we have been locked into. It is the path we are forced to walk." He turned to face Ophidia, His gaze cold and withering. "Fertile or fallow, our seeds are planted."

His mood was still quite wroth, but He was not one to let it blind Him to all other senses. Ophidia had obviously come here for a reason beyond the explanation of her actions, and He would be a great fool to dismiss her out of hand.

"Tell me of your vision. Tell me of this future that you have so dearly gambled upon."

Darth Ophidia ​