Silence. Again. It was the silence before a storm, the silence before lightning struck, the waves receding before a tsunami, but it was just silence. That's all Adelle wanted. A quiet night with a good drink before heading back with her new clan and diving into the deep end of Mandalorian culture. She could ignore the inherent dread, the unspoken threat, and wait in the silence.
It was the silence that allowed her to finally notice the crystal as more than just some sparkling gemstone set in armor, humming with a rhythym as if alive. She could feel it in the Force.
Oh, hells. A Kyber crystal. Broken, twisted,
consuming. Like a black hole, devouring everything, warping everything. And it wasn't just the crystal that resonated in the Force. The whole
armor seemed to hiss, echo with ancient screams, in the Force. This Dark Sider was literally wearing the Dark Side as armor. Her stomach roiled at the abomination. It was as much weapon as it was armor. Adelle thought of her durasteel
beskar'gam pitted against it in combat. It looked a lot like a vibroknife against a rocket launcher in her head.
There was a tonal shift in the crystal's resonance as the Dark Sider came closer, the fabric of the cape nearly catching on the cuisse of her
beskar'gam. Adelle hadn't thought it possible for the Dark Sider to get closer without touching but apparently, she was wrong. Any closer and the woman would be in her lap. Between the forced proximity and the unrelenting pressure of the Dark presence, she started to feel claustrophobic. Adelle focused on her breathing, keeping it even, steady, watching the bartender grab and make drinks with all the ease of years of practice. Very nearly hypnotic.
"Adelle," she repeated, tasting the name as though it were wine, rolling its syllables slow and deliberate. "You offer it like a shield, as though names keep the world at bay. They do not. They are invitations."
She felt the flash of metal before the talon pricked the soft skin under her chin, pulling her head to look up at the six-eyed helm. Adelle hissed, letting the natural reaction to unexpected sharpness on delicate skin pass through her. A little more pressure and the point would pierce the skin. She was an idiot for not putting her helm on earlier. Claustrophobia or no, it would have at least stopped the incessant touching of her gods-damned face.
"You ask what made me don this mask." Her voice dropped, rich and velvet, sliding over the word mask with almost obscene emphasis. "Dominion. I wear it because when others see their reflection in it, they forget themselves."
The point on her chin eased ever so slightly only for the Dark Sider to clamp a hand on Adelle's right wrist. Loose enough to give the illusion of an easy escape. It would require far more effort than it seemed to escape the pin and the ungodly claws would do significant damage before she'd manage to break the hold. Nothing was going to be easy tonight, was it? Adelle kept her head perfectly still but her eyes darted down to her pinned wrist then raised her eyebrows ever so slightly at the faceless insectiod mask.
Really?
"You want to analyze me, Adelle?" The helm tilted closer, so close the faint hum of her armor reverberated against skin. "Then begin with this: I have no need to guess at your scars. I will make new ones." A pause—intimate, lingering, licentious. "Not on your flesh. On your spirit. Marks no armor will hide."
Adelle could almost feel the angry buzz of the armor's Dark Side resonance, like a hive of Dantooinian bees. The talon scraped across skin, leaving behind a minor abrasion. Not enough to be considered an injury but it would be an annoyance later. She stretched her neck side to side again, finally freed from having to hold one position looking up, and tried to loosen the muscles that threatened to stiffen. The bartender set her drink down on the countertop and Adelle used her free hand to reach around into a pouch for the appropriate amount of creds.
"Promises, promises," she said, more to herself than the Dark Sider, looking at the bartender. One of these days, her sense of humor was going to get her into trouble. Probably tonight even.
"You wouldn't be the first. You probably won't be the last."
Which told her some very important information. She grabbed the glass with her left hand and took a drink. This Dark Sider had no idea who Krayt was, had no idea about anything that had happened to her. Or at least, wasn't
using that information. And that was very reassuring. Enough that she could almost tolerate further conversation with the Dark Sider. Almost.
"I gave my name as a courtesy and the truth," she continued. Unsurprisingly, something that hadn't been reciprocated.
"If I wanted a name as shield, I'd have used an alias."
Adelle mulled over the other things that the Dark Sider's words had brought to mind, trying to gauge which would kick the hornets' nest, and which would walk the knife's edge and let her get out of this damn conversation. Mentioning how
inventive she'd been in making someone shut up before probably wouldn't be the wisest idea. This was going to be a delicate balance.
Darth Virelia