Private What the Fates Forgot

[Acantha Malvern]

Heavy, taloned feet ripped trenches through cobblestone streets as the beast stalked through the shadowy remnants of a once-great nation.

Naboo.

It was a desolate, smouldering, empty world now that the Confederacy had abandoned it to death and destruction. Perhaps that is why the beast had chosen to hunt here. Every corner, every street, every home, business, building, and basement was filled to bursting point with fear. Something that the beast could not ignore. Acantha did not have the strength to stop it. Nor did she want to. She had come to Naboo to find Domino, and within him, respite. But he was not there. Nobody was.

Instead, she had been greeted with the perfect playground. The beast and the shadow had been reeling since the ship had set off from Illyria. They had known what it meant even then. No meals for weeks. Not if they wanted to arrive on Naboo safe and sound. Acantha had tried to fill herself before the journey, but she wasn't permitted to hunt on Illyria. Even with her father gone, she couldn't force herself to break the rules. So Naboo it was. To find the only other man who could offer her some solace in such a confusing and turbulent time.

They did not find him there, and Acantha could not ignore the hunger that boiled in the pit of her stomach when she stepped off the ship. It was everything they had been craving and more. The shadow fed off fear, off the darkness, and from the fragmented souls who remained trapped here. The beast fed from the flesh. Naboo had been torn in two by war, a conglomeration of all their favourite things bundled into one neat little package. With such a buffet spread before them, it was likely nobody could have stopped them.

Why would she have wanted them to, anyway? The beast whispered.

I don't, Acantha answered.

Who was there to tell her off anymore? The shadow cooed.

Father is gone, she called back.

Who was there to think of her as anything but what she was born to be? They both demanded in unison.

Nobody.

A deep, growl filled the alleyway where shadow and darkness dominated. The beast had caught the scent of something. Someone. Dying, or almost dying. It didn't matter to the beast. Flesh was flesh. Its great wingspan spread, brushing the edges of the walls that surrounded it. In three heavy beats that sent a torrent of brick dust and stone up into the air, the beast took flight. The cool air rippling through its feathers ripped a shudder of pleasure through its hollow spine. It had been far too long since it had been allowed to reign over the body, and it was not going to pass up the opportunity to feed.

Damsy Callat ​

 

[Damsy Callat]

capelet+bodysuit​

Acantha Malvern​

Damsy yanked the yoke. Her amphibian starfighter veered left just in time to avoid being hit. She strained against her holographic seatbelt to see out of the fishbowl canopy. She had entered atmosphere with an open mind, considering she was flying into the remnants of a still smoking battlefield and cemetery of one of the known galaxy's greatest factions, and braced herself for anything.

Well, anything but that.

Before she could make out more than a fuzzy streak of black along the periphery, the cabin flooded red and screamed at her in monotone alarm.

: || Entering tailspin, || : the Siren's AI, Ursula, called out.

"What the feth was that?" Damsy exclaimed as her fingers worked over the console and overhead dashboard, flipping switched and pressing buttons.

: || Unknown projectile, possibly of Netherworld origin. || :

She huffed in response. She had kind of hoped the 'feds had at least cleared the major cities of hostiles.

The fighter shook with a bout of powerful turbulence. Another alarm sounded off. Damsy glanced at a display outlining her left wing in blinking red. There was too much airflow.

Shhhhhk!!

The shear of gas on metal was ironically loud. Damsy's hands shot off the controls to her already ringing ears. The cabin rumbled again and listed right.

: || Entering freefall. || :

Damsy opened eyes she had unconsciously screwed shut to glance back at the display. The wing was now outlined by solid red, with a small red in the empty middle space. She turned to look out of the window behind her. "Feth!" The wing was, in fact, gone, a trail of jagged durasteel marking the path it had been torn down.

: || I suggest you eject. || :

Damsy shook her head to take herself out of her shock. With one hand she undid her seatbelt while with the other she reached up to unlatch the canopy. The air rushed in immediately as she pushed the glass cap upwards. She maneuvered her feet out from under the console and slowly stood up on her seat. From there, she glanced around the cityscape. No buildings in sight; no where to jump.

 

[Acantha Malvern]

Driven by the instinctual rumble in its stomach, the beast paid no mind to the ship streaming through the skies above the ruined city. It was so accustomed to being the biggest thing in the sky that the only thing it had on its mind was the hunt. The delicious coppery smell intermingled with the sour stench of ash and soot. It wouldn't have noticed it at all, were it not for the sudden and demanding jolt of the shadow's senses.

It smelled fear.

Fresh, new fear that filled the beast's nostrils and overtook any desire for old, rotting flesh.

Its giant head snapped in the direction of the ship, just in time to see it trying to correct itself from the strange bout of turbulence. It needed no convincing from the shadow, but it urged it all the same as it turned its great body in the sky to set its focus on the ship instead. It was rather like a game for it. Like presenting a cat with a tin can and watching it desperately claw for the meat inside. Only this cat was far smarter and far more dangerous.

Like a bolt from a blaster, its sleek black body lengthen as it darted down toward the flailing ship. The slick coating covering its inky black feathers made the perfect streamline to attack. Its great body slammed into the nearest wing of the ship, latching on with a sharp taloned claw. In the blink of an eye, it had gouged deep trenches through the metal, littering the air around it with aggressive sparks of red and orange. The ship veered one way; the beast went the other. Despite its agile nature it still took a moment or two to turn its body in the air, but by the time it had turned back to attack again, it was met with a rather interesting sight.

The top of someone's head, poking out through the sunroof.

It was familiar, almost. Though Acantha could not put her finger on why. The beast neither cared nor wanted to remember and set itself up for another attack. Its lengthy limbs tucked themselves in as it beat its wings once, twice, then a third, before it streamlined itself again to shoot for the other wing. As the ship crept closer, the inhabitant became clearer. Acantha could swear she knew the back of that head, who could it have been? She didn't know many people on Naboo apart from Domino…

WAIT. Cried Acantha, so loudly in the beast's mind that it actually veered off course, but it was too late.

The side of its body clipped the wing that remained whole, which sent the beast itself flying ungracefully in the opposite direction. It screeched. Acantha had never affected it like that before, and never in the middle of a hunt. WAIT. She cried again, with more desperation now. She knew that face, she really did. It belonged to the only other sithspawn Acantha had ever met in her entire life. The only other person who could genuinely say they understood what it felt like. They were kin, by all logic. But the beast did not believe in logic, and this time it was not taken by surprise.

Once it had righted its flight path again it scanned the sky with hungry eyes, searching for whichever direction the ship had spun in.

Damsy Callat ​

 

[Damsy Callat]

Acantha Malvern​

Damsy almost didn't realize she had jumped on top of the beast before she had leapt back off. Its sudden midair redirection had offered an opportunity that the Siren's instincts immediately accepted. In a blink of an eye, and a heartbeat or two, she found herself on the solid duracrete of a rooftop that would have otherwise been too far a jump to. As a moment of serenity washed over Damsy, she realized a tickle in her hand. She opened the fist, worried the sensation was the first wave of a bad cut, but instead of blood and broken skin she found a single broken, black feather.

Crash!

Damsy's attention jolted back up to the cityscape. Another building, already half ruined, began to waver. Smoke rolled out of the undercut her fighter had made in the structure. Its floors leaned right first, then shifted forward, long shadow casting over Damsy's small figure.

She staggered up to her feet but didn't even backpedal a whole step before she had fallen back on the roof.

 

[Acantha Malvern]

Another unearthly screech filled the air, this time riddled with surprise and pain.

The beast writhed in the air as something heavy pushed off from its back, but by the time it had turned to see what it was, it was gone.

STOP, PLEASE. Acantha begged the beast as it twisted its head to look for the attacker.

She had never begged it before. None of them had ever begged for anything, but she was begging now. It didn't help that she knew what was in the beast's head. That she knew what it wanted to do to Damsy. In fact, it made it so much worse. She was a fool to have let herself go like this, especially when she had no idea who remained on Naboo. She had put herself and her friend in danger, all because she was a little hungry.

The beast twisted its body first right, then left, scanning the area below it for some sign of their meal. Once again, it was the shadow that found Damsy again. With a whiff of fear that filled the air when the building began to wobble. The beast snapped its head in Damsy's direction. It shot off in her direction to the tune of Acantha's begging. Every inch it drew nearer she grew louder. When it seemed like the beast would hit directly into her, Acantha did something she had never done before.

She tried to change back to her human form.

Taken completely off guard by this sensation, instead of finding its target in Damsy's side, the beast was thrown off its flight path once more. Where it aimed to knock her from the roof, it instead found itself crashing into the roof. Its great hollow body skidded across the grit and debris in the most fantastical crash landing.

STOP IT NOW. Acantha screamed as the beast skidded wildly, trying to catch itself with sharp talons. I'LL KILL US BOTH I SWEAR TO-… The beast wasn't listening. Despite the pain of Acantha trying to take over the body, it had finally found purchase on the wobbling roof, and it was heading straight for Damsy with glistening, sharp white teeth.

Damsy Callat ​