Private Whispers Beneath the Green

[Torin Emberlain]

Equipment: Greatsaber, Soul-Ring, Pendant
Tag: Valery Noble

Torin’s lips twitched — a rare, subtle smile curling at the corner of his mouth. He exhaled through his nose, the sound almost a chuckle, though it barely disturbed the stillness around them.

"It aches a bit," he admitted, his hand brushing over the scorched edge of his robe where the lightning had seared through, the flesh beneath still taut with the memory of pain. "But I’m fine."

There was a pause — not long, but long enough. Then, with a glance toward her, his voice came again, quieter now.

"…Could use a rinse, though," he added. "Maybe in that waterfall."

His tone was measured, level, but something lingered behind his words — a flicker in the way he looked at her, not forward but sideways, as if what he said mattered less than what may have been present behind it, hanging there between them. Then it was gone. He turned from her, stepping lightly over the cracked stone floor toward the remnants of the cult’s altar.

The chamber still thrummed with something beneath the silence — not noise, but memory. Intent. Torin crouched near the robes of a fallen acolyte, brushing fingers over the weave of their mask. He didn’t disturb it, only observed. They had dressed themselves with reverence. Ritual.

The altar was blackened — carved symbols scorched into its edges. Around it, small offerings: bone charms, wilted petals, burned incense now cold.

"'Umbral Bloom,'" he murmured, more to the space than to her. "'Crown of Dusk.'"

He stood again, eyes narrowing faintly at the central carving — a curling sigil that pulsed faintly beneath the stone, as if remembering touch. He folded his arms, thoughtful.

"…What were they planting, I wonder?" he said at last, his voice barely louder than a whisper, lost in the settling dust.

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery blinked once, the silence between them stretching just long enough for his words to land. A rinse. In the waterfall. Her brows lifted slightly, and for a fleeting second, a faint blush colored her cheeks. She looked away, just long enough to pretend she was focused on the burn marks along the floor, and not the flicker of heat curling low in her stomach. It wasn't from the battle.

"Yeah…" she murmured, brushing an errant strand of hair behind her ear, her voice a little lighter than usual. "The waterfall… might not be the worst idea."

Then she gave a quiet, self-deprecating huff and shook her head. Whatever that moment was, she let it slide past like water over stone. She stepped closer to the altar, her gaze dropping to the symbols carved there. They were old or meant to look that way, the lines shallow but deliberate.

Torin's whisper lingered in her mind.

"Umbral Bloom," she echoed softly, her voice flat now. She crouched beside him, studying the sigils through narrowed eyes, but the feeling in her gut didn't change. It sat heavy and cold beneath the warmth he'd stirred just moments ago.

"I don't know what they were trying to grow here," she said finally, rising again with a quiet exhale, "But whatever it was… it doesn't belong." Her hand extended, palm hovering just above the altar. The Force responded immediately, not harsh, but firm. A ripple of pressure spread from her center outward, guided by purpose.

"I don't think we should leave any traces of it."

Torin Emberlain ​

 

[Torin Emberlain]

Equipment: Greatsaber, Soul-Ring, Pendant
Tag: Valery Noble

Torin nodded once — firm, quiet agreement. No words wasted.

He rose and moved with the steadiness of habit, as though he’d done this a hundred times before. As Valery worked the altar, Torin swept the tomb in widening arcs, slow and precise. Anything unusual — bone charms, obsidian tokens, small crystals that buzzed unnaturally in the Force — he collected in silence, then shattered one by one beneath his boot or cleaved them with a measured strike of his saber.

Then came the bodies.

He didn’t hesitate.

One by one, then two at a time — slung over broad shoulders without complaint — he carried them out into the jungle’s edge, beyond the reach of the tomb’s shadow. Not dumped, not discarded, but placed gently beneath the trees. A return to soil. To silence. To whatever peace might remain in the after.

He did not speak during any of it.

When he finally returned — the last of the dead laid to rest, the strange artifacts destroyed, and the weight of the place scrubbed from the air — he exhaled. Slowly. The kind of breath that clears a space not just in the room, but in the self.

His saber clicked back into place at his belt. He looked to Valery.

"…Ready to get out of here?" he asked, voice low and steady, eyes soft beneath the soot.