I awoke to a quiet beeping that came from within the ship. I saw ShaRhylla stir from her prone position next to me, and rose slowly as to avoid waking her. I moved to the controls of the ship, and silenced the alarms. It appeared that we had arrived on the outskirts of the hoth asteroid belt.

The ship had been lazily drifting side to side to avoid the small bits of rock that moved to close, but otherwise had been still. According to the records, we had lagged here almost half an hour before I had finally awoken.

I took control of the ship and guided it gently through the field, the ship making small adjustments to prevent minor impacts until finally we came to the large asteroid that I knew held my origonal home. I focused for a moment, and spied the magical barrier that hid the entrance, and gently guided the ship through the false rock and into the small docking bay.

Once the ship was secured, I moved to ShaRhylla and shook her gently. "We are here."

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Her eyes came to a stop on the hovering form of Rykounagin, who presented her with a gentle smile. Her bi-colored eyes cleared then as memory returned along with the words the young man was now telling her.

"Here?" she returned, momentary confusion once again clouding her eyes.

"Where is 'here'? Have we finally come to the asteroid to which you are taking me?"

[ 09-21-2006 04:53 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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I held my hand down to help her get up from the place where she sat. "This is the Dies Irae, and here I hope you might find similar comforts as to those in your own home." This was an honest statement. A small section of the station was made for the cults guests, lords of station and the like. However the rest was cold and metalic, made to hone and focus the assassins in their training.

"Shall I show you to your chambers so that you might properly rest? Or shall I give you a tour?"

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"I have slept enough," she said, a touch of her former hauteur peeping through her demeanor. Then she softened, gazed up at Rykounagin.

"Lead on, I would become familiar with this place," she said as she smoothly linked her arm in his.

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I walked with her to the blast door, and removed the glove from one hand, pressing my hand against the door itself, and speaking to it. "Malcina Cobridos."

The sound of locks snapping into small holes came, and the blast door slid open to reveal a smooth metal coridor through the asteroid. "Come."

I led her down the cooridor, and commenced with the tour. I showed her to where we would be staying, the more comfortable guest quarters, designed to simulate a sith lords chambers, the walls covered in trophies of kills, the floors covered in soft furs.

Once I had shown her the basic facilities in which we would stay, I led her towards the assassin quarters, bare steel rooms with only hard linen covered pillows upon durasteel beds, the walls covered in Archaic inscriptions in ancient sith.

"This was my room" I said, stopping at the entrance to a smaller cell, some belongings still inside, the black lotus resting up a small pillow, inscriptions running over the pillow and floor around it. "when I still lived here of course." I smiled faintly and closed the door and turned to her as we were before the last door. "This leads to the training areas. Not pleasant in the slightest, and not wholely necessary to the tour."

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I realized, now that we were here, I had no plan. The origonal intent of course, had been that they were to hide from Graysith and her kind. But what then? They could not "lay low" forever, and knowing my love's mother, they would find us eventually.

What then?

I sighed inwardly, awaiting a response from my love in regards to what we were to do now.

I'll have to tell her about the witch's servant soon to... it would not be a pleasant surprise to hear I murdered one and decided to leave that out of the plans details.

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"Truly, this is a most tedious place," she commented, now turning toward Rykounagin. "But one I will no doubt grow accustomed to, eventually."

A delicate rumble emanating from her mid-section lent weight to Rykounagin's final query to her; now her glance grew a touch sly, emboldened, and she lifted her head to run her gaze down her nose. The look wasn't intentionally meant to be a supercilious one, she wasn't trying to purposely show herself better than the young man, but rather was one springing from a formerly restrained glee at her own prowess.

She had a secret, and she wanted to share it with him.

"Yes, some food would be nice..."

The words fell from her lips as swiftly as the arm she then raised. A bizarre shimmer ensued, a shimmer as if the very stuff that existence was made of was being plucked, the bits then molding into something else.

The shimmer strengthened, taking on an eerie greeny-golden hue... and from nowhere a single apple fell to the durasteel upon which they stood. It rolled to a halt midway between them where it lay in an almost accusatory silence.

ShaRhylla blinked, flustered, but before Rykounagin could do anything she retrieved the apple and cupped it in her hands. Holding it out to him as though it was the fine banquet she had attempted to produce, she let a whisper of a smile ghost her lips, which then pursed in something akin to disgust with herself.

"Would you care for an apple?" she finally managed, then fell altogether still.

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I smiled as she took the slices, and walked to the synthesizer. "It's capable of making a great deal of just about any food, though I'm sorry to say it is not as good of quality as something that was... say... home made would be." I shrugged.

"It's not poisonous though, of that I do assure you, I lived on it for thirteen years afterall."

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"Thank you, Rykounagin," she said simply as she took the apple slices and popped them daintily in her mouth. Chewing, she wondered to herself why she was feeling as if treading on glass; she had powers enough to be fearless of practically everything this old universe could toss her way. But for some reason she was holding back from Rykounagin her former mein of hauteur in spite of all that had already gone between them.

She blinked, cocked her head a touch and fixed him with her eerie bi-colored eyes.

"I would love something a bit more substantial to eat. It appears that my attempt at cookery has come to something just short of blatant failure."

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I went quiet, looking back to those bi-colored eyes of hers. Eerie but always curious as they were. "Tell me something..." I said after a moment. "Do you have any intentions for your people? We will return soon of course, but for now we must remain in a state of secrecy... your mother is not the most pleased of individuals with us presently."

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ShaRhylla's eyes filled with immediate fire. She stared blankly at the food Rykounagin had dialed up, her hands clenched into unconscious fists at her sides. For a long moment she simply glowered; then with a little grunt allowed her demeanor to return to something closer to normal.

"Mother would have us rule our people, she and that weakling fool Darra, and I. This of course would never work, for from what I understand of the incessant teachings of those nasty instructors she insisted upon continually plaguing me with, the Triad must be both Dark Lords and their ladies. But three.

"Now--"

She paused, reaching out for a leg of something roasted which lay upon a tray dripping with succulent juices. Putting it to her lips, she tore off a great hunk, letting the juice drip freely down her chin.

"That doesn't mean I intend to follow such ancient silliness as Triads and such; Father, I believe, had something a bit more... singular in mind for the Sith, although what it exactly was I really couldn't say."

ShaRhylla paused in chewing, stared intently at Rykounagin over the meat she held in her hand, and waited to see to where it was he might run upon the steed she had given free rein in his direction.

[ 10-17-2006 11:04 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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I picked up a small glass of a faint purple liquid, which swirled of its own free will, and took a small sip. "She sent her pet witch to trail me, and suffice to say, her pet played with fire..." I smiled now, downing the small glass as though it were a shot.

"... and she got burnt. In the most literal of ways." I chuckled and set the empty glass down. "I don't think she'll be as foolhardy next time she attempts to force her will upon us."

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Letting her eyes cool to twin burning embers, she snarled another great chunk of meat from the bone in her hand, chewing and growling into middle space. Then her gaze softened, grew almost vacant, as if she was seeing something that he not only was not, but that he could never, ever hope to see at all.

"Do not underestimate Mother, she is stronger than you think," she stated, lost in memories both new and old, all of them riding upon the more recent one of her own failure to create the fine cuisine she had tried to make just moments earlier. Then she swallowed and sighed.

"What would you do, Rykounagin?" she asked him then, point-blank.

[ 10-17-2006 11:52 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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I began to pick my words carefully now, as it treaded dangerously. "We need something that will stop her from acting rashly upon us..." There was the slightest hint in my voice of my intent, but not nearly enough to allow her to discern. "But we have nothing here... nothing that protects us... the fact that she is not here at this moment actually worries me... but perhaps it is a good thing."

I sat upon the counter. "We should not think such dark thoughts though. We have spent the last day traveling, and now that we are here perhaps a bit of relaxation would do us good, rather than stressing upon such matters."

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"Perhaps you are right," she said as she sat her now empty plate down on the counter next to him. "Perhaps it would be best to not worry about such things as how we are to hide not only our intentions, but our very selves from Mother at all."

Indeed, there is need of this, isn't there Rykounagin?

Abruptly the darkness left her visage, and she lithely hopped up on the counter next to him.

"Relax," she repeated, scooching back just the tiniest bit. One hand left the counter; she waved it about herself.

"Just whatever did you do to relax in such a dreary place as this?"

She went so far as to grin, as if the words that had passed between them had been nothing but the merest bits of dreamfluff, meant to be whispered in the deepest of the night and then forgotten.

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Without a further word, I led her back to the guest quarters, which were well furnished, along with a few of the simple entertainments such rooms might allow for, along with the physical comforts of furs and soft cushions upon the bed and chairs.

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Blinking, she let the drapery fall back into place and continued to pace about the room. Although to a casual glance it would seem she was merely curious, there was yet an aspect of a trapped animal about her being as she moved almost restlessly about.

At length she came to a halt before an armoire, one made of rich greelwood and inlaid with unmistakable Sith glyphs and designs. An intriguing object lay atop it; without a lick of hesitation she snatched it up, turning it this way and that before her gaze.

"What is this?" she asked Rykounagin, turning about as the words left her lips to hold the object out so he might see it.

[ 10-18-2006 12:38 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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Knowing a question regarding the wisdom of leaving it in the guest quarters was comming, I beat her to the chase. "It is no shame of the cult, that one might see their workings and know of what they have done. It is a measure of pride that they can show their employers how lethally effective they are- or were, rather."

It felt odd to speak of them disjointedly, as though I was not one of their line. Well, of course I was not! I was the son of Roan, and that was what my role in this universe was.

"The device is not only a form of "advertisement" but of knowledge and skills. Merely letting your mind wander gives you a very small sliver of what the assassins were. Oh, and this..." I gently took it from her. "Is also special in another way."

I shifted several of the sections until the cylinder had thinned and lengthened to nine inches, now only a fourth of the origonal width remaining, a small black obsidian needle protruding from the end. "It was also the origonal device used to inscribe the flesh of the cult. It gave me these...." I ran my fingertips over my face.

"It is the history and essence that exists of the assassins... the memories of their elders... the marking of their children. All held in one small thing." I closed the needle, and went to the armoire, setting it back gently.

"Perhaps that seems... frivolous to you..." I spoke softly.

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"Knowing now what it is, and what it means to those who were but the pawns of my people, used against my people, how can you think I would hold it as thus?"

Now she turned to Rykounagin, looking up to stare him fully in the face.

"How can you bear it that you came of this strange lineage of toys?" she asked him, cocking her head a bit to one side in genuine interest.

"How can you stand to have ever been one whose mere role in life was to be used by others, all for their benefit and will and to no real end of your own?"

With those words she drew to a whispered stop, a dull ache now forming inside her with the recognition that she held more in common with Rykounagin than perhaps he himself imagined.

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It was true, in its entirety. I had no reason to lie for something like this, for it was a simple truth. "We are the ultimate middle men of the greater good. Death is an inevitability that we deal in, and have learned to make come all the sooner for those whose inevitability could not come soon enough. Perhaps it is wrong of us to see death as a good profession, but it is how we were born, and raised. To be a pawn is not a bad thing, if the pawn is the one put in place to checkmate the emperor."

I made the small reference to the game of Regicide without difficulty, as I had been paraphrasing a speech I had one listened to from the same reliquary I had spoken of previously.

But speaking of pawns... how must you feel ShaRhylla? How must that feel?

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...only to snap back into the harsh reality of an austere base secreted within the heart of one of a billion asteroids.

"I was used too, you know," she said at length, her voice a mere whisper, but a whisper bearing an undercurrent of solid rock.

"I shall be used no longer, not by anybody for anything. From henceforward all I do shall be for my end, by my will... or for the sake of those who I might care about.

"But not at the mere desire of another, no longer! I will be a puppet no more."

She fell into a rather awkward silence, not really knowing if Rykounagin understood all of that to which she alluded. Nevertheless, the desire within her that he know of this was strong, strong enough to make her speak thus, and strong enough to entice her to yet remain standing there by his side.

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"No one can control you, I'll make sure of that, my lady." I bowed slightly before her, hoping this would sate her need for an affirmation of her statement. "No one can control you anymore, because you have three things in your hands."

I rose from my small bow, and continued to smile, pulling my three fingers down as I spoke. "You are the Dark Lady of the sith, despite your mother's attempt to hold that position. Second, you have your father and thus, control of the darker realms..."

I pushed down the last finger as I spoke. "And of course, I shall always be here at your side."

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Here I sat, bald-faced lying to the one I said I loved, manipulating her, spinning lie after lie around her simply so I could achieve another's ends. Was it not her own heart poured out before me that she had said that she would never be used again?

Even I, one who rarely had ever felt a sense of moral duty, felt wrong at what I was doing. "I'm sorry..." I murmured, lowering my hand. "But I lied. I cannot be by your side forever, not now, not tomorrow, and likely? Not ever."

I sighed. "I was here on your fathers bidding. I loved you, but it wasn't true love as I wish it could have been. I was here to love you because he told me to, because it was my duty. Even in taking you here, I lied to you, because he demanded of me that I aid him in siring him a grandchild... to what end I do not know. But what I do know? Is that what I have done is terribly, terribly wrong."

I moved to the door. "I can't stay by your side fairly in that knowledge, so I'm going to do you one last service. I'm going to give you that seat which you desire, which you deserve. I'm going to make you the ruler of the sith, the last lady and lord."

I bowed quickly. "I must go now... and I do not think we shall ever see each other again. It is an unlikeliness in any event. Goodbye my ShaRhylla..."

I turned and left the room, walking at a swift gait to the dockingbay. I keyed the sigil and borded the craft, taking the controls, and within a few moments, I had left the bay and departed out into the void.

"It's time to do what I said I'd do two years ago." I spoke to myself as I keyed the sigils to the astrogation computer, and within a moment, hyperspace had taken the ship.

"Lady Graysith... it's time I fulfilled a promise to myself and to my love... it's time you stopped being the wicked thing you are..."

I closed my eyes, sitting back in my seat. "And became the cadaver you should always have been."

(((OOC: Rykounagin speeds off to: The Saving of a Soul in The Sith Temple, Jedi Praxium. Thankyou)))

[ 10-22-2006 09:52 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Rykounagin ]

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In those few marching seconds ShaRhylla's demeanor slid from shocked confusion to sheer and shaking rage. She didn't know who to be the most furious with: Rykounagin, for playing her for the fool as he had; her dearly beloved father, for manipulating her like so much putty in his great, clawed hands...

Or herself. For believing in either of them.

Well, no more! she seethed, the sudden returning ability to move yanking her from her statue-like stillness and sending her fleeting out from the chambers in pursuit of her once beloved. To no avail; she had only traveled a pitiable few meters down the metal-encased corridor when a heavy thrumm that was more felt than heard told her the truth about where Rykounagin was.

Leaving me. As they always have left me!

She came to a jerked halt in the middle of the corridor, her claws digging into her palms so tightly did she fist her hands. Droplets of violet blood sprinkled the floor at her sides, some managing to land on the toes of her soft leather boots. She paid this no heed whatsoever, her eyes seeing only spiralling darkness in front of her.

He shall pay... they both shall pay for this atrocity! she fumed, now letting memories of her time with Entaris rise to the fore, filling her with bloodlust and a lustier blood-hunger for revenge. She licked her lips, thinking of all she had learned from Entaris, knowing of the delights which lay ahead.

First it shall be Daddy dearest. And then that pitiful fool of a once love shall see the one he dares refer to as Father has been destroyed by my hand, and will shake in his tiny boots knowing that he shall be next...

Snarling grimly to herself, she raised her hand to create a portal... but stopped.

She wasn't quite certain where she was. Neither did she have a strong sense of where K'eel Doba lay. And to top it all off, she hadn't had much practice in the art of side-slipping space as her Mother was so wont to do.

Throwing her head back like a wild animal, the halfling let out a yowl of comingled rage and frustration.

[ 10-23-2006 09:45 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by ShaRhylla ]

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Alpha-Quarto sat hunched in his command seat, scowling at the navigation boards in front of him.

Damn the slippery little--

Grunting as he quickly truncated that unprofessional thought, he straightened up, then quickly keyed his screens to zoom out into overview. There before him lay a particular corner of the universe in all its particular splendor, a splendor marred as an occasional dark mass came drifting slowly in, across, and then finally out of his field of view.

Asteroids! he scowled further. It had to be asteroids...

Now the grunt segued into a little sigh as, ever aware of his role as squadron commander, he began searching for a trajectory that he and his wingmen could follow. His fingers danced a silent tarantelle across the various and sundry dials in front of him as he brought system after system online, reaching out into the starlit void, searching his immediate area...

Infrared. Ion flux detector. Magnetic field indicator. And radio pickup, just for the complete hell of it.

Nothing. His scowl deepened then as with a silent snarl he continued his search, now bringing up everything the Empire had on this particular little asteroid field: average of both the field itself and the known bodies of which it was comprised, their orbital periods and distances from the weak little yellow star they circled about, the compositions of the asteroids as estimated by spectral analysis. Everything he could think of, all was inputted into his navcomp in the hopes that a good guesstimate as to the possible trajectory of his prey could be computed.

A pregnant pause followed, one that seemed to stretch into howling infinity before his computer let forth a little burp and spit out some figures.

Trace indications of excessive ion radiation. Hmmm...

Now the scowl softened into a look of grim determination as, keying in the coordinates the computer so nicely provided him with he then contacted his little squad to give them the same.

"Lead ship Stealth to Blackwing. Data indicates the presence of an asteroid which is larger than 500 km across its greatest length, showing an associated ion flux cloud hanging about it. Please accept the coordinates of this object, raise shields, prime weapons, and follow me.

"Alpha Quarto, out."

It didn't take the little squadron long before they found themselves slavering about a seemingly unoccupied asteroid, one which to all appearances was simply going about its own business in its little corner of space...

Alpha-Quarto was not one to be fooled by immediate appearances. With no further ado, he dove down through the ion flux cloud, following a thin trail where the particles were a bit denser than their surroundings, and soon landed on the asteroid itself.

Moments later he was joined by his squad, all who stepped forth, ever alert for danger, eyes everywhere, radio opened, weapons cocked and aching to be used.

Alpha Quarto squinted, keyed down the contrast in his helmet's visor, and stared harder at a rock face which didn't look quite as natural as it should have. Grinning to himself, he indicated the strange wall with the tip of his blaster rifle.

"That way," he said curtly, and stepped out, his men hot and in perfect formation on his heels.

[ 10-31-2006 05:19 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by The Empire ]

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