CHOSEN

Then with utter confidence, unlike any he had ever shown -with his near phobia of the portals- he strode through the portal to face what would come....

He saw his future bride with her back to a wall, form almost seeming ready to pounce or strike at the strange sith who stood before her.

But stranger still now was how strong a feeling he had; a wish to protect her from any harm, no matter how she had treated him, or how had her in turn; not caring that she had branded him with the words "betrayer" (words that had long faded).

He growled, and in his hands were two blades at a calling long brought by the blood of his forgotten house.

The lotus and-

A new blade. A long pearl length of magestic form. He would never quite know where he had thought to create it from in the vast pools of his subconcious, but he did know two things: it's name, and how to use it.

He crossed his arms and lashed them both forewards, the tips of each length scoring across the back of this vile sith who attempted to accost -for whatever purpose- his fiance', then bringing the twin tips against his neck, stepping forwards and with a bend of the arm pressing them to his throat.

"As unforgiving as the trampled Lotus and I may be, it is nothing too the hatred of the Evictus, named so sweetly for that dark lord from so long ago."

The name itself was unforgiving, a name held by none other than the self proclaimed "Saint Evictus" who had during one of the many months of tribute to S'slan- waged war upon an entire planet, beheading and executing every last prisoner (for not a single survivor remained after the purging) taken in honor of the unforgiving god of war (a thing Rykounagin had learned from the texts in the temple of sorcerers).

"And it is with these that I intend to protect my betrothed love, and intend to destroy you with- save if you can give me one reason that I should not take your life now." He growled, teeth gritted with that same peculiarly feral nature, eyes aflame with what could only be described as loathing.

“The adopted son has come to stake his claim,” he said, his expression leveling. “Good. Time is precious, child. Your bride has awoken, and the time to prove yourself is at hand. What shall you do, boy? Rush boldly in to save her from a raving intruder? Or stop in prematurely to slay an old friend who has startled her from a deep sleep?”

The Master pushed backwards, allowing the tip of one blade to piece his skin. A thin line of black liquid rushed down the blade and pooled along the hilt, then flowed upward and over the hilt to trickle and drip on the boy’s hand. It steamed where it landed, leaving small red dots on his flesh.

“How far does your bravery extend, my lad? Are you brave enough to slay the intruder from behind?”

The Master relaxed slightly, the tip of the sword moving out of him. His skin color grew duller, the surface quickly hardening to a dense toughness.

The halfling's eyes shot to Rykounagin, narrowing like a rancor's will just before a killing blow is delivered. Her hand raised just a bit, fingers curled into a gesture of attack, and her poise tensed as though she was readying herself to leap. But--

Old... friend?

Now her eyes cut back again to the oily, red-eyed pillar of black. Something with the hideous semblance of a smile moved disconcertingly about that portion which might be called a face by some, letting forth a flash of the most singular red...

She couldn't help but shudder, closing her eyes briefly as she thought back to another red-eyed blackness of her past acquaintance.

My Dark Heart... what has happened to you?

A slight movement from one of the pair brought her eyes snapping open once more. Her hands still curled into eagle's talons, her lips raised to show her teeth, she straightened just the tiniest bit.

"Neither of you are welcome in my chambers!" she stated then, albeit in a voice which somehow didn't sound quite in the least bit convincing.

Rykounagin felt no fear, no hesitation as he spoke, ears deaf to the sound of anything but his conviction, his response as clear as the threats it was founded upon.

"I am heir to the sith, her future husband. My master is none but the will of the gods themselves as they course through my veins too deliver unto you their calls. And if I were too kill you-"

He smirked. "It would be so as I see fit. Perhaps for all your knowledge and arrogance, you have forgotten that all beings have a past to draw upon." he pressed the blades tightly against the flesh, gritting his teeth as the now tough material fought his blades too protect the life beneath them.

He watched as the Lotus- though unable to penetrate the tough material sent courses of purplish matter over the tough material, a hissing and faint popping to be heard from where it struck, oil upon boiling water.

"-friends the gods have none of, but pawns and servants they have made of us all." He pressed the Evictus harder and watched as the keen blade began to score through the almost rock-like material.

"S'slan awaits for this beast in hell, where he shall gladly devour him for daring to reach out for a dark flower that none but I shall have." He pressed harder, the blade now truely testing the tough flesh's ability to keep him from undoing the taught strings of fate beneath.

"Has the liar and fool of deciet any last wishes before he dies?"

“You indeed know not with whom you speak,” he said. “S’slan is not in Hell, my boy, and if he were, he would bow to me.”

The Master turned quickly, the tips of the blades grating against his flesh. His hand darted outward, catching Rykounagin by the throat even as the blades pounded against the Master’s neck. He did not squeeze, but merely held the boy.

“It seems my visit is untimely,” he said over his shoulder. “To honor your father, I shall leave you with your – new lover, my Dark One. Remember our times as I remember them, and perhaps my Rose shall blossom once again, and I shall tell you of my own strange tales.”

The Master tossed the boy aside, the blades drawing thin lines across his skin where thick blackness drizzled out from the wounds. His skin softening, the Master raked his hand through the air and opened a portal.

“But at least your cursed slumber is broken,” he said, stepping through. “That much I could do for you…”

The portal closed.

Did I dare invade again to see what dealings the lady had with? Or did I hide and wait for the storms to clear?

Could he have truely thrown him that hard?

It seemed unlikely, but then again, many of these people were unpredictable.

"My head..." he murmured, almost inaudibly as he began to straighten, only to feel a flash of faint agony before things went dark again...

CHOSEN

He paused for another moment, then straightened, that odd look in his eyes again as he turned towards his future bride. "That was an... awkward entrance. But I am alright rest assured. Are you my dear?"

Every instinct within her screamed to lash out at the sheer effrontery of this young man, the one who had not once but twice betrayed her, who had stolen the Finger of R'lous from her very body while she lay in helpless slumber.

And now he dares to enter again into the privacy of my chambers, coolly proclaiming himself as my--

She could go no further with that thought, it only added fuel to the raging flames of her anger. Unconsciously she tensed even further, portraying the image of a crouching sandcat ready to pounce, tail lashing had she one to lash, but claws and fangs still bared.

Yet--

What of the red-eyed pillar, who miscalled her by the name He and only He dared bestow upon her? What did he/it mean by his/its departing statements? Could it truly be Him, returned to her after so lengthy a silence, come now from the Dark Realms which she, no surprise there, found suddenly to be beckoning to her once more?

So timely an appearance by this supposed future husband, who now stood with such enfuriating self-assurance before her; could there possibly be a connection between the two?

Perhaps...

Thus, though it filled her every fibre with the most soul-wrenching distaste, she refrained from striking against Rykounagin and forced herself to straighten up. The air of impending attack disappeared before her usual haughty demeanor.

"What is the meaning of all this!" she demanded, crossing her arms and stamping her foot. She tossed her head, sending her flaming tresses billowing out about her head in a nimbus of fire as with narrowed eyes she waited to see how he would respond.

Rather, curiosity seemed to be the primary emotion that radiated from her in nearly palpable waves.

She cast a calm look upon the gibbering scorpion-tailed creature, fighting against an inexplicable upwelling of pity for the creature, then turned her eyes back to Terrin. Quietly, she approached him, letting one outstretched hand guide her way.

"We have not yet truly been introduced, but--" she began as that reaching hand touched his face...

She yanked it back with a little gasp, her wide blue eyes widening further. Blinking rapidly, she took a couple backward steps, cradling that hand within the other as if by touching Terrin it had been burned.

"I'm Terrin...Terrin Danner," he replied as Darra's blue eyes seemed to only widen further. Then, concern clouding his eyes, he continued with, "What's wrong?"

Pausing a moment at that, he looked to Galen. "And I remember...what she did," he said, unable to repress a slight shudder. "And what I did."

Quieting for a moment, he then eyed the demon, considering him now rather than pondering just how he could chop him into tiny little pieces. Then his blues returned to Galen. "If I ever begin behaving that way again, especially with your and Darra's safety at risk...

...do what you must. I'd rather be dead than to see any harm come to either of you by my own hand."

Rykounagin seemed unphased by the anger she showed. She had every right too it after all, he had indeed attacked her once before, and had now burst into her chambers with what many would call outrageous accusations and statements.

"The meaning of this? In what could you refer? If you meant the being of what I could describe as lava, I have no answer. My defense of you? The mere fact that you are most important to your father and myself is enough. The fact that I am here?"

She didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. How in all of S'slan's domain could this be so; what was it that would so suddenly change her from being Rykounagin's sworn foe, as she so certainly had been up until these last, astounding minutes? This simply had to be new trickery, new deception; it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

She straightened further, ramrod stiff.

"You bring false words atop those which bear truth!" she huffed as she lifted her chin so as to stare down her nose at him. A difficult feat, considering he was much taller than she, but a feat which she somehow managed quite capably to accomplish.

"I am important to my father, but the remainder of which you speak is nothing but a lie!"

Yet even as the words snapped from her lips a shadowy memory coalesced from gray shadows into stark imagery: the picture of her standing in a gleaming white hall, a Kaminoan corridor, her father at her back, a bounty hunter and a short red-headed female and the one she thought to be her mother standing afront her...

Roan suddenly shoving her toward the others, to disappear into a suddenly manifested Portal, she knew not where...

"There is always a bit of truth to lies, if only that was what they were." He did not flinch from her ever-present spite.

"I'll admit a part of me would love to remove your head from your shoulders, as much as you would mine. But a better part of me has dominance over that..." He smirked.

She sat up slowly and looked around. Surveying her surroundings just as the lady in waiting returned to check on Sarisa. "Who are you and where are my companions?" Sarisa asked the lady in a polite tone. She wondered if they had found the people they were searching for while she waited the response. Reaching out through the Force she attempted to sense where Master Petrolou was.

Her weekened state didn't allow her to focus enough to find him whereabouts. Taking a deep breath she looked around for her sabers. They were sitting on a table next to the bed. Fastening them to her belt and cautiously getting up from the bed she made her way to the door of the room only to be haulted by the lady in waiting. "You must rest before you venture out." The woman's voice was calm and cautious.

"I must find Master Petrolu. Will you aid me in my search?" Her eyes looked over the other woman hoping she would help out.

"I am afraid I cannot do that at this moment, lady," she said softly, ducking her head a little to soften the refusal. Quickly then, she continued.

"It is late, lady; the Dark Lady herself has deigned that we all partake of rest before meeting again on the morrow--"

She paused a moment, biting her lip as if undecided as how to continue. Apparently there was no danger in continuing along this line; letting a little rush of air escape her lips, she went on.

"Even this 'Master Petrolu' of whom you speak has retired to private quarters allotted to him; do you think it wise to disturb him at this hour?"

She blinked, once again staring Sarisa full in the face. Then she ducked her head and turned away, one hand reaching out to indicate the opulent chambers the young girl had been given.

"You have fire and hearth; there is a wardrobe inside which are the softest, silkiest robes with which to adorn yourself; yonder is a sideboard with fresh fruits and rhyllick breads; here are reading materials--"

She paused at that, as if suddenly realizing that Sarisa more than likely couldn't read one word of Sith. Nonplussed by this, she broke off from that train of thought and approached a set of heavy velvet draperies, rich with golden, corded fringe, which caressed one of the walls of the suites. She reached behind the draperies to clutch an even heavier rope, which she pulled. The thick draperies pulled apart with a sibilant hiss, to reveal an opening leading out to a great, ornately carved stone balcony. An even more ornately carved jade balustrade ran along its entire length, filigreed and inlaid with gems which glittered in the moonlight.

Turning aside, the lady in waiting raised her hand again even as she primly glued her eyes to her feet.

"Or, if you desire, you may wish to partake of some night air. I find the cooling breezes often waft me into drowsiness; in the meantime, while you wait for slumber to overtake you, you can enjoy the spectacle of Phrinnchatka spread out before you. It really is quite lovely."

Bobbing her head in a minimal curtsey, the lady in waiting then moved respectfully off, going to a nearby chair upon which she took a seat, remaining silent but ready to attend to almost any and all desires the young Sarisa might have.

All save the freedom of the Temple.

...and perhaps at some point they had proceeded that way...

...but at length one corridor began to look like another, and another, and so on. Frowning to himself, yet not entirely bothered due to his slight buzz, Jasyn listened for voices...

...and at first, didn't hear any.

Kriffing hell. I WOULD get lost at the time of the night when everybody is actually sleeping...why didn't those guys wait up for me? Oh wait, probably because I was drinking...

That thought, however, was interrupted by a sound Jasyn had been searching for.

Voices.

Perking his ears at that, he could make out that there was in fact more than one voice, and figured that he'd certainly found his way to where he was supposed to be. After all, it was late, and who else would be up discussing matters at this hour other than his commrades? So, without even thinking, Jasyn pushed one of the heavily ornate double doors to the suite open...

...and walked directly into a room not holding his friends, but instead holding Rykounagin and ShaRhylla, unbeknowst to him..

...at least for that moment, anyway.

I couldn't help but frown, shooting looks from Darra to Terrin to my drooling little unwilling familiar and back to Terrin again. He looked like he wanted to step out of his skin; I knew that look well, and shuddered.

What in Hell's Seven Circles had happened to him now? Wasn't the hell he had already gone through enough? What did it take, a contract with the Powers-That-Be, written in my own blood, to keep him safely away from harm and back in the real world?

But the scariest thing was--

How the hell did she know? What did she know?

Instantly a memory flashed into my head: that day, long ago, when I came to a then-empty Temple of Sorcerers, to find my dear sister the smug consort of that worst slimeball in the entire universe, past, present and future; the day my dear Terrin was held beneath the claws of that lizard-cat-thing of hers...

...the day that something had lashed out from me, sending all the big n' baddies head-over-hineys, so Terrin and I could escape.

I thought it had been Darra. But this enigma was later countermanded by the experience in the old Sith ship, the one still parked here in this very city (okay, the spaceport for said city, if you want to get technical about it), the one we used to send an entire solar system into who the hell knew where.

And I helped.

So what was going on? Was the lingering weirdness coming from me or not? And if it was coming from her...

How?

I shook that away; like I said, this was getting to be spooky as hell.

I finally cleared my throat, and spoke up.

"Ahh-- Darra," I said, yet uncomfortable with the idea that she was my daughter. Well, no... not that she was my daughter, but that she was my daughter and was danged near as old as I was...

"What do you feel? And how is it you feel this?"

I sidled over to Terrin where I took up his hand to give it a squeeze, cutting my gaze to his to let him know that no way in Hell's Seven Circles was I gonna ever let him die on me again.

Ever.

"I-- I do not know what it is that I feel coming from him, nor do I understand how it is I can feel this. Moth- that is, your sister, as I now understand her to be, my aunt--"

She paused the merest fraction of a second, letting the word roll about her tongue, letting the concept with all its subtle nuances roll about in her head.

"--my aunt told me that with time, and lessons, I would be able to more control what she said I was 'heir to,' whatever that means. But--"

Again she trailed, turning to Terrin with a sniff, her eyes glistening as she attempted a quavering smile.

"But what I feel in you is something that-- that, doesn't belong. It is not a part of you, it is extra, like wormwood inlaid in a diamond."

The smile wavered again, before she finished with, "I am not afraid of you, nor am I afraid of whatever it is that resides inside you.

"I am afraid for you, and for all others."

A shadowy movement from above caught in her eye then, making her tilt her head upward to where the scorpion-tailed imp dangled from the ceiling which vaulted over their heads. It's empty red eyes glowed disconcertingly at them.

"What do you know?" she asked it pointedly.

"Do not lie to us; I can feel you are aware of what has been done to this man, who is--"

Another pause, another wondering blink, one which finally washed away the last of the tears.

Rykounagin spun at the intrusion, about to call for his blades when he saw the unintimidating figure before him. "Dare you enter our chambers sir? Perhaps you did not learn the lesson of knocking."

His eyes narrowed, taking a small step forwards before catching a scent. "Ugh... intoxicated... such a pathetic way to find an escape."

Turning his head back towards ShaRhylla, he spoke as if the man was not there. "Would you rather stay and deal such a man judgement? Or would you rather ask the one we spoke of of what I spoke, so that you might find it true?"

He looked back to the man, knowing he would hear her response as he tightened his fingers- considering whether the annoyance was enough to give the man a simple thrashing? Or whether a simple blow would do for his offense.

...because the insufferably, insolent young man who was her supposed fiance had offered her the choice of dealing with the human, she therefore wanted nothing to do with him.

Grappling with her inner fires, she forced herself to yawn.

"I see no reason to waste my time nor energies on one so pathetic," she stated, wincing inwardly as with that statement she found herself agreeing with Rykounagin about an adjective describing Jasyn. Any sort of agreement with Rykounagin was disgusting enough to her; whirling about she simply stalked away from the pair, going to the doorway of her balcony where she paused long enough to call out over her shoulder.

"Nor do I need to waste my father's time and energies by confronting him with what I know to be nothing but lies from you!"

With that she flung up one hand, whereupon an ancient Sith spear, heavy with history and death, suddenly materialized in the startled Jasyn's hand. He flinched as her musical voice came lilting out from the darkness of the surrounding night.

"Do as you will with him!"

Rykounagin smirked and called forth Evictus and Lotus, twirling the beautiful summoned blades -so odd in their contrast- in his hands deftly.

"It is upon the Black Lotus, deadliest of flowers, and Evictus that you shall bleed human. Be honored, for few that are not warriors are graced with such."

He chuckled and crossed the blades in a scizzor mark before him. "Come to your death if you dare you drunken fool. Pay you shall for disturbing us- and live not long too spread word of my prescence shall you."

Without looking from Jasyn, his feral blood-red eyes looking into the none-too-sober ones of his prey, he spoke. "Then what is it that shall prove my honesty too you? Surely more than the death of one pathetic fool."

Then Rykounagin's words came to her, and that unknowable expression segued briefly into one of seething anger that he should press on as he was doing...

...to suddenly fall from her face like a stone as a thought struck her.

What could he do--?

Ahh... what could he do...

A brief yet evil grin oiled her features before she composed herself and turned back to the doorway.

"How can you prove the truth in your words? Why, my dear husband-to-be, there is only one way I can ever believe you.

"Bring me the Finger of R'lous which you stole from me while I slept!"

The words were fiercely spoken, her eerie bi-colored eyes darkly flashing.

But the lips which spoke the words curved in a sweet and seductive smile...

"Steal it I did not- nor possess it do I. But last I knew of, your father possessed it. All the more reason to go see him isn't it?" He watched Jasyn as the man clumsily held it "at the ready".

"But I warn you.... such a device is for naught but trickery. Many times have I dealt with it, and each time I have seen it- it's possesser does not come out on top. A task such as destroying it would be better for you... I would gladly deal in any other requirement then stealing it from father..."

"Now I know you truly lie, everything you say to me, ever, is and has been a lie, as it undoubtedly always shall be. How can I ever wed the likes of you? Of what good is a husband whose word one cannot trust?

"Truly, my dear father does not desire this for me; I should kill you now and be done with it!"

"Had I the ability to tear holes in time and space I would gladly go to him and ask him for it so that you might have it- or so that he could make you believe. But what you do not understand, is that you do not speak with the one that DID steal it from you. I was not alive when he-" Rykounagin almost spat the word "he". "-took it."

He chuckled quietly. "By no name do I answer save for our father's, and by no name but his and yours do I do this- so that we might prolong our speech." He turned and hurled the Lotus past the seemingly slowly raised guard of the staff and into the shoulder of the drunken man to spead it's toxins.

"Now..." he turned, unconcerned with the man as he looked too ShaRhylla, only giving a small bit of attention to the man in pain behind him.

"How easily you bandy words about!" she purred back, the inherent snarl not vocalized but clearly felt as the very timbre of her voice rippled the molecules of the air.

"How cleverly you evade the issue; is it that it is too difficult a feat for you to attend to, my dear fiance?"

"Is it that you are too weak to do it yourself?" He snapped back, a wickedness in his eyes as he spoke. "The old being stole it thrice before now, and what is it that YOU have done? Sit here and scream and rage and command but do nothing for yourself? Pathetic. But very well. Send me to the dark plane and I shall retrieve the petty trinket for you. A wedding gift I suppose."

He had not released his blade as he spoke.

Giving her head a toss, she marched directly up to Rykounagin, came to a halt in front of him.

Cut a look to his tightening hand, then moved it back up to meet his own.

"It is not a question of whether or not I can do this task myself; it is that I ask it of you, to prove your words as being truthful or not!

"Indeed, I know who has my pretty trinket, as you call it, as do I know who obtained it for him! If my father so desires me to wed you, then he will not begrudge this of either me or you."

Though her words had stopped her lips continued to move soundlessly.

Indeed she did know what she had just revealed to Rykounagin...

...but how had she come to know of it?

He smirked. "No, I don't think he would begrudge us. Send me then."

He released the sword, having no need for it if he was visiting his father, glanving back to the man- who's shoulder had turned a very nasty black.

"Oh, very well," she said, assuming her former haughty air. Sniffing, she reached out, grasped the fabric of space and time, and with a quick twist of her wrist ripped open a portal.

It roiled like living oil, dark and dank and iridescent, and from it, as if from a great distance, came the gibbering slobbers of a million demons.

"Perhaps you might need that blade of yours after all, my sweets," she purred nastily, giving her head a toss toward the sword Rykounagin had just set aside.

"I wish you the best of luck in your task... for my father resides in the Darker Realms of the dead."

He chuckled. "I may walk upon the black waters of hell and stroll across it's firey planes, but naught shall touch me, for I am his blessed.'

He turned to the portal and walked through with uttter confidence...

He is my father's blessed! Let him return to me through his will then!

She giggled malevolently, believing with all of her dark soul the very improbability of that every happening. Smiling to herself that she had gotten rid of Rykounagin, she turned away...

...only to have her gaze fall upon the stricken Jasyn.

Her eyes darkened.. then calmed a bit. This heinous injury was at the abominable hand of...him. Therefore, as much as she detested the mere sight of the feeble intruder, it was an anathema to her.

A wave of one hand... and nothing happened.

She frowned, concentrated, now closed her eyes to seek out each individual, stricken cell in Jasyn's shoulder. Finally, after much effort, she managed to at least get his immune system to begin tackling the chore of healing him naturally; she had not yet the extensive knowledge of the All to overcome Sith magicks as easily as she would have liked.

All in due time, my pet...

Her eyes widened in startlement; then slitted again as she confronted Jasyn.

"May I ask what it is that has sent you into my private chambers in so ungentlemanly a manner?" she huffed, still wanting to blast the man into tiny pieces even though she had just implemented a healing process within him.

"You're people seem to enjoy art and things of fine quality. The city is beautiful from this perspective." She paused for a moment to take in the scenery for a moment. Then a thought popped in her mind.

"Do you have a name? I am Sarisa Ker." Her voice soft in tone and friendly. This woman seemed to be genuinely open to Sarisa's querries and a bit friendly as well. After the woman replied with her answer Sarisa smiled and nodded then she shot a second question to her.

"Believe me, it was not your room I intended to enter into to begin with."

Clamming up at that, Jasyn elaborated no further as one black addendum clouded his thoughts.

Although perhaps it is not an entirely bad thing I found my way here...

...that is if I get out of here in one piece...

Instead, she drew in a great breath, let it out in a puff.

Before I so unintentionally found YOU.

"I should be getting back to my search..."

He trailed, a flash of something glinting his eyes for a moment, "Although I'm sure they'll be looking for me in a while if I don't show."

The lady in waiting rose gracefully to her feet, and came out to join Sarisa upon the balcony. Respectfully, she came to a halt about a meter behind her, fussed with her simple robes a bit, then finally mustered up the courage to continue.

"I-- I really don't have much personal experience with the Dark Lady, but I have been told things about her. Wonderful things! I have heard she is strong and powerful, a great warrioress-- she defeated the former Dark Lady, one of our blood, in fair combat to assume the full title which she now bears.

"You see, both bore the Tattoo of Entitlement, but only one could hold the seat; a Challenge was put forth..."

The lady in waiting paused a moment, floundering as to how much she should reveal of their rites and rituals to one who was a perfect stranger to them. She chewed her lip, fretting a little as the need for discretion fought against her orders to act as companion to this human female.

Momentarily confounded, she stood in silence. Then the thought struck her that there was something she could offer in conspiratorial and feminine glee, for hadn't this one stood in her very presence? She sidled a step or two closer, took a quick glance over her shoulder.

"She isn't Sith," she breathed, then ducked her head, fussing with her robes again while her eyes remained glued to the stones upon which she stood. A pregnant pause ensued, a silence broken only by the soft sussurration of the night breeze and the sounds of Phrinnchatka slowly putting itself to bed.

"My name is Leerka," she said suddenly, almost as an afterthought, before falling silent once again.

"These corridors house the private suites!" she sniffed, giving her head a toss.

"I find it extremely odd that you should have wandered here; were you not shown your own rooms? Can you not find your way? Must one lead you by the nose to seek your own den?"

With a sudden movement she glided forward, came up before Jasyn, stopped. She tilted her head back and glared up at him, not one whit intimidated by his size.

Her slender hand shot out in a flash, latching onto his temple and forehead and the bridge of his aquiline nose before Jasyn knew what had hit him. Curling her nostrils in disgust, for at this proximity the Sith brandy he reeked with was nearly overpowering, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

An image came into her mind... an image of him, swigging from a green bottle as servants came to lead him with his friends to the chambers her mother was providing them with. Another image: the group disappearing down a particular corridor while Jasyn lagged drunkenly behind...

She withdrew her hand as if burned.

"You must go out from here and to the right; follow the corridor past three intersecting ones; at the gilt-framed painting of S'slan's Conquest turn left; follow that to the third set of double doors, which will at least get you in the correct portion of the temple!"

Once more her hand lashed out, but this time to manipulate the molecules of air about the door which opened into her room. They grew sluggish, becoming gravitationally bound to one another, grew denser and denser until at last they were cohesive enough to form a type of battering ram. She made a pushing motion with that hand.

The door to her chambers flew open, revealing the flame-flickered corridor outside.

"I trust we shall meet again, human," she said, the smile of a rancor upon her lips. Then she whirled about, ignoring Jasyn as if he were no more than a mote in the eye of some distant and uncaring god, and went out upon her balcony to stare, fuming, into the night. For in that brief foray into Jasyn's mind, she had not only seen...

She had heard.

Jasyn's voice was as loud as if he was yet in front of her, speaking to her instead of to the dark shadowy one who yet remained with her mother.

"I just wish someone here would not dismiss the imminent danger. ShaRhylla is here, somewhere. Who is to say she's going to 'stay in her place' even overnight, especially considering she may even now be hearing of her mother's return?"

The wind grew colder as it set ShaRhylla's tresses to dancing, but it was not nearly as cold as the ice now hardening her heart.

And her resolve.

CHOSEN

He stepped through and felt the portal close behind him, and found himself staring at her back, the man obviously gone as it was silent as the scent of alchohol had left the chamber.

"He wasn't happy-" He said simply as he walked up too the doorway too the balcony, tossing the amulet towards her too watch as she automatically caught it by reflex. "-That you'd asked for it."

A shock thrilled her to her very core.

The House of Rean...

While she had not witnessed the event, she had one time asked him of the strange amulet he had suddenly taken to wearing. Her eyes grew as vague as his had been as she remembered back, recalling the day, the look upon his face, the way his hands had fisted, how his claws had rent his own flesh, how he spoke in reply but somehow it hadn't been to her...

He had a plan, and the plan was progressing. It involved uniting the Sith beneath the banner of Roan, whether they deemed this prudent or not. The warriors, she was told, flocked to his side, sneering at the thought of needing a Triad any more. Knowing he had their strength behind him, he orchestrated the extermination of the entire House of Rean, after dishonoring his body by defanging it, and using his powers to crystallize a drop of his blood.

The fangs, the drop; these he had incorporated into an amulet, joined with a matching warrior's stone, and had given it as promised to his love, his wife...

Kreesha.

It was to complement a set of armlets, which were to bear the ground bones of Aelvedaar, set with his fangs...

But Kreesha had died, after first being dishonored at her mother's hand. Aelvedaar yet lived.

Roan had placed the amulet upon his own person, so as to never forget... but he, too, was slain. But before he was killed, he had told her of this.

Or then again... had it been afterward?

She shook her head with a little grunt, stared at the amulet, her eyes wide with realization. Suddenly, her head jerked up, her eyes met Rykounagin's. She held the amulet out to him.

"Place it about my throat... p-please, m-- m--

"M-my betrothed."

With that she turned her back, leaving herself totally vulnerable to him, as was the way of the Sith warrioress. Slowly she knelt, lifting a hand to move her hair to one side, thus exposing the back of her neck to him.

Even I, this mind behind Rykounagin's visage- was tempted by the sight of her exposed neck.

Was it perhaps a flare of my own predatorial agressiveness? Or was it a twinge of his own true emotions? It didn't matter... he had no power of himself now....

With unwavering hands that did not betray the thought laced beneath the scarlet pools, he slowly drew the neck lace up around her neck with an almost affectionate grace and gentleness.

He slowly locked the clasp gently at the small knob of bone upon the back of her kneck. Then he gently slid his hands to the sides of her arms and gently pulled her up too stand, still with that odd and uncharacteristic gentleness.

With a light flick of his wrists, he gave her the gentle nudge that turned her too face him, looking into the depths of her turquoise and violet pools, and smiling faintly.

The bare bones of it was that she found she had to make a choice.

Had to.

It was a time to make alliegance, the time to pick a path. Three lay before her:

One, red of eye and sultry of voice, a blackened demon from realms man cannot call real, that place now existing in the deepest of her dreams, her nightmares, deeper yet, in the very cells of her memories, for the remainder of her body would have none of it, none of it, would not again relinquish the life for the wondrous joys of death.

Another: her mother, flame of hair, as her sister, pale thing she was, soft and yielding but necessary, said her mother, she who bore her, combined flesh, all three, a new Triad, something about white spiders and gnarl-trees...

And the third. Where he stood, strong and powerful, yet with her always gentle in the only manner a warrior could be, ever pushing her to find herself, to pick her own path, giving her strength and urging her to utilize it. For how else could she explain the manner in which he put her from him those times that he did? Only because he loved her as terribly and desperately as she loved him.

And so now, for him, she would do this thing.

She forced the hauteur down and away, forced back the anger and rage and awful feeling of servitude which, inexplicably, flooded over her.

"Yes, I believe you, for the sake of my Father who I trust with my life."

"That is worth nothing too me." He said, turning from her too look out from the balcony. "I cannot love you as my bride or wife if it is not your own affections that you would return."

He looked down too the railing beneath his bare hands. "You have the right too what you want-" he looked up at the city. "-it's how you get it that makes the difference. I know we're going to have a darkness between us. We'll try and get over it for our father's sake. But that doesn't mean it's gone."

She frowned at the enigma he so suddenly presented.

This change... why this sudden change? Why was he not at her throat, as earlier? Where the snideness, that supreme self-confidence, that air of princeliness, of owning it all, them all...

Even she?

Gone. A will-o'-the-wisp, a fragment of mist, dissipated into that which was, away far away. Or hidden as deeply.

But why?

Cocking her head, she found herself growing uncharacteristicly curious, the hate and rage lessening for a reason she could not begin to fathom.

"I might ask the same of you," she said simply, giving him a penetrating stare before she turned away once more, presenting her face to Phrinnchatka and the night.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." he said simply, now looking to stare out into the night. "No one would. Everyone thinks that everyone else has an agenda, a plan. So it confuses them, and they reject it when someone says they don't."

He looked back too her. "I'm trying to survive. Take what I can, do what I can. I'm an animal, a beast with no purpose but too do what I can. I try to keep what I can and when I lose it- it hurts more than what I lost before."

He paused, closing his eyes. "And even now I'm laughing because I'm pouring a heart out too someone who believes I stole the heart from someone else. So right now, my goal, my dream-"

He smiled and looked to her again. "Is too do as your father bade. Unite the sith, and create a great dominion with which he can do as he pleases. Then if and when his time passes, I'll do what I please."

She... by his side?

What new strangeness was this--?

She gave her head a little shake, the frown deepening in honest puzzlement. A deep ache began to fill her as she then turned inward, digging deeply, trying to find something to base his words against, something to make sense of their meaning which she was only beginning to understand.

She had nothing to base it against, or at least nothing immediately recognizable...

Somewhere deep inside, a little flame flared up.

What are you doing? What is happening to you...?

She promptly squelched it, suddenly unwilling to lash out, lash back, at odds with her very own character.

Swallowing, she looked down awkwardly at her hands, which to her great consternation she found to be trembling. She clenched them, trying to hide the fact, opening and closing her mouth as she tried to say something.

Anything.

I could be there, if you wanted me to...

The thought sprang up from nowhere, thumped about in her heart, in her head, her mouth, seeking egress. She couldn't get it out.

She merely clenched her fists harder, staring down upon where they now lay against the stone balustrade, suddenly afraid to meet Rykounagin's eyes with her own.

"I am to be your companion during your stay here," she explained, relaxing a little.

"You did not come with one whom you might share chambers with, so the Dark Lady thought of you by assigning me to be with you, bidding me try to answer as many of your questions as I am able."

She blinked long lashes, the moonlight glinting from her smile-exposed fangs, and finally loosened her grip upon her simple garb.

"I-- hope we can become friends, for my duties in the temple keep me from making many of my own, and you look to be about my own age.

But how had he been able to do such a thing? He hadn't trained in years. He wasn't a Jedi.

But an act of passion...

Shaking himself from these thoughts, Erik got up and dressed himself, not wanting to wake his wife...

...and not wanting to lay and drown in his own thoughts. So instead he found himself ambling the hallways of the Sith Temple once more, til at length he found himself at the little area for nightlife where he and others had found themselves before, dining and drinking Sith brandy. He took a table for himself, got a drink...

The indigo-eyed one, a squadron leader for one of the higher warrior castes, nodded imperiously, both to indicate himself and his companion. He was of high enough rank to be very aware of his own importance... but yet not quite high enough to know better than to flaunt it.

"And give that-- that--"

He floundered a moment, blinking in buzzed quandary as he wondered just what in S'slan's Circles he should call Erik. He had never before seen a human, having been kept to the Outer Hinterlands when the first of the Jedi invaders had shown their faces... only to mysteriously disappear, like ghosts in a mist.

Frankly, he had never bothered to wonder as to why.

But he did bother now to stick his aquiline nose into business where perhaps it didn't quite belong.

"That-- that thing," he went on with a sneer.

"Give that thing another whatever he's-- no, wait."

His nostrils curled, and he leaned over to whisper something to his companion, who laughed in turn.

"From the looks of his glass, he's imbibing in watered down pablum; give the thing a drink!

Perhaps this whole ordeal with you slamming the Master has you rattled. Kriping fates, of COURSE it has you rattled...

Calming a bit at that, Erik reached for his drink, picked it up and got ready to take a sip...

...and froze midmotion as the barmaid came to his table with a sifter of Sith brandy.

"I didn't order that..." he started out, only to find himself trailing as the barmaid smiled, and quite nearly laughed, right in his face.

Erik's eyes darkened, and he frowned.

He had a bad feeling about this.

"You seem to be very popular this evening," she pouted prettily, smooching her lips out at him and batting her lashes again. When this had no effect the pout turned real; nearly snarling, she turned on her heel and flounced from the table.

His eyes darkened to peridot as, laying his clawed hands atop the table in front of him he began to slowly rise up, like a thundercloud coming up over the horizon.

"I would be more gracious if I were you, stranger, and accept the gift of a drink from Phrinnchatka's finest, rather than trying to provoke--"

What else he had planned to say was nipped in the bud as his indigo-eyed fellow rose to his feet across from him, his sweeping horns jostling the other back against the booth as he turned his face Erik's way.

"No one mentions the Dark Lady in jest," he growled in dark warning, his fighting hand resting on the hilt of a heavy, ornate sword now exposed at his hip. His pal tried to rise to his feet again in support, but was stayed as the other shot out his free hand, palm out, indicating that he remain where he was.

...and though short of stature, his brown eyes still met those of the Sith warrior now standing.

"Considering I was just part of the party who helped rescue her, my wife, and Lord Phalomir, I mention her in anything but jest."

Stared at the barmaid. She merely shrugged.

Turned his gaze back toward Erik, and kept it pinned upon him as he now left his booth to come over to where Erik stood so calmly.

He loomed over the shorter human like impending death, his fangs exposed.

"I didn't know she was missing..."

The words crept out of his mouth in a whisper, hung delicately in the taut air between them, coiled into Erik's ears--

Only to be blasted from his rattled head by a hearty belt of laughter. One followed shortly thereafter by a hand slapping him upon his shoulder, nearly sending him to his feet.

"I like you, stranger; you have gumption!" the warrior chortled, now wiping tears of genuine laughter from his eyes. He tightened his hold on Erik's shoulder, slid his sword back into its sheath, and with that hand swept Erik's snifter up.

It was drained and discarded before the startled human could scarcely register the fact. Somewhat numbed by the rapidity with which the atmosphere had changed, he found himself being guided non-to-gently over to the booth still occupied by the apple-eyed Sith.

The other plopped him down right next to his companion, took a lazily smooth seat across from him.

"So," he purred as he waggled one clawed finger the barmaid's way.

"May I ask who and what in blazes are you?"

"It does confuse you... you know not what too say too such a thing. You have a deep seated inner urge to lash out, but out of some strange emotion you do not. You don't know what it is, but you know it's strong enough to let yourself respect me in some level."

This guy didn't know the Dark Lady was missing??? That must mean he either believed Graysith was dead and ShaRhylla was the new Dark Lady...

...or else he viewed Rhylla as the Dark Lady now as part of the faction which had been spoken of within the Temple walls.

Erik didn't mention this, however. "I'm Erik kartan. I'm a...."

Here he paused, trailing, struggling for words. He wasn't a Jedi, and quite frankly wasn't an information smuggler anymore either.

ShaRhylla suddenly discovered she had no difficulty whatsoever meeting Rykounagin's eyes with her own. Red his were, and something just shy of apparent tenderness...

...totally out of context with the wildfires now flashing into her own.

She drew herself up with a sniff.

"Did I not already accept you as my betrothed?" she said, albeit not quite as haughtily as she could have.

"Did I not say that for my Father's sake, I shall do his bidding, and follow his wishes?"

She paused a moment, debating whether to flounce out in her usual manner, or to press onward. Why she felt this combat inside of her, she didn't know.

Neither did she know what it was that made her choose the latter course.

"A part of me, a part I hope that shall never arrise, longs to put this-" Upon the railing by magic sat Evictus, "-through you in the blink of an eye. But the part of me that predominates oddly in contrast too all reason wants your dreams to be fulfilled, for your happiness too be a consistant thing. Do not ask me why."

He sighed. "This talk is not for the moment, as tender as a simpleton might have called it a few moments ago. What are we to do now? Go before you- our people and announce our betrothal? Or remain in shadow longer and let time pass in slow agony. Waited enough I have in the past for an event of purpose, and this my dear... is an event of purpose."

Rykounagin's strange manner of bounding from one end of the spectrum concerning her to the other was no stranger than her own waffling thoughts and feelings concerning him.

He should be dead now, she thought, wondering at the flatness accompanying that statement, recoiling at the tiny little inner gasp that statement evoked deep within her.

I should have easily defeated him, sending him to the Elseness with his tendons flayed, or put upon a Mobius-strip timeloop...

A shudder rose up at the very thought; she snarled, surprisingly enough at herself, and quickly turned away from Rykounagin. Moving quickly, she gained the far end of the balcony and stared out into the Phrinnchatkan night.

There had been times, twice now in fact, when she had stared out over the city thus, empty and aching, not understanding, not even aware, only to have something come out to her from the darkness, to take her and fill that aching emptiness...

Why would nothing come now, to stop this inner battle, to give her surcease...

She drew in a great breath, let it out in a lengthy sigh. Looked down at the balustrade, upon which her white hands rested. She stared at them, suddenly fascinated, knowing the power she had, relishing in the fact that she was witholding it so very, very completely.

Even if a part of him wanted to slice her in two.

"I-- I am at a loss; this is not the normal manner that a Sith courtship is fashioned," she finally said, letting her words float out upon the night air. Turning around, she leaned back against the stone, her hands now behind her back.

"I believe there are certain rituals to undergo; Mother would know of them, having undergone them herself..."

"But you love her no more than I." he said simply, walking inside towards the chambers. "As you know, she and I have a... history. But even I do not scorn the idea of a chance to shove her off balance as such an announcement would do so."

He looked down at the furs beneath his feet and smiled faintly. "The sooner you establish yourself as who you are too be, the better. Such a victory over her I am sure you would prize just as much as I. When I last saw her, she was visiting the temple of the sorcerers too seek Aelvedaar. After that, where she went, I do not know."

She sighed.

"While I do not necessarily require rest, at least not at this hour, I do not wish to travel far," she said, moving from the balcony to come back into her rooms. Once inside she moved to the fireplace, paused to materialize and then toss a brand on the flames.

For a long moment there was no sound other than the crackling of the flames as they danced upon the hearth.

A strange twisting of his heart came as Rykounagin heard her adress him by his true name, a thing she had never done before- always regarding him with a curious arrogance that one of her standing was entitled too.

He nodded. "That is fine. I bid you rest or relax and take time to think then. I personally have found myself restless at such a time... you do not mind if I explore?" He asked, now moving only a few feet from her, his head cocked in mild curiosity.

“I, um,” he started, “I think I’ll get to work.”

Panthar nodded at Phalomir, who simply smiled a half-smile and nodded back. Panthar walked quickly, his steps growing quicker as he drew further away and towards the door he was sure he saw the person walk through. It was not a far stretch to assume that anything around here without horns was not a Sith, and anyone like that was probably someone he knew.

And he really wanted help.

He passed the food tables, eyeing them for a second. He paused, grabbed a slice of some type of meat, and continued on towards the door. He had had popped the last bite into his mouth when he reached the door, paused, and pushed it open.

He was very surprised to find himself in a room that looked like a lounge of sorts. There was a bar, tables, chairs, glasses… even a bar maid.

Yup, a lounge.

He raised an eyebrow, prepared to turn and leave, when he caught sight of something sitting with two burly Sith in a booth. Something which didn’t quite belong.

“Erik?” muttered Panthar through a full mouth, stepping forward and letting the door close behind him. He chewed on the last bit of meat and went to wipe his hand on his pants, then remembered he was wearing new black silky clothes and decided against it. He held his hand up in front of him, raised his eyebrows at the barmaid, and wiggled his fingers, a hopeful look on his face indicating he needed a towel.

“My lady,” he said. “Perhaps it is wise that we all get some rest. I can only imagine how long you and the others have gone without sleep, and I myself feel even a trifling bit of fatigue. And there is topic or two I wish to discuss with you in private, before slumber, my lady.”

Phalomir regarded the strangely dark figure in front of him.

“And please, do not see me rude, we have been through much as of late. I am Phalomir, Dark Lord of the Armorer Clan. You are Nefrai? Well met, I hope.”

He bowed his head and smiled politely. "I would be greatly honored if you would do so."

He had too admit, the prospect of wandering these halls without the risk of being beheaded for once gave a great feeling of pleasure too his heart.

ShaRhylla smiled, a genuine, warm smile, the rarest of smiles, one she had never smiled before in her life.

One which bubbled up unexpectedly from her human side, from the warm strength she received from her mother...

...although she far from realized its source.

A strange feeling rushed through her, another new surprise:

Contentment.

Giving her head a little toss, not the haughty, sneering type of toss but rather a simple one to send her tresses away from her face, she shyly reached her hand out and took tentative hold of the one being held out to her.

There was no electric jolt. No stars burst into being, no trumpets blared a loud fanfare.

There was only the feeling of warmth, laying there against her palm.

"Come," she said, suddenly eager as she then btought her other hand up to grasp his, turning backward, walking backward, tugging him along, giddy as a schoolgirl for the feelings that were rushing through her.

“Well, yes,” Phalomir said. “From past experience, there are. But I am glad to meet you, Nefrai, and hope we can meet again when my lady and I have had some rest.”

Phalomir stepped back, next to Jharmeen once again. He looked down open her, his eyes a window showing his deepest feelings and concerns for her. His hand, seemingly of its own accord, moved to the small of her back and gently touched her there.

"Yes," she agreed simply, reaching out to take Phalomir's hand in hers. It felt warm and good in her hand, strong and large enough to take all the worries and fears from her and crumple them into a little ball.

Still smiling, she turned to the dark shadow that was Nefrai Kesh.

"Please, again, I beg you to avail yourself of the amenities we offer," she said, waving toward the nearby couch.

"There is a place where you might lay your head; if you desire private chambers, please ring that bellpull--"

She indicated one hanging along the wall on one end of the fireplace.

"A temple servant will come and lead you to rooms of your own. But for now, you must excuse my Lord and myself. For we are weary, and have yet a long road ahead."

Bowing her head to Nefrai, she turned back to Phalomir and linked her arm in his, laying her other hand upon his muscled forearm and snuggling up against him a bit.

“Not a word,” he said. “Not yet. See to the dark stranger in the dining hall, and breath nothing of this meeting to anyone.”

The servant, wide eyed, rose and nodded again, then scurried off to the dining hall.

Phalomir looked at Jharmeen and smiled, a strange giddiness coming over him. He felt the fatigue shove aside for the moment, and, although still very tired, a spark twinkled in his eye.

“Well,” he smiled. “We can’t have the Dark Lady being recognized by everyone as being alive just yet. And since you are falling asleep on your feet, my lady…”

Phalomir bent down quickly and in a flash had scooped the surprised Jharmeen off of her feet. He held her gently in his arms, her head close to his.

“And I think I know the way.”

He smiled again as he hurried down the hallway, a new wind under his feet. The silk of his black pants rustled quietly as he walked, and after only one wrong turn he found himself standing in the hallway which held Jharmeen’s chamber.

He paused at her door and looked into her bemused eyes.

"It is of no real matter, for if my rooms are bare, why, I can always create more."

A sudden feeling of deja vu rushed through her then as an image of her first night with Recinis slammed into her, the night when she had created an entire solar system to embrace them.

Closing her eyes, she forced the image away, buried her face deeper into the hollow where Phalomir's neck met his shoulder.

"What did you wish to speak of?" she asked, the words muffled both by tiredness and the proximity of her lips to his flesh.

He felt Jharmeen’s breath on his face and felt drawn to its source. His mouth drew closer to hers, pausing just as his lips grazed hers.

“Matters of great import,” he whispered. The warmth of her breath felt like a summer day upon his lips, and he pressed them against hers in a gentle kiss. Phalomir felt a release deep within his soul, as if a barrier were finally lifted – a barrier which had retained the passion and burning desire he had held in check for so long, never allowing it to escape and betray the hope that fueled his existence. But now it erupted from him, flowing freely and manifesting itself in his kiss. His lips found hers again and again, and somewhere within that moment his feet had somehow moved them to the bed, where he now sat with Jhameen still cradled in his arms, allowing herself to be free in that one instant with him.

All thoughts of the danger they faced, the darkness hiding in the distant shadows, and the painful actions they would be forced to take, all of that slipped away into the night as Phalomir and Jharmeen embraced. Her hands glided over the smoothness of his shirt as his own hand lovingly caressed her glowing face, touching the skin near the softly glowing glyph on her forehead.

“In this moment,” he whispered near her ear, “and every moment hence, you are everything to me. You brought me from the dead, my lady, can you feel as I do the bond which we share? I do not say this lightly, my lady, I am yours completely.”

She opened her eyes, staring up into two intensely glowing green ones, felt every bit of her being for the first time strangely cherished, something none other than perhaps Recinis had ever given her, and if the latter were the case it was long, long gone.

A sudden memory raised its face: Phalomir telling her who she was to him, who she always had been to him.

That means nothing, for it cannot; I have not lived it yet, but-- did he not say we had a son? Were those words true or misconstrued by the manipulations of darker beings?

It didn't matter. What mattered was this moment, this moment, one which stood as a springboard, a new pathway toward a future she never dreamed she could fully reach.

Perhaps we will have a son at that-- she thought as she drew him close, the fingers of one hand making an idle motion behind his head to suddenly transform her chambers into the grove of gnarl-trees on Dagobah. Recinis, Aelvedaar, Roan, Wicked; all were there, all turned their backs, displaying once again the weaponry they had held.

All faded away, mere will-o-the-wisps, dreams soon to be forgotten.

The mists grew dark then as the Dagoban sun set, and the Chosen Daughter of the Sith relished her new life with her own Chosen Lord.

Without her chambers, a passing servant paused, startled, to hear the racous cawing of a night-bird coming from the room. He shrugged, continued on his way, extinguishing the wall sconces as he travelled that the private section of the Temple might at last be put to bed for the night.

The grass in the distance moved quickly for an instant, and then parted as a very young boy stepped through the knoll. He smiled a boyish grin, his small spike horns seeming to sparkle in the silver light. The boy giggled and ran back into the woods.

“Harming ladies not in plan, not for yous. Being harmed, that in plan. Roan not bright, but him crazy and him good at using peoples for himself. People thinking him dumb, but him dumb like black white. Icky demon daughter lady can not make heir – must not make heir. Roan use you to make sure she make heir – not knowing how, but knowing you part of it.”

The imp jumped to the floor again and looked from Terrin to Galen with deep eyes.

“Icky demon daughter lady must not make heir with idiot boy. But she must not die – having icky demon daughter lady in homeland with Roan not good. Give her other wants, other needs, take her aways from Roan. That buying time, time to does what needs to be does.”

The imp’s tail stopped moving.

"Idiot boy?" he queried, arching an eyebrow. "Who the kriffing hell is idiot boy?" And as for destroying Roan...

...he's already dead, what else can be done to stop him?"

Both arched their eyes in utter surprise, and Matt spoke up.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, indicating Jasyn's shoulder.

Jasyn sat, shaking his head even as the Jedi came to tend to his shoulder.

"He did something to it," Jasyn replied, scowling. "It's better now that she did something to it," he continued, drawing another pair of surprised looks. "ShaRhylla is here, lurking. And she is with another, a male who is not Sith, but who speaks of some sort of issue concerning Roan, as though he has had dealings with him. ShaRhylla doesn't believe this guy, whomever he is...

...but who the kriffing hell would be here anyway? There's an Imperial blockade out there, and I doubt he got past it without some sort of Sith influence. I don't know who he is..."

He smiled faintly as they exited her chambers, their hands now hanging low, fingertips gently touching in a very slight show of what some would call "affection".

They walked in silence, Rykounagin's eyes peacefully gazing over the workings of the temple that he saw.

Strangely she found similar bonds between herself and Leerka. Though they were faint ones at that. Yet, hearing of how Leerka is kept away form others due to her duties or whatever they have her do, reminded Sarisa of how the Jedi do similar things. Little time for making friends when you are keeping to your studies of the Force, combat skills and etiquette.

"I understand what you are saying. I don't have many friends either. I would welcome a new friendship. One can never have too many friends. Never know how they might help you out in the future. Whether it be just their continuing moral support or helping out in some other way." She smiled again at Leerka and offered her hand to shake Leerka's hand (should that be their custom that is). Sarisa had a look of being unsure at her offering.

“Hey,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

Panthar smiled the flashiest smile he could muster and pointed to the rag on the counter.

“Do you mind if I use that to wipe my fingers? Got some meat juice on them and don’t want to get any on my, um, clothes. They look expensive, don’t want to take any chances, you know?”

Phalomir chuckled, hoping she would mind as he reached for the towel.

...and obtaining it, deciding what to do to keep ShaRhylla busy here, and destroying Roan will require that we all come up with a plan together with the others...

...who hopefully are all currently doing something we need to do ourselves."

"A force user?" the one with the indigo eyes finally asked, tossing some chips into his fanged mouth with a crunch.

"I'm afraid you have me at odds, my good fellow!"

The other Sith seemed to choke at this, before finally releasing his suppressed laughter in yet another raucous roar.

"And, and--" he chortled, wiping a tear of merriment from his green eyes.

"This Shayla person... are we supposed to be impressed?"

His companion returned his bark of laughter with a rising one of his own.

Meanwhile, at the bar...

The barmaid looked down her nose at Panhar, which was not an easy feat for the fact that the Sith body he occupied towered above her. Sniffing, she snatched the rag back from him and after giving it a disdainful shake began to wipe down the counter.

"I don't care how much your robes cost, Sir; what I do care the cost of are the libations that we offer here.

“Whoa,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by that! I didn’t buy these, they were just handed to me, and I don’t have any clue as to what they cost. I just meant I didn’t want to get anything on-- oh, never mind.”

He sat on a stool at the bar, propping his head in his hands, a dejected look on his face.

If there was one thing he didn't like...

He kept himself in check for the moment, however. "Shayla is the Dark Lady's chosen sister," he answered an edge to his words. 'And speaking of whom, I should be getting back to her. I don't want her waking alone."

The hearty laughter disappeared in a flash, and the atmosphere around the booth simply crystallized. The two Sith warriors kept their eyes pinned on Erik, but the looks they cast upon him were anything but pleasant.

The indigo-eyed one shot a quick glance toward his buddy, who immediately returned a brief nod. The former then slid from his seat, coming around to stand beside Erik, effectively blocking him in the booth.

Both warriors' eyes darkened further.

"You are married to a Sith?" the indigo eyed one growled, his hands on his hips as he stared down at the seated Erik.

A meaningful silence ensued...

Meanwhile, at the bar...

The barmaid shook her head with a sigh.

"Where have you been, sir? Out in the Hindlands of Korris'ian, fighting tuk'ata? Or perhaps readying yourself for the upcoming Blood Hunt?"

A blank stare was her only reply; she sighed again and went on.

"As is usual, a tab is run and paid every fourth-cycle by a direct withdrawal from the Warrior's purse, in your name, from which the remainder of your pay is then--

"Why am I telling you this? Are you totally ignorant? Sir, if you do not wish to order, then please vacate your seat to those who do."

The reaction to his mentioning the Dark Lady, the lack of knowledge regarding what a human even looked like...

...these guys were obviously back 4,000 years ago. Which would also explain why they had never heard of Graysith's chosen sister, or any of that.

So getting out of this sitaution wasn't gonna be easy...

"Look, guys, I think we're having a huge misunderstanding here. Perhaps if you spoke to one of your superiors, we could clear this all up...?"

I hope...

“Well, actually, I am not with the Warriors. I travel with Lord Phalomir, the new Dark Lord of the Armorers. The Dark Lady Graysith and he have been, um, doing things… to… um, to rebuild the Armorer Clan. I am his personal assistant, though tonight he is off getting some sleep, and I don’t think he needs help with that. I’m pretty buzzed, though, and I’m not sure why. I couldn’t sleep if I tried, and I was hoping maybe a little brandy would help me out.”

Panthar smiled his best smile at the barmaid. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement of the Sith with Erik, and he turned his head to see what was happening.

...and even in slumber, Shayla began to toss and turn in response to the disquiet now seeping into her mind's eye, and even more so into her very essence.

Something was happening. Someone was there.

But who?

Pulling away from the deepest wavelengths of sleep, Shayla's mind became just cognizant enough to began to try to analyze the strangeness. The specters remained distant, foggy, but began to take the shape of humanoid, horned beings whose skin seemed to be quite red...

Sith?

But it wasn't the blurry images of the Sith which caught her mind's eye. Her inner ear heard the sound of a not-quite-voice, one that somehow seemed familiar to her.]

A step closer to wakefulness, yet still in slumber, Shayla tried to reach out and understand,her innate Force abilities registering the pecularity and familiarity.

And in that moment, the flash of something evil, something dark and sinister, grabbed her very being. A large Sith-like creature, all-too-blurry to distinguish, laughed and chortled, its red eyes--its only recognizable feature--nearly boring through her.

Whether or not Shayla's scream was real or the stuff that dreams were made of, someone heard her. The brush of familiarity followed once more, as well as a more discernable voice.

She did know that voice.

The fog lifted slightly, and the image of the horned, red-eyed being faded. All that remained was the voice.

Shayla relaxed slightly, stretching out once more, this time inwardly calling a name, the name of someone who once said the Stargazer was the key.

But why and for what reason he thought or knew this, Shayla did not understand.

Thoran?

"Why, I--" she began, her bi-colored eyes growing a bit vague as she looked backward in time.

To tell the truth, it really wasn't a lengthy period to peruse.

Jerking her focus back, she smiled sweetly.

Visions came to her, creeping forth from a dark hollowed place in her psyche, visions of blood, hot and intoxicating, blood pouring from a slitted throat into her eager mouth...

She blinked, her smile sweetening even as her eyes darkened just a fraction.

"A drink sounds appealing; let me take you to the place where warriors go to engage in their revelries after battle."

Revelries after battle-- what revelries? What battles? From what innate, inherited memory did that concept spring from? For indeed, never in her entire brief span of life had she ever known of any fighting occurring, let alone a major battle.

She blinked away the incongruity as with a smile still sweetly planted upon her pale face she took a firm grasp of Rykounagin's hand and led him swiftly through the corridors of the temple. On and on they travelled, passing silent doors which held even more silent secrets behind them, the occasional wall sconce sending strange and misshapen shadows to dancing upon the passageway. Gradually, they came out of the private areas and into the light, corridors now growing wider and ones whose walls bore more sconces, all lit.

In the distance was a great set of double doors, those leading to the Great Foyer. Just in front of them, set in the wall of the passageway, was another set: ornately carved and inlaid with precious woods and gems. Its dark, glistening wood bespoke of ages past, ages holding yet more secrets of their own.

ShaRhylla had no inherent respect for such things. To her the doors were simply doors, the jewels pretty things to beckon one to enter, where one might find food and companionship and drink.

"Here we are," she said unnecessarily as with a light touch she pushed the doors open and led Rykounagin directly to the doors in the back, those which led to the little lounge tucked cozily therein.

She did not even bother to take notice of anyone else in the Dining Hall, so intent was she upon showing Rykounagin this, the latest "treasure" she could offer.

"Right," I said, yawning again.

"We've already determined that getting the Finger was a prime objective, but trying to tackle it now, without resting or eating or anything like that, is just plain foolish.

"Yeah, ShaRhylla's here, and she's all dark and nasty and we have to watch out for her--"

Memories made me choke momentarily, as visions of what evil she had stricken us with in that infuriating, evil yet light-hearted way she had came flooding into my mind. Pursing my lips to shut them up, I forced myself on.

"--but her mama, dear ol' Sissy-poops, is here too, and on our side."

Well, at least for now...

Turning to the silken bed which beckoned so sdeuctively, I called out over my shoulder.

"I'm hitting the sack; look, Fido, you can go curl up in front of the fireplace or something, or maybe make yourself useful and go out and see just where ShaRhylla is, and what she's up to.

"But if we don't get some rest and replenishment, we won't be able to stand up against a womprat, let alone Roan and his league of nasties--

"Or the Master," I ended uncomfortably, wondering if he was still beneath the chronotic shield the Sorcerer Lord had imprisoned him beneath.

Even though logic said yeah, yeah he was, one of my unexplainable hunches reared up, waving its little red warning flag for all it was worth.

“Is all well, then,” it said. “You needs restings, I needs not. I do yours wishes, I finds the hell-bitch daughter.”

The imp jumped from the wall.

“If your living through night, I finds you when daylight hurts my eyes.”

The imp scurried off in a flash into the hallway, jumping immediately for the shadows of the ceiling. It paused and sniffed the air, turning its head to catch the flowing air currents. It moved like lightning down the hall, still clinging to the ceiling, pausing at every intersection to sniff the air. It paused at a large set of doors, slightly open, and breathed in deeply.

“She comes,” he hissed under his breath.

The imp dashed through the open doorway. Once inside, it scrambled up the taller wall and crouched in the corner shadows, hiding. Within seconds, his quarry passed through the very same doorway, towing the idiot boy with her. He waited and watched as the pair moved quickly through the dining hall and passed through another doorway on the far end.

...then turned to look at the aforementioned bed with its silken sheets.

Ahhh, now this was familar. How was it the saying went? Same song, second verse? Or was this the third or the fourth?

But dammit, this time the song was going to continue on an entirely different note.

Turning to Galen then, he nodded in agreement, smiling a bit at that. "Yeah," he admitted then, "Hitting the sack is the best idea I've heard in...

He admired the new chamber for all of five seconds before commenting upon the chamber that they had passed through.

"Strange other guests you seem too have in your home." But without further adress, he went too the small buffet too pour two crystal glasses with drink, too return too her and hold out a glass for her too take.

It was her, here, now.

Erik blinked, trying to cover his initial reaction. Well he recalled instances in the past when he'd been around her before...

... but who in the Fates was that with her???

Erik eyed the two Sith, who had also turned to look in the direction of the newcomers.

Now was his chance to find out just who they thought the Dark Lady was.

The indigo-eyed warrior cast a briefly reverent look ShaRhylla's way, then settled a meaningful gaze upon Erik.

"Take a care as to how you refer to our Dark Lady," he rumbled in warning before cutting his eyes back toward the others. A frown creased his brows.

...at least, mostly. And then he decided to run with a thought that popped into his head, for better or worse. "The former Dark Lady kept the company of humans as well, you know."

Leerka pulled her hand away and let it fall to her side.

"I am a lady-in-waiting; I attend to the desires of the Dark Lady and her entourage," she explained. She looked into Sarisa's eyes, only to see puzzlement reflected there. Frowning in thought, she struggled on.

"It was the desire of the Dark Lady that I become companion to you, to answer your questions, to show you our temple, to introduce you to our way of life.

"So, the way this works, then... I would need to charge to the Dark--"

The door to the lounge opened again, and Panthar turned to look at the new occupants. His surprise was only slightly stifled, and he quickly turned his head back to the bar maid.

Holy crap, it's that guy who stole the Finger! What in the blazes is he doing here? From the looks of it, here for a hot date. But if he stole the finger, and now Roan has it... then he either gave it to Roan or Roan took it from him. Since this guy is still alive, I assume that Roan didn't force it from him. But this is not making a lot of sense, why would he be showing his face here? Wait! He must not know that Gray is alive, that has to be it! And he is here to -- to what? To find a cute floozy and move into the temple? Ha! Naw, if he was in league with Roan then he'd probably be under Roan's control, to somehow influence things for the big guy. And if I were Roan, the place I would start would be right at the top, by getting control of the Dark Lordship for real. But that position is being usurped by ShaRhylla, who would be human. This lady looks more like a weird cross between a girl and a demon... sexy demon, but still. So here is that kid, walking through the temple like he owns it, dragging along some demon chick from the Darker Realms, thinking he can just walk right in take over? He'll probably be making a move to kill ShaRhylla or something, which wouldn't break my heart, but that would somehow benefit Roan and make Gray pretty sad, too. So what do I do?

Panthar chewed his lower lip, then looked at the bar maid.

"Hold that thought," he said, winking.

He slid quietly from his barstool and walked to the table where Erik was sitting with his new friends. He stood at the end of the table and leaned in slightly.

"Hey," he said to the nearest Sith. "Greetings, guys. Is this human bothering you?"

He winked.

The indigo-eyed one swept his deep, dusky orbs up and down Panthar's hulking form, noting the sharp curve of his horns, the glistening tips of his razored claws, the innocent look in his eye...

He snorted, throwing himself back into his seat again.

"Be my guest," he growled, following this by snatching up his empty glass and waving it about. The barmaid appeared as if by magick, jostling Panthar a bit to one side as she batted her hot pink eyes at the indigo-eyed warrior.

Another magickal event: the empty glass was suddenly replaced by one brimming over with intoxicating Sith brandy... one which brought along its friends as two more brimming glasses materialized in front of the apple-eyed Sith and Erik as well.

There was even a glass sitting on the end of the table in front of where Panthar stood. It shimmered verdantly at him.

The barmaid batted her lashes again, and then directed a sweet stare to all present.

"Let's keep it friendly, boys." But only her eyes were smiling as she directed a glance into each and every pair of before her, going so far as to tap Panthar on his shoulder so as to directly stare into his face too.

...but the Tattoo was no longer just that of the Sorceror's clan, as it had been in her past dreams. The tattooo was very similiar to that of the Sorcerors...

...and the warriors...

...and the amorers as well. The Sith again beckoned, his look troubled, sad ,intense. And quite suddenly, for the first time ever, Shayla heard threee words whispered from the Sith, or perhaps just from the wind.

But somehow Shayla knew it was more than the stuff dreams were made of.

She needs you, it whispered. It is your True Potential...

... She needs you...

And at that, Shayla sat straight up in bed, her greeny-blue eyes suddenly clear and alert.

Who needed her? Something was going to happen...perhaps it was already happening?

Shaking herself from her thoughts then, Shayla turned to look at the empty spot where Erik should have been sleeping.

She frowned at that, sensing something else not quite right, and got up from the bed, dressing herself and heading out of the room altogether to trace the one person she would want to talk to about all of this, the one person who wasn't there.

Her husband. As she traversed through the corridors of the Temple she found herself winding through to the Dining Hall, then to the back doors where the lounge was.

He was there, she could feel him. And he was....

...angry?

Frowning again at that, Shayla opened the doors leading to the lounge, stepped inside...

...and froze as her eyes landed on the sight of her husband, surrounded by two sitting Sith, and one very familar standing one.

"You know," He said, smiling as they took their joint sips of the brandy. ", We made quite the appearance I do believe. So why is it that you have secreted us away here? Are you afraid of the masses? Or am I just that handsome?"

The vain final comment was said lightly, with little too NO conviction as he took another sip, already finding himself, miraculously, developing an anti-taste for the addictive liquor as he set the goblet down.

"Perhaps it ruins the mood we have so delicately created, but I wish to speak of buisiness." He sat upon one of the many cushioned chairs, and watched as she naturally did the same.

She set the glass upon the table with a definitive thump, then arranged herself nicely against the pillows of the private booth they were seated in.

"Oh, I suppose we will just go through the Bonding Ritual, as do any others when they formally mate," she said breezily, one hand reaching up to toy with a tendril of her hair. Her eyes moved to the wrist of that upraised hand, studied the sigil emblazoned there, glittering and black.

The twinned mark of the Houses of Recinis and Roan.

"We shall lay wrists upon one anothers', thus sharing our Tattoos of Entitlement -- you do bear one, don't you?"

Interrupting herself with that she peered intently at Rykounagin, but catching a quick glance of the marks he bore, she settled back with a grunt of approval.

He smirked. "Yes, the hastle that they are indeed. Still, challenging your mother will be quite difficult... and well, I dare not challenge your father- shade or not."

Laying his arm gently upon the place between them, it seemed clear he acknowledged the idea of mixing the marks. "of course as you know, entitlement is just but one of the marks I carry." It was a thing one quickly forgot while in his company, but he was still traced from head too toe with tattoos, save his face where they had somehow receeded.

"Still, I have confidence in your ability to usurp your "mother"." he chuckled at the irony that it would be his fiance and her daughter killing or besting her, rather than any other way of him doing it.

“Friendly is good,” he said. “I’m all about friendly. And thank you!”

Panthar took the glass in hand and raised it into the air between the two Sith in the booth.

“Here’s to long life, good friends, and hoping to hell that you’re doing the right thing”

He lifted the glass to his lips and slammed the contents, then set the empty glass down heavily on the table. He then felt a sudden warmth take over his innards, and slid less than gently down into the booth next to the indigo eyed Sith.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute. This, um, human has some worth to me.”

Panthar leaned into the center of the table, closer to Erik.

“You see that couple over there? Isn’t that the guy who stole the Finger from the Dark Lady? It looks like he’s brought something with him from the Darker Realms.”

A bubbling began in Panthar’s gut, and he could feel the impending need to belch. He turned his head away from the others and let loose with a short blast that seemed to kill all living organisms in his mouth. He winced and looked around to see if he had attracted attention. Fortunately the boy and his demon lady were engrossed in one another, and the only other patron had just entered the doorway and was too busy looking around to notice.

He turned back to Erik.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a drink.”

His mind switched gears, the image of the person in the doorway finally hitting. He turned his head back to the door, and sure enough, it was Shayla. He blinked several times, opened his mouth as if to speak, waved his fingers at her, put one to his lips, then turned back to Erik.

ShaRhylla grinned, albeit a touch shakily, and her eyes darkened with a deep, darker emotion that tried to claw its way past that smile.

"He's dead."

Now she stared down at the tabletop, directing her next comments toward it.

"The one who killed him, this-- this Phalomir..."

Again she cut herself off, biting the words sharply between her fangs.

"As far as I know there is no Dark Lord of the Warriors at the moment. Not a true one, at any rate."

She raised her head, stared Rykounagin straight in the eye.

"By challenging and defeating Mother, I would become Dark Lady--"

Since my ruse failed... she thought to herself.

"--and by bonding with me you would become Dark Lord, with no one to challenge you."

Giving her head a little nod, she took another sip of her drink. Her bi-colored eyes roved down from Rykounagin's face, staring over the rim of her glass to fasten upon his arm which he laid upon the table. A portion of it was exposed; setting her drink down, she then reached out and began tracing one pearly claw along an unfamiliar sigil.

"What do these marks mean?" she asked, lidding her eyes as she stared up at Rykounagin once more.

"I know these are of meaning to the Cult Assassins, quaint beings that they are and of no concern to me--"

She paused abruptly, her eyes widening as she realized the faux pas she had just made.

"I mean, the others have no meaning to me; it would appear that you are making a bit more of an impression than ever you did."

A new look crept into her eye, one coy and bashful and alarmingly dangerous. Catching her lower lip between her fangs, she cocked her head, her eyes now flicking upward. Her next breath caught in her throat.

"This should have no further meaning as well..."

The move as swift as it was unexpected, she reached out and began to trace the mark she had placed upon Rykounagin's forehead. Her touch was feather-light, yet burned with the fury of a distant sun.

When she removed her hand, the brand was gone, leaving a strangely pale and vulnerable spot upon the lad's face. She eyed her handiwork a moment, then boldly stared Rykounagin straight in the eye again.

"Tell me more of these others," she repeated, softening the command into a request as she continued to idly trace the strange markings upon his arm.

As her finger reached each new marking, Rykounagin began to relate the meaning of the different markings too her.

"The first one was of entitlement too my Lotus, the sigil showing that I had master the summoning and usage of said sword. And that one there is one of the many that represents a member of the ancient clans, and that-"

He paused as her finger traced another: "Is too honor the origonal sith who gave us the power to use the magics of his abandonned people. The next one represents the first two of my extremely long line, who formed the first bloodbonded creation of the cult."

He continued at this for quite some time, smiling faintly as he shared old and forbidden things with this curious woman he now seemed to be readying to share his life with.

"But that one..." He said, slowing as her finger came to a circular spiral along his right elbow. "...I do not recall."

A sudden silence ensued, one swiftly filled by the murmurs of the other patrons, and the muted clink of glasses. Then she tossed up her head, tossing her hair again and sat back.

"Father must have some sort of.. plan, for him to have sent you to me with the announcement that he wished us to wed," she said in introduction. She pinned her fiance with a steady look.

"Did he say anything of this to you when you-- visited him in..."

She came to a stumbling halt as the meaning of what she was saying came crashing into her brain.

Her dear, beloved father was dead. Yet Rykounagin had apparently spoken with him. He had the tattoo of the House of Roan upon his wrist as proof that he had met with him--

But... when he had first come to Phrinnchatka, before she knew that her father was dead, hadn't he claimed to be the son of Lord Aelvedaar? Wasn't that what he had told her?

A genuine frown of puzzlement creased her features as she spoke up once more, bringing these incongruities to her future husband's ears.

"How can this be?" she finished, not being baughty or imperial in the slightest.

"For my father is dead-- I do so miss him..."

"A complicated tale it is I can tell you... But I am sure you will meet with him soon, and he shall be glad too see you- dark lady of the Warriors." He smiled and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers gently.

"I am sure he wishes he could join you on our bonding day, and the day that you ascend too ladyship, but he is locked in that realm. A pity, but a truth."

“That’s not Graysith,” he said absently. He turned back to Erik with an inquisitive look, then his eyes widened with realization.

“Oh… OH!”

Panthar leaned in and pointed his finger at Erik.

“You mean it’s that little usurping needleworm daughter of the Dark Lady?”

Panthar could feel the heat rising from the Sith sitting next to him. He turned to the warrior, a nonchalant look on his face.

She let one hand drift up to lightly touch his face in turn.

"I-- I feel you never have..."

Just as in the case of a geyser, a violent eruption was imminent.

Luckily, the lumbering Panthar had managed to stumble upon words to put the lid back on the pot again, if only momentarily.

The indigo-eyed Sith flowed smoothly to his feet, his sword appearing as if by magic at Panthar's throat. It was pressed there quite steadily, for the warrior's other hand had the other behind the head, pushing his throat against the naked, shining blade.

"Haven't I heard what?" he growled, his fangs glistening.

"No one speaks of the Dark Lady with such disrespect; speak the words you hint at, fool, and you shall be allowed to live a few precious moments longer!"

Panthar blinked, shuddering a little.

"Does he speak the truth?" he asked Erik, though his eyes never left those of the Sith in his hands.

"Does the former Dark Lady truly live?"

On the other side of the booth the apple-eyed Sith shifted a little, and a wicked-looking knife found its way first to his hand, then to Erik's throat. As if mimicking the other, the warrior quickly placed his other hand behind Erik's head, holding it steadily against the blade, while his eyes burned like green fire into those of the jedi.

The entire tableau remained frozen, caught between one moment and the next... and what the next moment would bring with it was anybody's guess.

He smiled faintly as he responded simply, in a way that showed that there seemed to be no other way to have truth: "Some of us are not made to cry."

The moment was tender, honest- a thing that seldom ever occured in the best of couples, and in this one-?

Impossible.

He looked into the curious pools of her eyes for a moment, then closed his eyes and looked out to the bar, and saw another human, and three sith in some sort of... tensed situation.

She doubted Erik or Panthar had intentionally brought this upon themselves. Still, there were two sides to every coin. What had upset the Sith so much?

"Let them go, please," she then spoke up evenly, surprisingly calm. "What have they done?"

Knowing it would be a foolish and altogether dangerous move to try telekentics on the Sith's swords, Shayla merely stood unmoving then, considering just what else she might do to get her husband and Panthar out of this predicament if the Sith refused to back down.

The indigo-eyed one only darkened further. He loomed over the table like a thundercloud, staring at each and every one present before turning to take in the form of the newcomer.

A young woman. Weak.

Dismissing her, he turned back to the others with a snarl.

"Why should we believe the word of a non-Sith?" he growled at Erik before he turned once again to Panthar. His fist tightened into a knot against the back of his head.

"And you-- I don't know what you are; you are no warrior, that is a fact!"

His lips curled in derision and he spat directly into Panthar's face.

Panthar blew out with his lips, this making a floppy “brrrrrrr” sound as the air flapped his lips about. A small bit of spit landed on the warrior's neck.

“Hey, will you please take this sword down? If I’m no warrior, then I don’t pose a threat to you, right?”

Whatever softness the young halfling had displayed, whatever openess and honesty and quality approaching something men would call "good" disappeared in a flash.

There was trouble afoot in the temple -- in her temple -- and trouble coming from a non-Sith, no less.

Rising haughtily to her feet, she beckoned to her fiance to accompany her. Then without waiting to see if he actually bothered to respond to that more characteristic imperial command, she swiftly moved to the booth in question.

She came to a stop, her nose lifted so as to more easily stare down it at those arrayed there like entertainers in a wrestling match.

"Who dares disturb the quiet of this place!" she huffed, turning eyes of fire upon each in turn. They lingered upon Shayla and Erik a bit, then settled on Panthar.

He leapt up from the booth upon seeing how serious this conflict was. "True he is no warrior, however, gentlemen, I am."

He crossed the room too a short, but reasonable distance, standing aside his fiance. "Thus far from what I see and hear, you are threatening too kill these men in cold blood, when, as this woman has asked: "what have they done?"

He glanced too ShaRhylla. "Excuse me for a moment, I hope not too undermine you too much."

It was with a peculiar gleam in his eye that he continued. "Put your blades away on punishment of death. You are not assassins or murderers, but warriors of honor. And even the most insulted of warriors should know his place, and that-"

His fingers were upon the blade on the humans throat, pushing it down gently, slowly. "-is not slitting an unarmed mans throat. If you must take quarrel, do it with their own blades drawn. Ifin they have none to draw or will not, well then..."

The indigo-eyed warrior showed no such leniency. He cut his eyes to Rykounagin, eyeing him up and down, ready to question what right he himself had to intervene, non-Sith that he was. But then the fires of rage in his eyes banked enough for him to take in the tattoos emblazoned upon his exposed arms, one in particular standing out.

He raised his eyes in total shock to see the House of Roan emblazoned there, black, but there.

Although he did not release Panthar, his demeanor altered completely.

"My Lord, this one dares to besmirch the name of the Dark Lady who stands beside you, referring to her as a needleworm, and intimates she is not the Dark Lady of the Warriors, which of course she is."

He let his eyes drop briefly in respect...

...but never loosed his grip on the back of Panthar's head, nor did he drop his blade from where it was nestled against his throat.

"Is that so?" He asked with almost a light but melancholy humor too his tone. His gaze swept too the sith who had insulted his fiance. "I may have too take regard with you later, but I still maintain that if they are too be punished, they do it in a more fair atmosphere."

He glanced too the barmaid who sat, startled too some degree but with eyes betraying that she'd seen this sort of scene a few times before. "Besides, I'm sure our hostess would rather not spend the evening cleaning blood off of the tables and floor. It tends too stick."

He nodded too them both slightly. "You do well in challenging the insults of these dogs-' his eyes shot too Erik and Panthar. "-for it shows that you hold your ruler in regard. But I must insist that your blades be set down."

Though his words were of a fairly serious nature, his tonality was still a pleasant -if firm- voice amongst the anger. "So release their manes before they knot and tangle, have another drink, and excuse these men and their woman too the Dark Lady and my own company. If you would have further words against them, then speak of them when the game is honorable. Please make yourselves seated in the Dark Lady's and my previous booth, and take upon yourselves a drink compliments of the lady and myself."

A general shuffling of seats occured at this point, until all was "in order".

He gestured for the woman too take a seat next too the two men as the sith moved away too take up the new booth. "So tell me gentlemen: What are your names, why insult you my fine company, why are you here, and lastly, tell me why I should not gut you for insulting her."

The barmaid immediately appeared, placing a pair of brimming goblets in front of them before going back to her station to keep a quiet eye on the proceedings.

She had no such compunction regarding her tongue.

"I am not a soft, pale, weakling to be wooed by anyone!" she spat, fires beginning to rise in her eyes.

"I choose my consorts, which should be of no concern of yours. Your concern is providing me--"

She paused, biting her lip as she cut a quick glance to Rykounagin.

"--providing us with an explanation of who you are and how you came to be here, and why it is you have found your way here to Phrinnchatka! For we do not take kindly to strangers here."

She paused a moment, considering before she continued with, "...with the former Dark Lady of the Warriors."

"Oh-- really," she said, now cutting her look to Rykounagin and giving him a meaningful stare before turning back to Shayla.

...or at least you should know it unless something has happened to you."

Pausing at that, Shayla considered that perhaps this indeed was possible. Maybe ShaRhylla really didn't remember anything that had happened to her previous to her tenure in the Darker Realms.

She decided to find out.

"And the word relevance was put into the basic language for a reason. As was the word "irrelevance". The point stands that you are here now, and that we presently find ourselves under no obligation to do you as good of treatment as we have thus far."

He picked up a small fruit that had been in a tiny complimentary bowl, and flicked his thumb over it, knowing of the fault in the fruits structure as a neat slice broke away for him too devour in a single bite.

He swollowed and continued: "As it stands, you sir-" he gestured with the fruit towards panthar: "-have insulted the dark lady of the sith, which as you have likely noticed, is not a light thing too do."

Then his gaze went too Shayla. "The key word in your small speech was "Former". This entitles a past tense, and does not explain why you are here- now."

"There is also the matter of who the runt is." he gestured to Erik, who, while not being a runt per se, was still proving less impressive than the woman or the sith.

"For that matter, the arrogance of this sith-" He now gestured to Panthar again: "Continues. You sir, seem not to realize how very deep the hole goes. And I can assure you from personal experience, that climbing out of it is not quite easy, and you have already begun to lose your balance. Do not think that because I saved you, that I will not hesitate to push you in the rest of the way."

"While how you got here is of course of concern to me, considering this is a place of the Sith--"

Now she shot a black glance Panthar's way.

"--my primary concern is why you are here now.

Those eyes slitted as her talents reached out, seeking, and not finding what she expected to find in his strong and muscular form.

She leaned back, letting the blackness sink away, and smiled prettily at Shayla.

"Indeed, a mystery it is, but as with all mysteries it shall become solved. Should you find anything which would assist us in apprehending the foul beast who slew her, our government would be...

"Most appreciative."

Dipping her head, she turned to her consort.

He nodded and took her arm in his as was the old human custom, and smiled too those in the booth. "This matter shall be resolved soon enough. I hope you find yourselves room and board. Good night."

With that, he turned with Rhylla on his arm and they departed from the room. However, once they were safely away from the tavern and well on their way too her chambers, he voiced a question that had sat oddly in his stomach.

"So your mother was killed? I find that odd, since not too long ago you and I discussed your slaying of her for the position of dark lady. That and, as I saw her no more than three days ago alive and well, I'd like to guess the sith don't change their acceptance THAT fast."

All appeared quiet, calm, undisturbed.

She took Rykounagin by the hand and quickly drew him into her rooms, closing the door quietly with an offhand wave of one hand.

"Of course she is still alive; Rykounagin, I do not trust these humans who walk with us here. I have met them before, long ago it seems--"

She paused a moment, frowning as she strove to remember exactly what she knew of Shayla and Erik, how she knew them. It was almost as if that part of her life had been a mere dream, years and years ago.

She knew deep into her very bones that it had not.

"They lie, they come here with Mother, she is alive, I know it. And as for the Sith--"

Again she paused, this time to release Rykounagin as she stepped out from him. A frown began to grow upon her face as she began to pace about.

"I reached out to him, and sensed... something. I cannot determine what it is, but it is very strange.

"It is as if he is not Sith at all, yet he is..."

She came to a halt and looked directly into Rykounagin's eyes.

"They know you took the Finger, but do they know of--"

She caught her lip between her fangs with the effort of stopping herself in mid-speech. For now the question came to her mind:

Why had Rykounagin taken the Finger from her? Was it an act of petty vengeance, as she had thought? Had he been sent to retreive it, to give to her Father? Or was there another purpose, one much darker?

Had it spoken to him?

She chewed her lip, her eyes blazing now to match the flames in her fireplace. She thought of the Ragorian and the blade, hanging safely in the Dining Hall.

She remembered the Finger, and the words it had spoken to her.

"Rykounagin, they know of the Finger," she repeated, then hurried on before she could change her mind.

"Did it speak to you? If so, what did it say?

You can speak of whatever things you like, with your mother present as well.

Jerking from this thought, Shayla eyed Erik, then Panthar, and quickly spoke up. "Let's get out of here. I have something I need to say...

...and circumstances considered, I'd like to tell you both."

Getting out of the booth at that, Shayla motioned for both Erik and Panthar to follow her, quickly departing the lounge, sensing the two behind her. Winding through the appropriate corridors they returned to her and Erik's suites...

...and she turned and waited for the other two to enter before closing the doors behind them.

"In the night, I have had a dream, a vision," she opened with, first looking to Erik. "I don't know exactly from where it comes or what it means...

...other than it leads me to believe the Master is free of the shield...

He was quiet for a moment, thinking of how he would answer this, as it was, in his experience, a sensitive subject.

"The Finger of R'lous speaks too everyone." He swollowed.

"It manipulates, lies, and keeps too its own adgendas. The first time I took it, it told me too say I stole it under Aelvedaars command, though it was truely under Ragorians. When I... well, appropriated it from you for your father, as soon as it was in my hands, it spoke of how glad it was that I should possess it."

He shook his head, smirking at the floor now. "It's adgenda isn't known, but what I know is that it is a "S'slans Puzzle." (a reference too an ancient fabled box, in which after was opened, would steal the soul from the one who opened it)

Whether these people had done so was a mystery to her. What was not was the fact that it had spoken to Rykounagin as it had her. Perhaps even now it was speaking sweet nothings into the ears of her father.

She nodded slowly.

"Yes," she finally replied. "It does not seem to care to whom it speaks, only that those to whom it speaks listen to it. Perhaps you are right in your assessment of it."

With that she moved away, returning once more to stand before the immense stone fireplace that graced the entirety of one wall of the chamber. The flames flickered and danced, the wood crackling and popping with released energies, the heat produce reaching out to sear her face.

She closed her eyes and leaned into it, relishing the feel of it, hot and close to being painful, on her face. Her own tresses flowed back from her face and down her back in mimickry of the fire.

It mattered not, did it, to whom the Finger had spoken? All that mattered was that it was in the possession of her dearly loved Father.

"I do not believe we need to conduct so drastic a measure as tossing the Finger into a sun, Rykounagin," she said, her eyes still closed, every sense she owned trained upon him.

"It is far removed from any other; I feel it is safe enough. But I am still concerned not only that these humans know of it, but that they are here on K'eel Doba."

Whirling, she pinned Rykounagin with a look.

He smiled faintly, the look odd for the seriousness of the discussion. "I have a plan, worry not. But I shall not burden your sleep with it just yet. Tomorrow purhaps."

With a nod, he took a step down the passageway. "The finger, for now, is irrelevant, so we should not worry of it. For now we should both sleep. So rest well this eve, and tomorrow we shall continue in our course."

He turned towards her again and inclined his head. "Goodnight Lady ShaRhylla."

Catching her lower lip between her fangs she hurried to her wardrobe where she quickly disrobed. Garbing herself in luxurious green spider-silk, she went to her bed and crawled beneath the covers. One casual wave of a hand damped the fire, lowering it to a deep rosy hue.

The other lights in her chambers winked off, as did the lights coming in through her opened balcony as the city of Phrinnchatka finally put itself to bed as well.

Feeling oddly at peace, ShaRhylla closed her eyes and gave herself over to slumber.

He found a small chamber about three levels down that was vacant, he warded the door and wearily collapsed on the small cot within.

But as he did so, he was comming to realize a few things. The first was that he had a strange lingering feeling of... conspiracy... and something entirely different... could it be, affection?

Shayla’s words reached him through a haze, and he looked at her in confusion.

“You had a dream?” he asked. “You dragged me all the way here to tell me you had a dream?”

He stopped, holding his hands out in front of him.

“All right,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry, I am just a little upset about that pair of low-life scum sucking pee-sniffing rabble that we just had the misfortune to run into. And I don’t mean those warriors. I just want to grab that boy and -- ARGH!”

Panthar turned and started to drive his fist towards the wall. Wide eyed, he managed to stop it before it connected, instead pushing it downward with his good hand. The momentum swung him back to face Shayla.

“Idiot boy follows plan from Roan,” it whispered to itself. “Idiot boy too idiot to know. Placing magicks on door, he does, but we’s has magicks of us own. Tonight we’s watching, tonight we’s telling. In tomorrow, all hell's breaking loose.”

... real. It was like the Master really saw me in the vision. But then, this is probably something we should discuss with the entire group, in the morning...

...which will come possibly sooner than any of us would like. First and foremost I wanted the two of you out of that lounge, while we still could get out of there. Secondly I wanted two other people to hear what I thought was possible...

...so that we have more than one avenue to warn others of the possibility..."

A shadowy man holding out an axe... he, no, wait, someone elses hand took it, then drew it back and struck the heads from the bestower....

His body wrenched too the side at a new stabbing of pain, another image comming too him.

Armored hand raised victorious, goblet in it as the sith about him roared in unison at their victory over.... who?

Rykouagnin let out a gasping scream as he tumbled from the bed, cat-like in his landing on hands and knees as he let out a stream of vomit onto the cool stone, gasping and choking.

Something seared into my arm.... no my mind.. my very body! Gods the pain...

“Well,” he said. “I know that you have some pretty wild abilities, with that levitation stuff and all, so I couldn’t completely rule out that you had some sort of weird vision. But even warned, how the heck can we prepare ourselves for the Master? I mean, come on, he’s got some weird black stuff all over him now, that was supposedly meant to go inside of Phal? What is up with that? It’s hard to fight what we don’t even know.”

Panthar scratched at the wound on his hand. He reached under the violet soaked bandage and pressed.

“If we had a way of knowing what that was in the first place, maybe we could determine his motives and have a way of predicting his next move. But then again, is it him or Roan that we need to worry about more?”

Panthar pulled his hand away from his injury, and a fresh spattering of violet blood spilled down his hand.

“Oh, dang it, why won’t this thing stop bleeding?”

He looked around and hastened for a porcelain pot on a stand in the corner. He began to unwrap the bandage as he held the hand over the pot.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you see anything I can use to wrap around this th—“

Panthar’s eyes widened as he thought he saw a thin black tendril ooze out his wound, then spurt back in.

He rolled away from the wall, another vision, that of crossing blades with a muscular and heavily armored sith came too his mind, before he stood up, roaring at the demons the only he could see about him.

Looking too the pane of glass that was a mirror, he saw only a beast with blade rearing too strike. Crying out, he summoned his own blade too tear the mirror from the wall and break it into thousands of pieces.

He scored the walls then, stabbed the matresses, before letting go of the magic, and slamming himself into the walls too escape the pained frenzy that tore through his mind and ravaged him.

"GRAHHH!" he screamed as he stood upon the cot, staring at the chipped red stone he saw before him, watching as it contorted into a visage of his brother, mocking him and taunting him.

Rearing back his head, he brought it too slam against the wall, blasting himself past stars and planets into the deep black void of a dreamless sleep...

...something foreign to him, yet familiar at the same time. She paused and hesitated, frowning...

...then realizing something she should have already. "You know," she then spoke up," that wound should be healing fairly well by now. I spent some time working at healing it through the Force. Something is making it continue to fester...

...as if there is a foreign body there or something..."

Frowning even more deeply, Shayla stepped into a nearby washroom in the suites and emerged with a soft cloth which she place on the wound. Blood began to soak the cloth, so Shayla stretched out with the Force, channeling its energies to the wound through herself...

...and coming against something dark and odious, and something which she quite suddenly knew she knew well, for at a time she had felt it within herself, back when Entaris had planted his seed of despair deep within her.

Her eyes, which had been closed, snapped open in shock. "It...it's..." she started, stuttering, "...like something, or rather someone, I've encountered in the Darker Realms, and I'm not speaking of the Master. He once planted the seeds of despair deep in my soul...

...and while we've heard nothing of him as of late, the tar-like substance which engulfed the Master reminds me very much of him..."

"Um..." he started. He looked down at his hand.

...I think you are going to need Jharmeen's abilities for this. But, considering this... Thing appears to be inside you, perhaps it is wise that you not stray far. Perhaps it is best you sleep the night on the couch in our suites...

“But I’m not sleepy, really. I haven’t been tired for quite some time, and I was going to find out if they got to those vials on the ship that we came here on. I’ll be all right, really.”

Panthar held the blood-soaked cloth in his hand and pulled it tight across the wound. He tucked the end under the cloth on his palm.

“So, thanks anyway, but I…” Panthar turned for the door, the motion of his spin seeming to send the inside of his head into motion as well. He paused with his hands out from his sides as balance.

“I, um…” he continued. His body seemed to be dawning upon the realization that it was indeed tired. He felt a tingling in his arm, then his balance seemed to completely depart and he stumbled for a chair near the door. He plopped into the chair and stared blankly at Shayla.

“Yeah, well, like I was saying…” Panthar trailed off, his vision going blurry as his eyelids became suddenly like stones. “Maybe I can… just…. stay… h—“

Panthar slipped into unconsciousness, sprawling over the chair. The blood stopped dripping from the bandage and began to slowly clot.

"Oh?" was all she said, softly, as if cuing him onward. He looked to her. "Shayla, we encountered the Master, and he was coming at that little ball of nothing we thought--correctly--was the three of you. I don't know what happened, except that I sensed a threat to you...

...and somehow..."

Again he trailed and looked down, but this time he then continued. "I Force-pushed the Master enough to send him sprawling backwards."

Looking to her, his brown eyes somewhat distant, he nodded, and walked with her to the couch where they sat and she snuggled next to him.

"Get some rest," she commented, placing a hand in his. "We are all going to need it."

He didn't say anything but merely nodded, squeezing her hand a bit before leaning back on the couch back and closing his eyes. She didn't figure he was going to sleep much, troubled as he seemed...

Deep in his mind, he knew he needed to stand up and make his way to the ship, to finish the job that Phalomir had set him upon. But sleep had overtaken him, and he wondered at the sudden fatigue that came upon him. He then realized that he was dreaming, and very much aware of the fact that he was dreaming. He struggled to wake himself, but his mind and body would not obey.

In his dream Panthar sat alone on a stool in bar. It was a place he remembered from Sullust, the Blue Asteroid. The place was empty except for him and the bartender. He held a drink in his hand, and music played softly in the background. He looked to the bartender.

“Look,” he said, “I know this is just a dream, so pass me the check so I can get on with waking up.”

The bartender looked at Panthar and shrugged. He wiped a glass with a rag he took from the bar.

“Come on,” said Panthar. “I mean it now. This isn’t right.”

Panthar pointed his finger at the bartender, then noticed that his hand was not hurt. In fact, it was not even red. He felt his face, smooth and free of horns. He was suddenly so happy he almost cried.

“I’m back! It’s my old face, my old body!” He stood happily, then paused, his hands going to his sides.

“But no, it’s just a dream,” he said.

The bartender looked up and sighed.

“Look,” he said. “If you’re gonna drink, then drink. If you’re gonna mope, then head on down to the other bar.”

Panthar stared for a moment, then sat. He continued to stare at the bartender, not sure what was happening.

“Hey,” he said at last. “Why can’t I wake up?”

The bartender paused again and sighed. “All right, look. I’ll level with ya. I’m just here to keep ya busy until morning. Now, there ain’t no way you’re gonna wake up until the boss says it’s time, so ya might as well just kick back, take a drink, and wander off into la-la land.”

Panthar sat quiet for a while longer, staring at the drink in front of him. He looked up after a time.

“Maybe Shayla needs me to—“

The bartender threw his rag down on the bar and looked at Panthar with an intense anger. The walls behind the bar began to melt into blackness, as if a thick ooze was melting them away. The bartender begin to change, growing a set of long horns and turning the color of midnight. Panthar stood, backing away, then turned and ran into the growing darkness.

The air was damp and cool, as morning came filtering into the swamp. The bed made an unusual addition to the water, grasses, and tangled trees, and Phalomir mused to himself over it. His eyes were drawn to the grove that surrounded them, and for a moment had a feeling of déjŕ vu as the vision of a very young boy flashed in his mind. He blinked, and returned to the view of the trees.

One of the trees seemed to have an infestation of strange white spiders…

He paused, staring at the tree and its inhabitants. Something very familiar took hold of him, as if a message was struggling to reach out of the depths of his memories. He closed his eyes, trying to free his mind from other thoughts so this one may surface. White spiders… there is a significance… he had heard Jharmeen mutter such words at one time, but there was something more… something in his own past… was it spiders? Or something white, spider-like, something… deadly.

Jharmeen stirred on top of him, sending her hair spilling over his face once again. Phalomir opened his eyes as Jharmeen rose sleepily, supporting her small frame on his chest. He beamed at her, brushing her hair back over her shoulder.

“Good morning, my lady,” he smiled. “Your face serves as the sunrise in this misty place, and your smile is the heat of the morning.”

He raised one eyebrow.

"But perhaps you could tell me just where we find ourselves this day?"

I blinked slowly, looking at the red blurs of my hands. What happened last night? Was all I could wonder, trying too gather memories, faint visions and the like.

I could see familiar flashes of people, ShaRhylla, Roan, and...

Some that were not so familiar.

Reaching out with my mind I began too find memories that seemed like they should be familiar, but that I knew were not mine. How did these come too be?

As my vision cleared, I saw that my hands were covered in red, aching slightly. Perhaps I got into a fight and I do not remember?

I reached down too the sheets of the cot and tried too whipe my hand off, still looking at the other red one, then brought it up.

But it was still red!

I tried again, and looked, still red, with no signs of liquid upon the sheets. Perhaps the blood had dried?

Walking too the basin, I realized that my entire body from what I could see was covered in the red. Could a fight really have gotten that bad?

I went too the small water basin at the side of the room and tried too wash my hands clean, but too no avail. As I frantically rubbed at my arms and hands, I began too realize I was seeing things in a different light.

Not only did things seem too be smaller -or perhaps I was merely taller?- but I felt more... thick. Seemingly stronger in build, but what could cause such a thing?

I let the water rest, the ripples still distorting the image it sought too reveal. I shall see the truth of this.

After a few moments of pause, it became still, and I looked into the liquid too find a sith looking back at me.

I whirled, but no one was there!

I turned too look back in again, and saw that same sith. I raised a hand slowly and waved it slightly, as the reflection did perfectly.

It took a very, very long moment for this too sink in. What the truth was. The truth I did not want.

I let out a roar, and smashed the rinsing bowl the side, shattering the porcelain and letting it's accursed contents splash over the stone.

"What foul sorcery is this?!" I cried aloud, striking at the wall and finding a deep set of scratches where I had struck it.

I cursed and yelled and growled threats for a time, until slowly, what seemed like a red haze came over my vision, but not that of blood lust... something... different.

When it passed, I found myself laying upon the stone floor of the chamber, cool and silent. With fear, I raised a hand too see, but it was pale and unblemished, save for the ever-present tattoos.

CHOSEN

He let out a sigh of relief, and rolled too stand up. "Just a dream..." He muttered, stretching slightly as he began too walk too the door.

"Buisiness is required today... very very important affairs." He nodded, and took the last step towards the door, but froze as he felt something cool beneath his foot.

Looking slowly too the ground, he saw trembling and wet beneath his foot, the water from the basin, and the smashed porcelain not too far from.

"If I said we were yet in our chambers, would you take it as the truth?" she quipped with a smile, now raising up and pushing off of him in earnest. She rolled off of the bed and onto the incongruity that was the grass that bed nestled upon, landing lithely upon her feet and then rising up in a great stretch.

She then shook herself out a bit before stepping out toward a grove of gnarl-trees, one that had caught her eye in the early morning light, one particularly thick with its attendant spiders.

"You would be wrong; this is the place where a mage once came to seek answers... as did I. This is the swamp world of Dagobah."

Coming up to the nearest gnarl-tree she paused a moment and held out her hand. One of the white spiders paused a moment in its miniscule meanderings before it then scurried obligingly toward her. Climbing upon her palm, it paused a moment to wave its pedipalps at her, before suddenly scurrying off to gesture frantically at its mates in turn.

Graysith smiled at the antics, but her smile was laced with a touch of sobriety. Well she recalled the lessons she had learned during her own self-imposed exile upon this misty, watery world.

Every one. In excruciating detail.

And the spiders continue their unceasing tarantelle...

“I can feel the strange power of this place,” he said quietly. “It pulses within the land, and seems to grow as if part of the trees, the grass…”

He looked at the spiders marching their way up and down the tree, each one believing what it would about the existence of things outside the tree, uncaring at how easily their world could be manipulated. The strike of lightning, the driving force of a storm, the touch of a hand to an axe… So many outside forces could shatter their existence, yet they continued on to live the lives they had built. What else could they do?

“It seems to impose questions I had never thought to ask,” he continued.

The vision of the spiders was shoved roughly to one side as in her mind's eye she watched the four entities so pivotal in her life, Darth Wicked, Dark Lord Roan, Lord Aelvedaar and Lord Recinis, now parading there.

Each with a gentle smile of love on his face.

Each holding weapons of death behind his back.

Her vision fogged as sudden tears welled up, not spilling over onto her cheeks but remaining just on the trembling verge of doing so. She remained frozen both in body and memory, waiting until those tears dried and dissipated entirely.

"At the time, I thought I had."

She gave her head a sudden toss, flinging her hair in a flaming nimbus about her head as she whirled almost angrily away from the spider-infested tree.

"These little things have no notion of what they do, as do others of our acquaintance," she said, a new undertone of darkness creeping into the statement.

"We must hasten back."

And where he was.

It had been so long, so damnably long since they had been given a moment of peace. Or rather, since Galen had been given a moment of peace. He had been dead for a couple of years, away from it all...

...but what unknown troubles had that mysterious and unknown time wrought?

Cracking an eye open, Terrin found things just as they had been left the evening before. Galen lay nearby, and Darra was off in another room within the same suites as well.

Darra. In that mysterious time while he was gone, her age had been altered. Galen had not wanted it, and that had not been part of any bargain made. Nor would it ever have been.

Unconciously, Terrin sighed, but then something within him waved a reminding banner for his attention.

What had happened, had happened...

...and was in the past to learn from. Second chances are rare, especially in this circumstance.

Make every moment count.

Feeling Galen stir beside him, Terrin turned her way, brushing her short red hair from her face with his hand and kissing her gently then simply looking into her eyes, swimming in the moment.

"You deserve a thousand lifetimes of quiet, peaceful mornings like this...

If only the moment would last forever...

Smiling up at him, I let one hand creep up to lay alongside the hard planes of his face. All that we had been through, all that I had been through, indeed, all Darra had been through in her abbreviated life paled before the hell that he had been through. For no matter what terrible, horrible things had been thrown to Darra and I by Life... it was by Life. And where there is life, there is always hope.

But death--

A little shudder raced through me and I pressed my hand against his cheek a little harder.

"None more so than you, Flyboy," I said softly before craning my neck so my lips would once again meet his. Another moment passed that I wished would spread out into eternity...

...but when I allowed myself to fall back against the pillows and satins it was with a bit of a frown crossing my features.

Mornings of peace, with nothing to do and nowhere to go...

The thought, quite out of the blue, was suddenly about as appealing as the milk of a mynock. I cocked my head a bit to one side, letting my eyes arrow even more deeply into Terrin's, seeking what I was fairly certain I would find lurking therein.

"But--"

I stopped in mid-word, catching my lip between my teeth. To speak the words I was about to just sounded so...

Ungrateful, somehow.

But faint heart ne'er won a podrace, so I drew in a big ol' breath and pressed on.

"What are we going to do, love?" I asked him, straight from the hip.

"I understand exactly what you mean, but do you think you'd truly be happy going back to 'same old, same old'?"

Sighing a bit, I pushed him away so I could sit up. Pulling my knees up close to myself, I wrapped my arms around them and placed my cheek against them, staring off into the vague fuzziness of middle space.

For sure as Khaandon made lil green worrts, I knew that after about a month or so of said "same old, same old," I'd be chomping at the bit like a racer in the gate. And the thing that was suddenly scary was the fact that I honestly didn't know what Terrin would want.

So much had happened to us during the majority of the time we were in fact, an "us"... I couldn't even judge how Terrin would react, because we had hardly ever had a moment's peace.

"I wouldn't go back to the same ole' for anything," he replied. "After all," he then continued, a bit of mirth creeping into his eyes, "The same ole' doesn't allow me to go around sporting my Sith robe wardrobe..."

"Thank you," I whispered, knowing how strange the words sounded, knowing as well that Terrin knew precisely what I meant in uttering them. Another soft moment tiptoed by before I drew in another breath and broached the query once again.

"When all this is said and done," I began, waving a hand to indicate our Sith surroundings.

I look through my hosts eyes, the facade I wear now is most confused. But I shall wait... wait for the right time...

CHOSEN

He tried too forget what he had seen, assuming he must have done it in the night while awake and... merely forgotten

He wound through the passages towards his Fiance's chambers, not sure what time it was, but judging by distant sounds of varied activity, suitable.

Thunk, his palm found the surface of the door, and he stared at the panel of wood before him, beyond the chamber where so many things had occured the night previous, where hate had become... love?

The sound echoed through her chambers, crept up to nestle with her amidst the royal satins and silks and furs of which her bedding was made, whispered into her ear to then tiptoe along the corridors of her mind.

There it cleverly entwined itself within the dream she was experiencing at the moment. It jarred the dreamscape harshly, like a gong, incongruous to what events had been repeating within her head, an oxymoron in and of itself.

She was stricken with it, surprise gaping her mouth into a round be-fanged "o," her inner eyes blinking even while her physical ones scrinched closed more tightly.

"Mmmph!" she garbled, wriggling into her bedding, burrowing down in the attempt to evade the strange sound which had the audacity to try to awaken her.

...my heart tells me that it's simply not possible, or logical. And quite honestly, sitting on the sidelines after everything that we've been through does sound completely unappealing. We know that there is probably more turmoil to come to this galaxy, and that the Vong are in all likelyhood going to return..."

He paused, frowning at the thought. "I can't sit back and do nothing knowing that. And there's Darra's best interests to consider as well."

He waited for a moment, when something inside reared up and growled, the growl escaping his lips.

Drawing back, he slammed it into the door again, making it vibrate as a portion cracked, a bit of the wood on the inside chipping off as well.

He drew his hand back in slight suprise, then lowered it and took a moment of reflection. He hadn't struck it too hard had he?

Her knees flexed to absorb the shock of her landing upon the cold stones, and remained so as she half-crouched, blinking to rid the last remnants of sleep from her head.

Another part of a second passed before she realized not only who had awakened her, but that he had the affrontery to actually come into her rooms unbidden.

"How dare you!" she seethed as she reared up to her full height, utterly dismissing the fact that she was clad in a gown of sheerest spider's silk which showed off her form in a most thoroughly flattering manner, she was that angered.

He ignored the small facts, including her anger, because with every moment, something seemed even more odd, even more... unbalanced.

"Something is wrong." He said, feeling another twinge as he pulled a sheet from her bed and threw it too her too cover her more thoroughly.

Chances were more than fair to middlin' that we were destined to live out our lives with the Sith.

Thank you oh so much, Sissypoops.

I fell back against the bed with a groan, and said as much to Terrin...

...although, strangely enough, not without allowing a little thrill of delight to sneak up and inveigle itself into my words.

She hadn't instinctively lashed out against what could have been a murdering thief coming into her rooms. Indeed, she hadn't recognized Rykounagin until nearly an entire second had fled into history; what had caused her to stay her hand?

Not wanting to inspect that quandary too closely at the moment, she instead focused her attention on what her fiance was saying. Her frown of anger segued into one approaching concern.

"What is wrong?" she asked, lowering her hands from the defensive position to which they had fled and letting them reach out toward a nearby settee, upon whose arm the sheet that Rykounagin had tossed had landed. Throwing it haphazardly about herself she approached him, came to a halt directly inside his personal space.

"I don't know! Last night I was plagued by visions of things I have never seen, and do not call them dreams! I saw a field of battle, a hall of warriors, and many other things. But most concerning was I as a sith, and that was the most real of them all."

He stole across the room and out too the balcony. "I thought it too be a vision, but in the vision I was in the room that I slept in, and I shattered a wash bowl. When I awoke this morning as the human that I am, I found it shattered when it had not been that way the night before."

"I guess that is worth leaving friends, fortune, business and an SSD, huh?" I quipped, recognizing his attempt to lighten an atmosphere that had been walking a razor's edge between light and dark.

Thank the gods we fell the way that we did; stretching, I hopped out of bed and headed to the equivalent of a 'fresher.

No sonic sluicer here, nope. Boy howdy, there was REAL WATER flowing in that little stone-walled head.

"I'm taking a shower, care to join me?" I hollered as I started tweaking and manipulating the knobs and dials that were sticking out from the stone. It took a bit of experimentation, but I finally had not one but six showers slamming blissfully hot water down into the little enclosure, from five different directions.

If, that is, what he said was true. But why would it be otherwise? He had no reason to lie to her; indeed, it would be the height of stupidity to do so.

He was Sith... or somehow, would become Sith.

Was this but one reason her father had commanded their union? Did he know something she did not, that Rykounagin did not know as well?

A shiver of unease rippled through her, and she glided to stand next to him at the rail of the balcony. For a moment she stared out upon the awakening Phrinnchatka; then she slowly reached out and laid a hand upon his forearm.

"I do not understand; if you are Sith, that is far from being something to be concerned or ashamed of," she said, her voice soft and delicate in his ear.

...being with you and Darra and knowing the two of you are safe makes those things absolutely worthless. And, aside from the portion of the credits in Darra's name, it's all yours anyway...

...and with things coming down the pike, we just might need both at some point. Just a little something to keep in mind...

Soon...

CHOSEN

"How does that happen? It's... not possible... I cannot be sith..." he said, staring down across the city outside of the temple, thoughts confused into raw chaos.

"There... has too be an answer... somehow in all of this, there must be." He shook his head and turned around too look too her. "We'll find out soon enough."

"That we shall, for there is nothing else we can do in this regard but wait," she said pragmatically, pausing at the door of her spacious bath. There she turned round, facing the door leading to the balcony, making certain Rykounagin was looking her way before she continued.

"But in the meanwhile, please try to refrain from going on so about it. It is really quite unbecoming, whether you be human or Sith."

With that she let her nightclothes fall from her body to puddle about her feet. She paused a moment longer to toss her hair from her eyes, then stepped out from them and disappeared into the lavatory.

Soon the sounds of spashing water crescendoed out into her chambers...

Many would have pursued the passing moment further, with less than pure thoughts in their minds. Many would have, followed, many would have never even let her out of arms reach from that moment.

But he was different, he was not many, he was a select few, that was about too be engulfed by one entity.

His faint smile of old youth at the idea suddenly died in a moment, a cough rising through his body too arch his back slightly, and send a spray of blood from his lips out from the balcony.

Then another, with more blood this time. He began too perspire, though the day was not sweltering enough, nor his horomones even close too being that unbalanced.

He raised his hand too his forehead, and tried too whipe it away, but even as he did he felt aweful. He brought his hand slowly before his eyes, and saw with the most acute horror, the same red that he had "envisioned" the night previously.

He gasped as he felt something piercing into his lips, and opened his mouth and placed his fingers too his teeth, where he felt a sharpening of teeth into fangs, made not for "salads" but for raw blood covered meat.

He felt his perspiration coat him now, the robes he wore soaking on what he could see too be red mist.

A choked scream escaped him as he felt something tearing the flesh of his temples, minute, but enough as he felt his red-stained legs give out from beneath him, his flesh stretching too accomodate enlarging muscles; To alter flesh's color to that of the muscle beneath it.

He screamed again, unheard as it was a silent gasp, a plea for mercy in his own body as he felt joints cracking, seperating and reforming, fingers lengthening and nails sharpening and hardening.

His eyes flushed too a fuller red as his body did, suddenly small robes tearing too accomodate his body as they became stretched and torn rags.

She blinked, relishing those lusciously lingering shadows of pain and horror for one long moment before finally pushing those almost-thoughts down deep inside her and striding, wet and naked, from her bath.

"I said, dear fiance, to please--"

What greeted her eyes was enough to stop her, cold and dripping, in her tracks.

"Who are you?" she blurted, startled and angered, wholely on the defensive now as she crouched, her hands flying up, fingers curling into claws to match the daggers shooting from her eerie bi-colored eyes.

Panthar stood shakily and made his way to the door. He paused, trying to remember what he had been doing the night before. But nothing came to mind, even though he was sure there something important he was supposed to take care of.

His gaze turned slowly, eyes dialated for the transformation, a drop of blood falling from the keep horns that formed a clawed crown upon his head.

"I... it's me...." he said, trembling still, as the last vestiges of... "Him" died.

?

As the mind who had served as a mask's conciousness died, I finally spoke out in my own voice. "Your fiance."

Then the words he had spoken had been true.

She knew the Sith now standing before her was indeed who he claimed to be; the shattered remnants of Rykounagin's clothing bore mute, if horrific, testimony to the fact. Not to mention the results of a quick reaching out with her talents; her powers of the All told her that this was indeed Rykounagin--

Or had been.

Suddenly realizing the image she was presenting, she closed her mouth, gulping a bit as she reached even further into the muscular Sith's being, seeking answers that his very cells might reveal. To no avail; there wasn't so much as a hint of All-strength within him; he was not born of an All user, and in all probability could not wield it as did she.

Then how the transformation--?

Swallowing, she hid a rising frown by quickly leaning down to retrieve the sheet a young human male had so recently flung toward her, wrapped it about her body that her lithe form would no longer be revealed to the towering Sith male now taking his place.

When she fully straightened, it was with her usual haughty demeanor, her racing emotions and even more wildly racing heart under icy control once again.

"You are not Rykounagin," she stated, then fell silent as if daring him to even try and challenge the fact.

“The little things do what they must,” he said. “Their universe is a but a small slice of the bigger whole, and so many other, greater things will influence their lives. Other beings may see them as food, or desire their tree, but all of that is unknown to these little things. And if bigger things wish to bring them harm, whether through malice or simple nature, they are powerless to stop it. Always part of the bigger whole, always powerless within it.”

Phalomir stepped forward.

“Or are they? If a bird should stop for a meal, could they not swarm over it? Their numbers alone ensure the survival of the race, if their efforts do not. They fight what battles they can, to preserve their existence.

From behind, Phalomir placed a hand on Jharmeen’s bare shoulder.

“They have never seen That Which Is, as we have. We are aware of a greater whole. We know our place within it is small, but we do have our place within it, and we will fight the battles we can. Let us prepare our swarm.”

"Oh but I am. But if you so question, then let me assure you. I was once apprentice too a sword you once called consort. I attacked a being made of what I can only call lava last night. I am the son of Roan, as this mark declares-" I paused too hold up my right forearm, black mark still there through all the madness.

"-I brought you an amulet that you now still wear with pride, we spoke with foolish sith and humans, spoke of your mothers false death last night. It was then this morning that I came too you with concerns, and now-"

I had begun too take small steps towards her, each step punctuating each statement with it's faint thud.

"-I stand before you, those concerns manifest into sith flesh."

And all was reported back to its master.

But of all that happened, there were two things that were most interesting.

It crawled along the ceiling, eager to greet its friend. Hearing the rush of water, it buried its tail into a crack and lowered itself upside to peer into the steamy room. It cocked its head, not sure at first what the two humans were doing, but deciding it was of no importance.

Indeed, there was something most attractive in the way his blood-besmeared fangs glistened in the rising light of dawn.

"This could be something... most advantageous, my dear, dear fiance," she crooned, coming over to him and running a light finger up and down his chest.

"But again, there is something of your appearance which needs attending; perhaps you would desire to clean and clothe yourself in a manner more befitting to your station?"

Then, with a grin, I walked into the fresher chamber, but paused too look back too her. "I was forgetting that you had not finished your own. Would you rather finish and have me wait before I cleanse myself of old remnants?"

Walking boldly up to Rykounagin she stopped before him, removing her hands from the sheet she was holding to lay both upon his chest. She stood there a moment, looking up into his eyes; then with a sudden laugh she pushed him, surprisingly strong for her size.

"Go, clean yourself of the blood--"

Before I leap upon you, to lap it up myself...

"I shall seek robes more appropriate to your new look, my--"

Another pause, one which she filled with a sudden shyness.

It appeared that indeed I was taking things in stride now, piece after piece of puzzle linking together too form what I could only describe as a pre-determined set of events.

Perhaps Roan foresaw this, knew it was comming, knew that somehow it would bring her and I together more concretely?

But then as I took a step into the hot spray, all thought was swept from my mind in hydro-based euphoria, as the remnants of humanity left me, leaving me only with what I was. A sith.

But what of she? Was she too taking it in stride? She had seemed shocked at first, her reaction left no doubt of that, but then that swift change from so... agressive too what I could almost call submissive was suprising.

Uncharacteristic too.

Was there still other things at work here? Could futher oddities have been wrought at the same moment as my own?

Not to mention her mood.

It was the color the sky takes on just before dawn: deeply purple and black intertwined in an iridescent dance similar to that of an oil slick. Brilliant motes of light in the form of tiny faceted diamonds were sprinkled about it, becoming thicker and more abundant as they approached the hem until the very bottom of the sheer fabric seemed to veritably explode in radiance.

Pausing a quick moment to peruse herself in the monstrous mirror that made up the doors of the wardrobe, she then turned to her dressing table where a brush was quickly snatched to lay to rest the unruly snarl her hair had become in sleep. She dug through the drawers of the table to no avail; nothing grand enough was there with which to make herself as attractive as she suddenly wished to be.

A quick wave of one hand, and atoms of carbon were borrowed from the very air, to crystallize into yet more diamonds that rained down upon her, taking up her heavy locks and entwining themselves within them.

She paused, at last satisfied, not only with how she looked but with the fact that from her 'fresher, the sounds of running water were yet to be heard.

Quickly then, she fled her suites, going to the ones her beloved Father had held, dug swiftly and assuredly into the wardrobe there until she found the most royal of his robes. Purple and scarlet and gold they were, embroidered with mystic runes bespeaking of his battles and the magicks he had used to take him on to victory.

Finally, after deciding the Euphoria was at last due too end, I slowly turned the spigots and let the spray of water turn to a faint trickle, standing for a moment there as I envisioned myself, different from as I had seen myself in the mirror. Not covered in blood and gore of a past life but...

Clean.

It was with a smile that I left the stone chamber and gently dried myself with pale linen, not realizing until now how truely large my body had become. Still with "Sleek" form, but now broader, more thickly muscled, and with those odd horns now too compensate for, a strange unbalance upon my head.

I finished my own drying, but today, instead of taking up my old knot, let my mane of white flow free over my shoulders, down my back and over my torso.

I wrapped the linen about my waist, a faint attempt at holding modesty, even before one who had seen me essentially bared in all my "glory".

"There you are." I said as I exited. "And what is it that... oh my..." I was momentarily breathtaken, looking at the work of art that I could only assume was made for me.

"If you are to become the Dark Lord of the Warriors, you must look the part, my dear fiance," she whispered, her voice suddenly low and sultry, bearing unseen but not unnoticeable pheromones upon their silken backs.

"From this day forth you are Cult Assassin no longer, by what means only the gods themselves know, but are Lord and Heir Apparent to the title. This is shown not only by the tattoo upon your wrist, but now by what I give to you this day."

Waiting no longer, she suddenly reached out and took up that wrist between her hands. Turning it upward so that the tattoo was fully exposed, she cradled it in one hand while the other reached toward it, claws fully bared. That of the forefinger touched the tattoo, pressed hard, harder, sinking into the new Sith flesh, slicing now and slicking it once more with welling blood. But the blood now seeping forth was not red but purple; smiling with delight she quickly finished the task of completely tracing the tattoo with her claw until it stood out in sanguine splendor upon his wrist.

Then she did the same with her own, holding it out to him when finished.

"It is our way, my Lord," she said simply. "One does not need to parade that before others which is most sacred and intimate to our hearts. By now mingling our blood and the Claims to Titlement, we become bonded as one, mate and mate, both heir to the Dark Lordship and Ladyship of the Warriors.

"United until death does us part."

Greater was her surprise when, in seeking inward, she found no reactive malice therein.

When did this happen? How had her father ever known...?

Hers was not to wonder why. How was she to know the drive of genetics, how would she care to understand the fact that she was indeed her mother's daughter.

It was of no importance. What was of importance was the simple fact that hatred had been thoroughly and effectively squelched, and replaced by a love which while not perhaps of the wildly devoted variety, at least dared raise a trembling head to announce it's presence to her.

She found that surprisingly pleasing as well.

A rare and genuine laugh bubbled from her lips, and she hefted up the rich robes of State.

"Please, my husband," she said, drawing out the word with another shiver of delight.

"Dress yourself, that we might go out and present you not only to those within this Temple, but to Phrinnchatka as well. For this is the first of two great days: the day you became true Heir to the Title...

"...followed, hopefully in short order, by the Day you become Dark Lord of the Warriors. And I, your Dark Lady."

Snarling, I threw the Sith's equivalent of a bar of soap at the grinning imp, then turned and pressed the front of my body up against Terrin. After all, there are parts of a lady's anatomy nobody should see but those most intimate to her, and a drooling, slobbering, grinning poison-tailed thing most assuredly did not qualify for that luxury.