First, there was silence.
The walls of smooth sable stone and the enormous onyx pillars were seamless lies. This place was a castle of glass, beautiful and glittering. It was more fragile, perfect, and delicate than the first tentative, tremulous blossoms of ardor between young lovers. It was calm, quiet. Outside the sentinel doors, men and women bled and cried. But not here. Here only the flames breathed, whispering: hush, hush.
Then, there was the void.
Emptiness and hunger lingered on the crackle-soft air like the last note of a hallowed harmony. They were the silence beneath the serenity, the poison under the skin. This chamber was a voracious thing, its halls demanding constant sacrifices to offer their blood, their power, and their honor before its cold throne. A throne that was empty. No life touched here, not now, not anymore. There was just the bloodied floors and marbled silence.
And in the void, there was the flame.
Except for him. In the glass-cut lie of the quiet, there was him. He stepped from a cloak of shadow and into the firelight, shining through the dark.
That flame was the Stars, and they were loved.
“Ashla and Bogan, be praised.” Such were Atyiru’s thoughts as she finished her prayers aloud, standing at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the dias. She smiled very faintly, her face upturned to the Serpentine Throne and the figure that hovered there, almost touching the chair’s carved arm.
“A friend I love very much sits there,” the Archpriestess said into the heartbeat-broken silence. “Sort of, anyway. He doesn’t like sitting in it, so, more stands there, I suppose,” she paused. “My name is Atyiru.”
“Ghost,” replied a modulated voice, the single word floating down the steps.
The Aedile nodded, folding her hands behind her back and kicking her feet as she went on. “I know. I’ve nearly run into you a few times, heard a lot about you, Mr. Ghost. Trouty’s rendition was my favorite. Whiteyface McGhostVoice,” she giggled. “He wouldn’t say much else though. I don’t blame him. Anyway,” she began pacing slowly up the seemingly endless steps.
“Here’s the thing, Ghosty-dear: I know you. I don’t know how, but I know you. You’re familiar. I can feel it. I know you, but I don’t. And that’s what bothers me. I know every single person in this Clan better than I know my own face--literally! So my question is...who are you? Won’t you tell me? Please?” she queried.
Ghost did not answer, instead just waiting, a reticent shade..
Atyiru sighed. “It was worth a shot. Y’know..this whole time, I’ve just been thinking, if I can rally our side, if I can make peace with the others, if I can keep as many of us alive as I can until he gets home,” she gestured to the throne. “Then it will be okay. But that was naive of me. My people are dying,” her voice cracked. “And it’s not even the Council this time. It’s my friends, their friends. How is any of that going to be okay ever again?”
The Miraluka, seemingly close to hysterics, drew her shoulders up. Her smile gone, she spoke through bared teeth. “I don’t care about allegiances, or stopping this war. Not right now. I need to hold on to something. I need this nagging feeling to end. I just need to know,” her tone turned desperate. “Who are you, and why can’t I forget you?”
A seraphic lightsaber appeared in her right hand, its radiance burning to life in the deep, flame-licked shadows of the hall. In her left, electricity crackled, its alacritous glow growing with each passing heartbeat. “I think if I fight you, I’ll know...” she whispered.
Then, she lunged, a single claw of lightning arcing from her unfurled fingertips towards Ghost. He moved. And then, like the light, he disappeared.
Atyiru pulled up short atop the dias, her attack exploding harmlessly against one of the far pillars. She strained her senses, saber at the ready, but there was nothing.
No. There. A faint something, a flicker of false light. Gone. There. Gone.
There. Two footfalls. Atyiru spun, blade raising across her body, too slow. A phantom materialized, arm darting past her guard. She jerked her head aside by a hair’s breadth. Cold metal kissed her ear with the lightest touch. Flames flashed behind them. Muscles recoiled, slithering away from shining plasma.
Gone.
The Miraluka growled, keeping her weapon loosely spinning to ward off the specter’s next advance, and clapped a hand over her ear, finding a small cut there. She stiffened when her fingertips probed it, noting the warm blood already congealing.
Poison? Oh, the Void take you, you little di’kut, the medic thought furiously, embracing the Force with the violent desperation of an impending farewell. She broke her mind, sparing a piece of its concentration solely on purging the venom. Her blood burned, but she ignored the pain until it finished.
The rest of her mental fortitude was put to planning. Alright, think! Tim and Marry always said I needed to seize the opportunities given me. What can I…ah, stifling a grin, the Krath slowly stopped moving her saber, letting all her limbs droop and relax. She wobbled on her feet, then collapsed, forcing back the reflex to catch herself as her head thudded against stone. She slowed her breathing and her heartbeat to that of the heavily unconscious, the terrible sensation of numbness creeping up her flesh while her mind laid awake.
And she waited.
He came from behind the throne, shaped in the fire for an unknown purpose. But he was not some weapon to be carried then cast aside. He was a man, and men had reasons.
Ghost knelt down, his silky robes brushing her skin. Atyiru maintained her composure, expecting to roll away when a blade touched her throat. Instead, gloved fingers searched her neck. A pause, then they retreated. Something rustled. The touch returned, hot skin pressing lightly to hers, feeling the slow thrum of her pulse.
The specter gave a tiny grunt, then stood and began walking away. Atyiru’s mind raced in disbelief.
Just like the others said. He wanted me alive. It must have been a simple sedative. But why? Gods take you, what do you want, if not to hurt us? Is this some sick test of your ability? A game? What?
She would know.
The Archpriestess counted ten heartbeats, gradually returning her body to combat readiness, blood pumping, adrenaline racing. One. Her fingers twitched. Five. She eased silently to her knees, gripping her blaster pistol in one hand and her unlit saber in the other. Six. Ghost reached the bottom of the steps. Eight. She got to her feet, stepping, quicksilver, to the edge of the dias. Nine. She aimed. Ghost padded across the carpet.
Ten.
Atyiru pulled the trigger.
-=x=-
Marick’s nerves lit with lightning, a flash of heat and warning igniting his muscles. They coiled in response, and he threw his body into the air with a Force-fueled leap on pure, animalistic instinct, klaxons roaring in his mind.
Veridian streaks of light seared across his dim vision as the world inverted and blurred. Between one flash and the next, agony blossomed in his arm. His nostrils filled with the stench of burning flesh. Then he was tumbling back to earth, the last bolt singeing the tips of his silvery hair as his hood fell back.
The disguised assassin’s feet touched stone as he landed with feline grace despite the smoldering hole in his left bicep. Behind his mask, his lips pressed into a thin line, but there was little time to attend to the wound. Atyiru fired again. A burst of green exploded in his vision.
Bone and sinew pushed as he launched from his crouch, twisting reflexively to avoid the next volley. He summoned his lightsaber to his good hand, the short emerald blade hissing to life in his half-relaxed grip.
Marick phased forward, closing in just as the Aedile dropped her blaster and activated her cerulean blade. He took one step, two, striking out, plasma screaming when she deflected his blade with a twirl of her own. He darted forward, left. Atyiru’s feet slid across the stone, gliding back, right. Their blades snapped and locked, the Miraluka’s scintillating ceaselessly. She pirouetted close, so close their legs brushed, ducking into his reach. Then away, lightsaber weaving. He chased her, relentless, eyes scanning everywhere at once for the opening he knew would come.
He had trained her, after all.
The ghostly Hapan rolled his left shoulder back, letting the injured arm flop as if useless. Atyiru’s whirling blade flew from its arc, momentum carrying it into a warding slash towards his exposed side. The heat of it scorched through his clothing, blistering his skin.
But the strike did not carry through, and she left herself open.
The Primarch’s leg shot out in a graceless kick, ugly but effective as it connected with the overextended Miraluka’s abdomen and shoved. Atyiru lost her footing completely, tumbling in a tangle of limbs to the edge of the dias and tottering there dangerously as she scrabbled not to fall. Her saber clattered at Marick’s feet as he strode over to her, palming one of his daggers.
“Predictable. Weak,” he stated in his twisted voice, face grim behind the safety of his mask. Atyiru bled Arconan blood, but that was just it: she would always bleed rather than kill.
“Gloom. Doom. Darkness,” she wheezed at him, voice thrown low in mocking. “That’s what you sound like.”
“Disappointing,” Ghost replied, leaning down with the intent to press his blade into her wrist this time. She smiled brightly at him, white teeth flashing, eyebrows wagging jauntily.
Then, with a little whoop, she threw herself off the dais and plummeted to the ground.
