Glasya Ren (glasya_ren) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-04-01 12:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: coruscant, glasya ren, issan ren |
we trade our secrets when it's safe
Who: Glaysa & Issan.
What: Master and apprentice face the consequences of their actions.
When: Following this thread & this.
Where: The Coruscant underworld, Level 1312.
Rating: Very R. NC-17. M.
Deep purple light cut through slitted blinds, leaving slashes of color like lines of blood on an otherwise black floor. Half of a table was illuminated in this way; a holoviewer was perched on its edge, blinking a number the room’s sole occupant had no desire to see. A plate sat nearby, bearing the better part of a picked-over meal. A knife, brought by some nameless delivery person along with the meal, was embedded in the table, buried nearly to its hilt.
Glasya stood at the back corner of the little apartment, prodding the bruises that still marked his throat. Each press of his fingers to his wounds brought his anger into clearer focus. He needed that clarity. It drew his attention away from petty things, off of minor inconveniences like the hamfisted devastation the stormtroopers had wrought inside his beloved Wraith and the cost of the repairs--and surveillance sweeps, three in all so far, with more to follow--they had rendered necessary. There were far, far greater matters to concern him now. Matters which warranted a conversation with his padawan.
His jaw tightened at the memory of that first communique. Time had dulled neither his irritation at her brusqueness nor his concerns about her loyalty. She had her own designs, that much had always been clear. Less certain now was her dedication to his cause, and to the changing of the guard he intended for the Knights. Were he an honest man, Glasya might have admitted this troubled him more than Kylo Ren’s scrutiny. But he retreated from this truth, seeking shelter in burgeoning ire instead. He cut a withering look to the door, as though he might call her there by sheer will alone.
As if on command, a quick repetition of knocks emanated from the door a few moments after Glasya had glared at it. Issan stood on the other side, already feeling uncomfortable and angry, which she was sure was his full intention. Being surrounded by unnatural, man-made materials put her on edge and made her feel cut off from her true source of power. When she'd received his message about where to meet, the first thought was that he was being a petulant child in reaction to their last discussion, but she'd been sure to scour the thought from her mind; if anyone could have detected it, he would have, and it would only have been used to make matters worse. With her coven well underway, Issan's next focus was on righting whatever had gone wrong here.
She knocked on the door again, sending a quick glance down one of the metallic corridors. Her Force abilities allowed her to detect life signs, but Coruscant made her feel so uncomfortable that she was distracted, and made vulnerable. She tried to use her anger to clear her mind and focus, but it was a task easier said than done.
That tangle of thought and emotion was a welcome greeting when Glasya opened the door. The crushing press of four thousand levels towering above them was a comfort to him, a place familiar, secure, and utterly beneath the other knights’ notice -- or beneath them entirely, a thought Glasya did not dwell upon. Instead he focused on his stray student, his smile twisting at the edges, turning into something sharp. He gestured inside with his right hand. His left arm stayed pinned at his side, held close against the soft black cloth of his shirt.
“You’re unsettled,” he said, once the door was shut. He watched her closely, studying body and mind alike. “Has anyone else contacted you?”
Issan did what she could to appear calm. "No, not since leaving Naboo." Her vision was limited in the low light of the room; she did her best to note posture, attempt to capture anything beyond the anger she could feel radiating from him. She moved into the room, looking from him to its small space, and finding little to settle her gaze on. She did linger over the knife embedded in the table, but not overly long. Turning, she looked back to him, irritation with a twinge of worry feeding her expression. She tamped it down.
"What happened? Why are you here?" The last question came out just shy of actually being Why did you choose here, though it was apparent in her tone.
“One of my safehouses,” he said. “You may be grateful for it someday.” He touched a keypad on the wall. The blinds closed, leaving them for a moment in absolute darkness. Then the lights came up. Glasya’s eyes narrowed to slits; he gritted his teeth against the pain that stabbed behind his eyes. The light remained low, but its unflinching eyes exposed Glasya’s lingering wounds.
Issan's eyes went wide; his almost-hunched form next to the door now made more sense. She started forward, one hand instantly rising toward his neck as her gaze flickered between those bruises and whatever was wrong with his arm.
"Who did this to you?" The question was low and asked harshly; her anger was now redirected at some unknown entity.
“Our master.” Glasya sneered the word. He felt the weight of her appraisal; he straightened beneath her gaze, squaring his shoulders, wincing when the motion stretched his damaged arm too far. The bones of his wrist creaked and popped. Pain and anger burned hot in the connection they shared; the Force between them roiled with barely restrained rage.
“My arm was broken, and badly set by the medical droid that tended me. My own was destroyed in the stormtroopers’ search of the Wraith.”
She managed to suppress a flinch at the answer to her question; she kept moving forward, her fingers drawing closer to his broken arm, then moving up to lightly skim over the bruises on his neck. Kylo Ren had done his work well, and she had an inkling why. She avoided that for now, guilt settling heavily in her stomach. The fact that the Master of the Knights of Ren hadn't called for her, especially after finding out about her involvement with Dee, spoke volumes toward Glasya's current condition.
"What did he want on your ship?" One hand tilted his chin up, fingertips brushing lightly along the tender skin of his throat. "Stop moving. You're making it worse."
Glasya scoffed. But he held in place where she moved him, and did not pull away from her touch. He felt her guilt, and for now, at least, had no intention of adding to it. He flexed his fingers and embraced the pain that came. He shifted only slightly, letting her fingers press into the shadows of his bruises, amplifying each small reminder of his failure.
“He has the datapad,” he said. His voice was rough; strained. “And he knows you’ve withheld someone of power. I kept everything else from him.”
She kept silent for a moment, gaze focused on his neck. As she had shown Dee, she pressed her Force abilities into his skin, soothing away the bruises -- they turned from purple and black to an ugly shade of yellowy green, and finally faded from sight completely. Her hands lingered, passing over the skin again as though for her own reassurance. If it reassured him as well he did not speak it, but the edges of his mood softened all the same.
"Why?" The question seemed vague, but she knew he would understand. It would have been simple enough to tell Kylo that she had been her own agent, that he'd lost control of her. That he hadn't known, or that he would discipline her himself. She had made a foolish mistake, even when there had been no way of knowing that Kylo would be on Naboo, wandering about on his own recognizance. Her first reaction on finding out was to protect her students; he had acted in a similar fashion.
Glasya held his silence. Having come to her own conclusion, Issan looked down to his arm. Her hands followed suit, ever the extension of her gaze. "I'll have to break this again to reset it."
“I know.” He drew a quiet breath. He stretched out his arm beneath her hands. With his padawan restored to him, Glasya realized how keenly he had felt her absence. Such a realization raised more questions than answers. He pushed them from his mind.
With his right hand he pushed up his sleeve. He tightly folded its edge, binding it high up around his upper arm. The break had been harsh, and unclean; bruises lingered in a patchwork pattern the color of ash on his pale skin. His eyes turned to hers, watching her observe him. He plucked at the shallowest of her thoughts, curious even in the face of the brutal work about to be done.
Issan wrapped one hand around his wrist, pulling the arm out straight, while the other gripped his elbow. She had never had any compunction about hurting others, and in a strange way it served her here; with a thought, she broke his arm anew, severing the bone in the exact place of the original fracture with a sickening crunch. The bone broke cleanly, and easily, speaking to its fragile state. Just as quickly, and with far more finesse than she'd expressed years ago in resetting his ribs, she moved the bones back into place; the whole process took under a minute.
She held his arm in place a moment longer after, ensuring her work done properly even though she knew it had been. The bone reset, she focused on the bruises, fading them from his skin as she had the ones on his neck. For all intents and purposes, he looked a new man, as though those awful things had never happened to him. But for everything Issan could do to fix his body, she knew there were worse wounds lurking in his mind that she could never come close to healing.
Releasing his arm, she took a step back as her own appendages fell to her sides. Now that he was healed, there was nothing standing in the way of him reprimanding her. She held her head up, watching him and waiting, knowing full well she deserved it and yet resenting it all the same. The event that had placed them both here renewed her desire to see the First Order fall, perhaps even more so than previously. The anger was entwined with a worry-filled realization of how close she had skimmed the surface of destruction; if she lost Glasya, she would lose much more than a mentor. The thought frightened her unconsciously.
"What more would you have of me, master?"
He felt her fear; it was an echo of his own, though his was kept tightly bound beneath anger and disappointment. He flexed his healed arm, his fingers tracing the places she had rent asunder and repaired. Through the fractures in his mind old memories seeped, fresh blood beneath old wounds: the scars she had given him, the cruelty of her early healing, the silence of his ship when she was gone.
He stepped forward, closing the small space between them. Something in him seemed tightly coiled and waiting for some reason, any reason, to strike. “I would have you understand that you are still mine, Issan.” With heavy-lidded eyes he watched her, his gaze locked on hers as his hand traced up her arm, hovering just above her tight black sleeve. Threat and promise loomed large in that touch that wasn’t; the air was thick with it, crackling electric between them. “So long as that is true, I will do all in my power to protect you. Now more than ever we need one another’s loyalty. So. Are you with me?”
Her brow furrowed in confusion for a bare second, before she followed it with a nod; her expression folded in on itself, apathy drawing no lines. She fought back a shiver evoked even by his absent caress.
"I serve your will, and yours alone." It was true, to an extent -- every success for him was another stepping stone in place to achieve her own desires. She knew full well that she never would have come this far without his help. The simple remark she'd thrown at him on the holonet must have scarred him more deeply than she'd realized, but now that her own seeds were planted, he must have known she would fight tooth and nail to protect them, as he did. "You have only but to ask."
“I wonder,” he mused. His head canted; he stared unblinking down at her, his mind pressing into hers. That exploratory touch was rougher than was typical, more iron fist than velvet glove. The edges of his focus were frayed and bloody, evidence of the wounds they could not see. “Your attention is divided. I have been forgiving -- even encouraging -- of your pursuits until now.” His hand circled her wrist, his thumb pressing hard against her pulse point. Hunger was written in every line of his body, though for what, even he could not have said.
“What I ask,” he said, “is that when I call, you answer. They are not to be valued over what we’re working toward. Not until our work is done.”
She didn't back away from his invasion, nor his touch. Instead, her chin raised with the slightest hint of defiance. "Am I not here now? You said to leave Naboo, and to lay low for a few days. Had you given me more details, I would have been here sooner." I would not have let you linger on in this pain, but it does seem to be something you enjoy, she did not say aloud, but did not care if he parsed it from her mind. She reined her anger in a little, allowing it instead to simmer under a calmer surface.
"I know my debt," she continued, the quiet words brought quickly on the heels of her previous statements. "Even if there was none, I would help you. You know I hate the First Order, and would see their leaders brought down." Snoke was at best a distant dictator, and Kylo Ren a rabid animal who was too often let loose from his leash. She had little experience of the Empire when under Darth Sidious' rule beyond her own people’s history, but she would not allow the First Order to wreck the same havoc on the universe as the previous rulers had. She believed wholesale in Glasya's mission, and knew he would be a better leader. The emotions behind those thoughts filled her mind, providing more truth to her words.
“Soon,” he growled. “And yet not soon enough.”
His gaze turned distant. He disappeared into her thoughts, greedily pursuing the confidence and pride she felt toward this shared goal of theirs. His bruised ego latched onto her vision of him in their young master’s place. But even that small memory of Kylo Ren carried with it the bitter reminder of Glasya’s humiliation. Pain spiked in his ravaged mind, and he could not hide his reaction: he leaned into it, just as she had accused him, embracing it where perhaps he should have done otherwise.
“You didn’t need to be here,” Glasya said, seemingly to himself. “It would be better for you if you weren’t.”
"And leave you to the mercy of those droids? I shudder to think. I like you whole," she replied, bringing her free hand up to press against his chest. She had chosen her words carefully, edging a touch too far on honesty. "Who else is capable of putting you back together so well?" The defiant angle of her head became a tilt toward his face, eager and open.
Glasya looked down to her, studying her face as though for the first time. With his mind so tangled up in hers, stripped down by what it had suffered, it was impossible for him to feign his typical coldness. Raw and scarred, Glasya found that familiar barricade now far out of reach; another thing Kylo Ren had taken. Rage flared hot in Glasya’s chest. His heart quickened beneath Issan’s hand. He told himself it was only anger, only the comfort of hatred and the desire to act upon it.
But while his mind might lie to protect itself, something deeper within him could not. He pulled her closer to him, his hand tightening around her caught wrist hard enough to bruise.
Issan's eyes widened, surprised, her breath catching. The taunts and teasing remarks she directed toward him had always earned the same response, one that had become familiar and comfortable during their long history. Her discomfort at being within the bowels of Coruscant started to edge up around the careful words she'd constructed to coax him out of his anger and made her uncertain about his intentions. With his mind open to hers, the connection he'd made running both ways, she could feel his anger; his wrath, and something else. For the moment, she was at a loss of what to say, instead caught up in her uncertainty.
Her unsteadiness seemed to provoke him. He found that single, fragile thread in her thoughts and wrapped himself tightly around it. He stood so close her hand was pinned between them at his chest; her other was still clutched tight in his white-knuckle grip. Heady, unspoken things coiled close and fine as smoke between them, flowing freely through the bond they shared. Some crept too close to words, or worse, to emotions neither of them wished to name. Then all was drowned out by a single, overwhelming thought: want.
He leaned down over her, crushing her mouth beneath his own.
She remained still for a heartbeat, her mind spinning at the sudden turn of events. This was the last thing she'd expected; she tensed, panicking until she forced a decision. The hand trapped between them slid up in quick increments, wrapping around the back of his neck and pulling down, her form pressing to his with hunger. Nails slid along his skin. She surged up to meet him, no longer hesitant. If he was willing to start this, then by the Winged Goddess, she'd finish it. Her other hand attempted to wrench itself away from his grip, seeking to grasp and own his form as much as her first hand did.
Glasya’s fingers twisted tight around her wrist, deepening the bruises he had made. He pressed his free hand to the small of her back to hold her where she had raised herself against him. The black cloth of her robes scraped rough over his bare arm. A darkling sound welled in the back of his throat, a growl of need that broke against her lips. His tongue traced the swell of her lower lip.
He moved quickly, then, turning them, putting her back to the wall. The lights above them cut through him, and as a fresh wave of pain cut through him his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his grip on her loosening for one brief moment. She abused the opportunity, ripping her wrist from his grasp. Her now free hand moved to grab the back of his neck, nails tearing across his scalp. She pulled his head down, wanting his full attention. Their connection explained his distraction, and she snapped the lights off with a thought. Blessed darkness wrapped around them.
Her hands moved down, pushing at his robes for the flesh underneath. Glasya sighed into her mouth. Blood beaded beneath the sharp lines her nails drew on him. A new warmth stirred in him, as hot as his earlier fury but far more dangerous. He moved with her touch; for once the slide of heavy robes from hot skin felt like an unburdening, rather than exposure. He felt her hand on his bare side and pressed into it, aching for more.
His hands were steady, his fingers hard and seeking as they found the bindings of her robes. A button snapped and clattered to the floor. A sound caught in her throat as he tore at her clothing, but her mind was too focused on her hands exploring his chest; the familiar touch of skin and scar drove her to take more as she was torn between desire and impatience. Frustration pulled a snarl from her lips as she reached for her own belt and loosed the dark cloth that covered her pale skin; it fell away in the darkness, shadows moving on shadows.
She took one of his hands and pulled it away from the clothing now hanging from her arms, instead moving it to her hip. Leaning back against the wall, her other hand tugged at the robes hanging from his neck, urging him forward.
His fingers curled tight around the hard jut of her hip. His thumb traced its line, moving soft and low over porcelain flesh. At last he tore his mouth from hers, only to trail biting kisses down the column of her throat. He traced the line of her clavicle with teeth and tongue. He sucked in a breath, drinking in the scent of her, all sweat-slick skin and stardust and hot, pounding blood. His arousal pressed hot and thick against the inside of her thigh. His hand slid around her leg, raising her against him; then he thrust into her, rough and deep.
A thick moan escaped her lips, her body tensing for a moment before she wrapped herself firmly around him; her legs, his waist, her hands, his shoulders. Fingers spidered up his neck, her face pressed into his hair before she grabbed his jaw, fingers lacing along his cheeks. She pulled his mouth up to hers again, wanting to savor his viciousness, his gloriously unholy taste. Unwillingly, she quivered under his touch, lost in their mental and physical entwinement.
He shoved his tongue over hers, groaning softly as he drove into her again, body and mind moving in perfect unison. He found her lust and devoured it, his own feeding off it and returning it to her in kind. The hand at her hip held her pinned to the wall. He brought the other to her throat, his thumb resting just beneath her chin, the heel of his palm flush against her windpipe. His fingertips slid under her hair, a caress so gentle it might have seemed loving from someone else, somewhere else. He withdrew from her, then bucked brutally into her again, falling into a torturously slow rhythm.
She gasped, the sound mixed with a gluttonous sob that she broke in half as she bit her lower lip; her face turned, pressed into his. Hands moved, nails sliding lightly down the skin as her arms wrapped about his neck. Her mind reached out, moving the playing field from her head into his; she straddled him, plucking strands of intuition and instinct like a harp, waiting to see which notes would appear. Darker threads wove throughout his mind, but there were a few lighter ones; softer ones, which she focused on first, wrapping gentle fingers about them to see what was evoked.
Glasya fought her at first. His hands tightened on her, squeezing to hold her beneath long, slow thrusts. He tried to guide her back toward the shadows of his thoughts, toward the darkness that thrived there. But she knew well the corners of his mind and found too easily even those he had tried to hide. His grip loosened. The pad of his thumb slid across her throat, smoothing over the tender flesh he’d held too tight. His hand slid from her hip to the curve of her backside, pulling her away from the wall and firmly onto him. Rough stubble scratched her cheek as he moved his lips to her ear; his breath came ragged and clipped, tickling her ear as he drew her lobe between his teeth.
"Don't be afraid." The words breathed from her mouth unconsciously, there and gone before they had truly formed. She wormed her way away from his attempts to dissuade her, instead reaching for the parts of him that shone like stars in the black space of his mind; she plucked them delicately, taking the pleasure he was evoking in her and running them down the lines until their two bodies formed a circuit.
Issan felt as though she were floating outside of time, only his touch, his smell and the sound of his breath grounding her. It wasn't unlike the visits with her secret deity, the moments when her mind was touched by the divine. This time she could feel, taste, touch the one with her, making the experience all the headier. A foul word in another language dropped from her mouth, as she felt waves of ecstasy begin to wash over her.
He groaned in answer, muffling himself with a press of lips and teeth to the soft place beneath her ear. Her words still echoed in his mind, reverberating along the pathways she traced; he shuddered in her arms. His hips rolled between hers, pushing him into her as he held her close. He traced her jawline with small, biting kisses. Then his eyes met hers, holding her gaze in the dim light of the holovid. In that look and echoing in their connection were a thousand things neither of them would ever put to words.
Issan lingered in his gaze for a moment longer, before touching her forehead to his as her body came to climax. Swells of gratification moved through her, holding her taut before releasing her to simple pleasure; her nails dug into his skin as a smothered cry escaped her throat. The same sensation rolled back into him, through the connection she'd strengthened between them. She tensed again, before falling limp against him, wallowing in momentary delirium.
Glasya gathered her close, holding her up as her body relaxed. She fit perfectly against him, around him; her pleasure was his, and in that moment it was nearly more than he could bear. With one final stroke he sank into her, staying deep and still within her as he came. A rough moan ground out of him to break against her cheek.
He shuddered; held her against him as he moved to sit. Black robes pooled around them, a darkly elegant bed on a dingy floor. For the moment his mind was calm, consumed only by their connection, their pleasure, and the bond that had deepened in ways they could not yet understand.
Issan focused on her breath, her heartbeat slowing as her body reached the same stillness as her mind. She could still feel the hard angles and lines of him next to and beneath her, a feeling that was suddenly so much more than familiar and comfortable; she moved back from his mind, slowly, pooling into her own as she struggled to make sense of what was her and what was him. As she did so, the sharp edges -- miles and miles of humming wires and machinery -- of Coruscant filtered back into her mind, no longer blocked out by Glasya's overwhelming presence. Issan grimaced for the barest moment, turning her head and face into his neck, her arms still wrapped around his shoulders.
"I hope you don't still regret my coming here," she muttered against his skin. The holoreader in a pocket of her robes buzzed, a slight vibration on her right hip. She ignored it for the moment; Maddie and Dee had to have been safe. Surely Kylo wouldn't have found them so quickly. She wanted one quiet minute to herself, to process what had just happened.
“I don’t,” he said. Suddenly it seemed lonely in his mind. He felt the empty places left behind in her absence; how quickly the darkness bled back into the star-bright places she had found. He reached for familiar walls only to find them crumbling. He took what distance they could give him from these dangerous emotions, but too much remained exposed. Unthinking, he trailed soft fingertips down the ridge of her spine. “I wonder if you will.”
Issan pulled back, her gaze finding his without error or hesitation. She smiled, less for him and more at him, one hand clutching the curve of his neck.
"No," she replied, her fingers moving up to find the side of his face. "I've been with you this long, I haven't tired of you yet." The teasing words and smile fell away as a stoicism appeared. Her lips parted, words absent for a moment as she struggled to put her thoughts together. "What I said earlier is no less true. We will see this through to the end, Glasya. My will is yours, my loyalty is yours." The holoreader buzzed again, insistent. Issan ignored it further, intent on ensuring their relationship mended.
Glasya made a vague, quiet sound. If he was comforted by her reassurance, it did not show in the hard lines of his face. He trusted her, and yet already forces worked to tear them in opposite directions. He gave the hidden device another sharp buzz. Then, annoyed by the holoreader’s persistence, he reached for it, digging through the folds of her robe with impatient fingers.
Issan's hand darted into the space where the pocket was, knowing the layout of her own clothing; the folds of the cloth dipped and rose with her movements as she brought the screen up for her view. The name that appeared made the flush drain from her cheeks; her jaw set, teeth clenched.
"He's summoning me." It seemed unnecessary to clarify who, considering the man had been the subject of their conversation minutes before. Issan was unsure what to expect; much of Kylo's wrath might have been spent on Glasya, but it was clear he wasn't content to allow Issan's actions to pass without comment. She turned the holoreader off and put it back in her pocket, pulling her robes over her shoulders. White skin consumed by black cloth; light and dark commingling.
Glasya nodded. He untangled his legs from hers, lifting her to stand as he rose with her. He left his own robes where they lay. His eyes lingered on the smooth, pale lines of flesh that remained within view, but his bruised mind was already hard at work. He did not have to caution her; they both knew well enough what she would soon face. A plan was something harder to grasp.
“Let him believe I’m still injured,” he said. “And on Corellia, if he presses. We must feign contrition as long as we can.” His mouth drew to a thin line, bordering on a frown. “I want to know what happened the instant you’re free of him.”
"Yes, master," she replied, her eyes downcast as she re-clothed herself; her tone reflected obedience, hands making quick work of the robes that had been torn from her body. All earlier sparks of mischief were gone; likewise, her mind was shuttered, the connection they'd shared reduced to the thread that had grown between them over the years. Issan noted that it felt thicker, and tighter, but only incrementally. It was something that begged more study, but at another time.
Her face folded in on itself, adopting a stoic look. She seemed given up to the idea that other matters demanded her time, rather than expressing annoyance at the interruption, or sorrow that their reunion was ending so soon. She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze again. Once more, they were master and apprentice.
"Is there anything more?"
The old, familiar cadence was a comfort, one easy to fall back into. His expression mirrored hers, blank and unreadable. “No.” He turned away from her, the deep scars at his back gleaming sweat-slick in the low light. “Go carefully,” he said.
Issan lingered for a moment, doe-ish eyes studying his face; then her head bobbed in acquiescence, and she turned toward the door. For all her misgivings about his choice of location, she found it difficult to leave. She didn't look back, the door opening and closing behind her without issue. Likewise, she found no obstacle in her path back down the hall, nor in ascending the levels back to her ship. She was resigned to her fate, but the warmth in her muscles reminded her that there was a reason for all this suffering.