Glasya Ren (glasya_ren) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-04-04 15:22:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !locale: coruscant, glasya ren, liriael d'lander |
deliver us from evil
Who: Glaysa & Liriael.
What: Two of Kylo Ren’s recent victims meet. Things go south fast.
When: The day after this.
Where: The Coruscant underworld, Level 3108, Hangar 12.
Rating: PG-13?
For a center of illicit activity, Hangar 12 was considerably crowded. The hangar’s owners made no secret of their open-minded approach to their customers’ work. Smugglers, soldiers, and blockade runners from all sides of the current conflict rubbed elbows here; so long as the unwritten rules were not violated, each patron of the hangar tolerated one another and feigned ignorance as to their alignment or activities.
The man known here as Obed Brandt was comfortable in this space. He had frequented Hangar 12 and its earlier counterpart, Hangar 9, for decades now. While his true identity remained mostly fodder for speculation--in private, far outside the unsettlingly large range of his hearing--the merchants and mechanics of the hangar knew him mostly as a man with credits, connections, and specific, well communicated needs. He was, in short, an ideal customer. Which was why even now, as his temper grew thin and his voice fell to a softly rumbling growl, the technician called Sadani maintained his patience. After a series of soothing gestures and contritely slumping shoulders, the conversation seemed to cool off. Credits changed hands, the technician was waved away, and the man in black at last seemed satisfied.
He did not immediately enter the bay now opened to him. Instead he pocketed the chit given him in exchange for his coin, and disappeared down a winding alleyway that led deeper into the level’s shops.
Just as the other stranger was known by a different name, so was the blonde woman who was currently haggling with another shop owner, in a strange, lilting language that clicked too rapidly to easily follow. In her hands, she was turning over a transponder, as if weighing it, as she reluctantly showed a little interest in picking it up. The nuances of their expressions was calculated, the negotiation almost textbook. In the end, she would get the transponder at the price she wanted, which was decent enough for the shop owner to feel slightly victorious in the trade, although not overly so.
The tech disappeared into the low-slung bag half-hidden by her dark green cloak, before the folds of that fabric closed together again, but just as she was turning to leave, her head lifted up. Blue eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head once, towards the open bay, and then towards the alley instead. There was hesitation in her pose, which she covered a moment later by stepping back into the flow of foot traffic, letting it carry her along and her eyes graze over various offerings, but she focused on none of them. Instead, she kept her head low, the hood pooling at the back of her neck where her hair was coiled, and she started down the alleyway a moment later. By now, her footsteps were sure, with an even gait, but anyone experienced walked much the same...as if they knew what they were doing, and did not wish to be interfered with.
She closed the distance between herself and the other within a few moments, but then slowed her gait so that she would not reach him as yet. Her senses were fully extended now, picking up on that stray thought that had inundated her subconscious. She had not figured out yet why her instincts were whispering to her, urgently, nor why this man would be the target. It was almost as if she had detected a...scent of someone familiar, and she could only guess it was Dee. Were her senses off? This was not the place to be tailing someone without information, and had her crew been here, the woman would have reconsidered. But they were far too new to this galaxy to test out in the seedy underworld of Coruscant yet. Fresh meat was a delicacy, down here.
The farther they walked, the more sparse the crowd became. They passed one block, then two. At the corner of the third the man turned, entering a narrow corridor leading back toward speakeasies and gambling dens. Distant music hovered softly in the air, disturbed only by their footfalls. In the dim light of the alleyway he was a shadow within shadows, visible largely as a flash of dark blonde hair whenever they passed directly beneath a streetlamp.
Losing the crowd was bad. It had been a long time since she had needed to tail anyone, and her skills were rusty. When he turned, she frowned, and did not follow immediately; it was a common tactic to see if someone was following. Instead, she scanned the layout of the place in her head, looking for another way into the same alley. There was one, but it was far too roundabout and she would stand a good chance of losing him altogether if she veered off that way. She could have let it go at that point...the connection was thin, but it continued to push at her, encouraging her down the darker alley, convincing her to pull up the hood and drape it over her hair as she did so, letting it shield her from streetlamps as she walked beneath the artificial light.
She sought out another presence as she walked down the alleyway, her boots faint on the metallic and concrete floor...there was another man who had taken much the same route, and she used him as a feint, giving the impression that he was her target. It was flimsy but it was all she had, and if she let this go, there was a chance she would miss out on a thin thread she had to her former crewmate.
The doorway to a dimly lit cantina waited ahead of them, a neon green archway set deep into a black wall. Green light pooled on the road and cast odd shadows on the opposite wall. The man she followed was a silhouette against this backdrop. His will cut through her mind, sharp and precise as a stiletto. Dee. It was a name Glasya recognized. His curiosity piqued, he looked to the man she had feigned following.
“Go,” he said. He waved one hand, dismissive. The man’s steps quickened; he disappeared into the cantina without a single backward glance. Glasya--“Obed” still, at least for the moment--moved slowly toward her. He stopped just outside the circle of light cast by an overhead lamp.
“I’m sorry,” he purred. “Do I know you?”
For her part, she had stopped once she felt the cut across her mind, only sparing a glance at the retreating back of the man she had targeted. Her eyes narrowed, suspicions growing in her mind at the action, but she didn’t voice any of that. Instead, she turned her gaze back to the stranger she had followed, actually examining his features and weighing them against any pictures she had in her mind.
Finally, she said, “No, I don’t think you do. But I wonder if we have someone we know...in common.” She only sounded slightly curious, mixed in with a bit of doubt, as if she wasn’t sure he would be any help to her at all.
His gaze slid over her, appraising. His piercing search retreated to shallower depths to skim the surface of her thoughts, but he found nothing of interest. “Unlikely,” he said. “Unless you mean the tech at the bay. You’ve been following me since I spoke with him, am I right? If you need a mechanic, I’m afraid you took a few wrong turns.”
“I have a mechanic,” was her reply, as a ghost of a wry smile passed over her lips. It wasn’t completely unheard of to find another sensitive, even among the denizens of the underworld, so she thought little of his cursory brush against her mind. “I’m looking for a woman named Dee. She…” Her voice trailed off as the small instincts at the back of her mind finally coalesced. It had been a scent, of a sort, but not the erstwhile healer. Issan. That’s who she was sensing in relation to him. Her subconscious had tracked that, keeping her enemy at the back of her mind, always looking. It was a split second realization, and she tried to tuck it away as quickly as it came.
“She’s eluded me, as of late,” she continued, after the momentary pause. “Someone matching your description was...involved.” The simple lie rolled smoothly off her tongue, as she recalculated the interaction here. If Issan was involved, this would require…..regrouping. “Do you know her?”
He gleaned the faint hint of a single name from Liriael’s thoughts. At once silence fell between them, heavy and thick as a wall. Kylo Ren’s missive regarding the woman Dee had been clear. That this woman knew something about her--more than Glasya did, in fact--was equally so. He moved closer to her, neatly sidestepping the light as he did.
“Your sources have misled you,” he said. He was near enough to touch her now, but his hands remained at his sides. A languid, coiled energy seemed to flow through and around him. “I know of someone named Dee, but I haven’t yet had the pleasure. Perhaps you can tell me. Is she worth all the interest she’s suddenly sparked?”
Although the faint curve of her mouth did not change, as if she found the whole event amusing, she sidled enough that she was more concealed by the light. A convoluted dance, indeed. “I don’t know,” she answered, slowly. “If there is a particular reason, other than a simple bounty, it had eluded me.” She tilted her head slightly. “You don’t know her, so that less useful. Do you know where she might be? Or where she...will be?”
“Now why would I know a thing like that?” Glasya moved with her, watching her closely. He kept his own thoughts tightly shut, locked away behind the walls he had carefully rebuilt after Kylo’s attack. Meanwhile he was slowly, steadily inching into hers, seeking out what she knew about both his apprentice and his prey. “Are you a bounty hunter, then?”
“Mmm.” A noncommittal answer at best, eyes watching him just as closely, and although her own defenses remained high, they had not been nearly as trained, or as tested, as his. This time she did not retreat, but she was poised to step back, to return to the alley. A new set of warnings was sounding in her head, overriding her desire to find Dee. This would not be the right path. “If you have nothing to offer, then perhaps I will have better luck back in the market.” Her cloak rippled around her, closing off a bit more, as if she was preparing to leave.
He sidled up to her. At last his hand reached out, long fingers circling high along her arm. “Don’t go so soon,” he said. A sharp smile curved his lips. He pressed her back toward the wall. He felt her mind close off to him: another sign that he was on the right trail. He pressed harder. The slice of his will into hers became more dagger than stiletto, cutting a broad swath through fresh memories. His voice was a sharp, cold whisper.
“I’m going to assume you’re part of her crew. Why you’re looking for her now is beyond me. She will bring you nothing but trouble, far more and far worse than you’ve already seen.” His eyes met hers and held them. “Tell me what you know, and I will see what I can do to make things easier for you. Or don’t.” He shrugged. “And I will find out anyway.”
“Easier for me?” She answered, in a near snarl as she looked down at where his hand wrapped around her arm. Despite the tight lines of pain around her eyes and at her temples from his mind boring into hers, she was yet resisting. In this case, pride came forth with a better answer. “I assure you, I am not part of her crew. And if you know something about trouble that she brings, you’re proving that you already know more that I do. It’s useless to pursue this.” Her blue eyes snapped with anger. “Let me go.” It was infused with her own will, unfocused but not inconsiderable.
His brow arched; his smile faded to a thin line. His hand tightened on her arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “You’ve been very useful already. Finding a Force sensitive is always rewarding, after all. And now I can safely assume Dee was part of your crew, before she disappeared into the ether. You do have the arrogance of a captain. I should’ve seen that before.” He smirked down at her. “Ordinarily I’d give you another opportunity to offer up what I need. But I’m in a bit of a hurry, and I’ve had a difficult few days.”
The knife in her mind twisted. The wound he had already opened cracked and split. He delved into her memories, digging greedily into anywhere he felt signs of Dee or Issan.
The battle was taking place in the shadows of the alley, which muffled the sound of distress that she made as her mind was ripped into, and she involuntarily arched in his grip, trying to shy away from the invasion. Still, she resisted him like a wall, unrefined like his attack but having brute strength. At the same time, her knowledge of Dee was faint, scattered to corners and difficult to trace….after all, Dee had been part of her crew only a short month at best, and had made few inroads into her memories. Far better, was a tantalizing glimpse of this woman and Issan, battling over what may be a holocron- Glasya’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly at the vision, but she gave him little enough time to respond.
Instead of arching away, suddenly she threw herself at him, her body slamming into his, with the unmistakable hard metal of a blaster pressing against his stomach. She seemed unable to fire it yet, but she was not so small that her body weight didn’t make a suitable battering ram, as she hit him with all her strength, coupled with drawing on the Force. The Malastarian had the density of someone grown on a high-gravity world, and it was the same as being hit by a ton of mag-bricks.
He slid across the narrow alleyway to strike the opposite wall. The air went out of him in a loud huff. He coughed; a thin trickle of blood traced down from the corner of his mouth. He sucked in a breath and pushed himself off the wall, lunging hard at her. There was no weapon in his hands, not yet; he lashed out only with the brutal press of his mind. With a scalpel’s edge and single-minded determination he sought out her connections to Issan, carving them out and exposing them to his view.
As soon as he hit the wall, she tried to move, tried to flee the alley, but it was clear from her wavering gait that she couldn’t quite focus enough, not with his thoughts tearing through hers. Likewise, the blaster remained in her hand, but she couldn’t command it to lift, to fire at him, even though she grit her teeth and tried to bring it to bear. He advanced on her and she was forced to back up once more, but as the cold steel wall slid against her back, she seemed to find a moment’s clarity, and again she attacked, this time with a left-handed punch, more instinct than thought, and in this she was trained. It wasn’t clumsy but direct, and at the same time, she resorted to the last internal defense that she had. A white-hot flash echoed across her mind, attempting to burn his touch away. It was a trick her once-teacher had imparted, and while she learned it, she had not mastered it. It would daze her just as it would an invader, and she knew her consciousness would waver a moment. Would she come out of it fast enough, she did not know yet.
Her counter and her strike landed as one. Glasya maintained his consciousness and his hold on the thin thread of her knowledge of Issan, but he paid dearly for it. His jaw took the brunt of her physical strike; a bruise bloomed beneath short stubble. Pain seared bright behind his eyes; it spiderwebbed out, making an intricate pattern along the places Kylo had already broken apart. Glasya had suffered more and worse. He pushed through, embracing the pain when it came in darkling waves. Memories of Issan welled up like a slow, lazy tide. He lapped them up, storing them away for future questioning. Distracted, he clutched her wrist where she held the blaster, and twisted sharply.
Unable to muster enough concentration to wrench her wrist free, a sharp cry of pain was torn from her as the bones protested under his grip, and then cracked. Nerveless fingers dropped the blaster; it clattered on the floor, but the sound merely died away in the dark. Her eyes refused to work, as she blinked away afterimages as if she had stared right at the sun, so she had to work only with the physical contact they still shared. Letting her arm go limp where his fingers encircled, she threw herself backwards and yanked, hard, enough to dislocate her shoulder but also, she planned, to pull him off balance. She coupled that with her boot driving into where his knee should be….if she could keep her consciousness up long enough.
The sharp pop of her shoulder brought a smile to his face, but the look was quickly gone when her heel drove into the side of his knee. His leg buckled beneath him, and a curse ground out of him from between clenched teeth. He squeezed her damaged wrist harder. Small bones slid together beneath his rough touch.
“Enough of this,” he growled. He reached to the small of his back. A lightsaber came to life with a low, vibrating hum. Its red light bathed the alleyway, casting both their faces in a bloody glow. He brought the ragged edge of the wakizashi close, pressing its tip against her shoulder. The acrid smell of burning cloth rose up like incense.
The small sense of satisfaction she felt as she connected with his knee instantly gave way to shock as the lightsaber flared red, the sound unmistakable. All the fight instantly went out of her, albeit mostly out of surprise and dread. Her eyes went wide, reflecting the glow, and she closed her mouth abruptly against another noise, stifling the moan. “What…” she breathed, her gaze transfixed more by the weapon than by him. As her retaliations ceased, pain started to make itself known, from multiple points on her body, but she couldn’t look away from the saber, or now, his eyes. “What are you?” Her voice was thin, horrified.
“You know.” He watched her, unblinking. His pain was a faint echo of hers; he drank in both, pleasure pooling low in his belly. He almost smiled. “Don’t you, Liriael D’Lander.” He pressed the point of the lightsaber deeper, until they could smell the first hint of searing flesh. “Now. Shall we go somewhere more private, or are you willing to work with me?”
Another sound of pain came past her clenched teeth, as she was unable to retreat from the lightsaber as he pressed it through the clothing to her shoulder. It spread out from the spot like a poison, but she did her best to shut out the agony. “I don’t know your name,” she shot back, still able to summon up resistance to a degree. “I don’t work well with strangers...holding weapons against me.” Despite the bravado, her voice was slightly breathless as she concentrated at keeping the pain at the back of her mind.
The pad of his thumb slid delicately over her wounded wrist. The lightsaber shifted slightly, skipping like a stone over her shoulder as he moved closer, pressing his body flush to hers. “My name is Glasya Ren,” he said. “Now that we’re acquainted, I’ll ask again. Here, or elsewhere?” His voice fell to a low, rumbling whisper. “Honestly, Liriael, I’d rather talk with you here. I enjoy smaller, more intimate conversations, and I’d prefer my master not join us just yet. But if that’s what you’d prefer.”
To anyone watching from outside the two, it would look more like an embrace than a battle, even with the red glow of the saber reflecting off their skin. Liriael couldn’t repress the flinch as the ragged blade burned a thin line over her shoulder, the heat spilling through the material of the robe, right over the scar she had earned only weeks prior. She had to gulp in a breath as she was held between him and the wall, not even able to withdraw her wrist since her arm hung limp and unresponsive. “You’re a Knight of Ren,” she answered, and even her voice had dropped to a whisper, lending a hush to the conversation. She didn’t say his master’s name aloud, but it echoed in both of their heads. Despite her precarious position, she kept the barrier up in her mind. “I am not given to lies,” she continued, softly. “I don’t know any more about Dee. She is as much a stranger to me as she is to you.”
Glasya pushed against the barrier he found in her mind. It was a tentative motion, as tender and threatening an exploration as his continued grip and the press of his blade. “So you keep telling me,” he said. “Are you quite certain there’s nothing you’re keeping from me? For example, some tie she might have to the rift? Some skill she might have that called her to your attention?” In one fluid motion he pushed against her, blade and Force cutting deeper into her. “Or perhaps there’s something else you’d like to share. Who is Issan, Liriael?”
Her shoulder was on fire, where the saber cut deeper and burned, all at once, but to Liriael’s credit, she did not cry out this time. Still, her eyes glazed over, attempting to push both that torment and his intrusion from her mind. “The only….tie she has to the rift...is that she came through it,” she ground out. Instinctively, her left hand came up from where it had been pressed against the wall, and her fingers wrapped desperately around his wrist, a mocking mirror of his grip on her own, and squeezed as if she could pull the lightsaber from her shoulder. “She was a healer...with her people….nothing more.” Her breath came ragged, uneven now, but her fortitude remained. The icy knife that was his mind sliced away another layer of her defenses. “Sorry to...disappoint you, but I know even less...about Issan Vox.”
“Now that I don’t believe.” He felt one wall crumple, and went at once for another. The thread of his apprentice’s influence was thin in Liriael’s mind, but it was there, and it was older than Glaysa had anticipated. Dee was forgotten now, Liriael’s limited knowledge of her truly exhausted; if the relationship between pilot and knight was something that could be exploited, Glasya would learn how. “You’ve known her for some time, I see. Traded petty little victories and losses.” He sighed. Pushed the hissing, jagged blade a bit deeper. “We’re nearly finished here. You’ve been so very brave, Liriael.” He chuckled.
“I believe you know nothing of use,” he said. “But they’re going to keep coming for you and your crew. It’s a matter of principle now. And when they find you, you would be wise to be more forthcoming with them than you have been with me. If Dee contacts you, give her up. It is your best and only chance. And it wouldn’t be all bad. A Force-sensitive like you could excel in the First Order.”
Why she continued to defend Issan’s memory, she couldn’t pinpoint. But something in her wanted to keep Vox’s whereabouts hidden from him; or perhaps she just wished to inconvenience Glasya by any method possible. The blade melted skin and neared the bone, and if she did nothing, she would give in to the blackness that yawned like a chasm under her consciousness, from the pain radiating out from the burn.
The First Order. Because of Dee’s actions, they would come for her, for her crew. Cassie and Caine were under her protection now; the fake transponder in her bag was just the first step in ensuring that. But to do so, she needed to escape Glasya’s grip, and now, before he undid her mind completely.
“Torturing me...and offering me a job, all at once?” She bit out, the words lofty even laced with agony. “Your technique leaves something to be…desired.” She drawled out the last word, almost seductively, right near his ear, since he yet had her pinned to the wall. They remained a stiff tableau, his fingers gently holding her broken wrist, her own hand wrapped around the cords of muscle holding the lightsaber to her shoulder. As if she was finally wilting under the pain, her fingers loosened, dropped; her body started to slump, and her eyelids grew heavy. Everything in her mind, under his onslaught, quieted, surrendered even. Eddies of effort swirled there, pale imitations of defense, and there was only a split second of warning in her words.
“Glasya,” she whispered, pleadingly, then said, “Go to hell.”
The blaster from the ground flew to her hand, and she jammed it against his thigh and fired. The shot echoed loudly in the alley, striking both flesh and metal as it went through him, and she yanked her wrist from his grip with a twist of her shoulder. Even as calculated, the lightsaber bit through to her collarbone, nearly, but she was already pulling free, throwing herself towards the opening of the alleyway only a few strides away.
The lightsaber slipped from Glasya’s hands. He hissed a curse and pulled it back to him, thumbing it off. The thick muscle of his thigh screamed with burning pain, but fury carried him through. He slid the wakizashi to its sheath at his back. His hand shot out. He poured every ounce of his anger into that Force-bolstered grasp. It wrapped around her dislocated shoulder, squeezing tight. His arm jerked backward, pulling her hard to the ground. Cartilage and tendon and bone snapped with a sickening crunch, and she crumpled, landing hard on her right side against the broken arm. On uneven steps he closed the distance between them.
Like an oasis, the promise of the freedom of the main thoroughfare faded before Liri could take more than a few steps. The snap of bones echoed loudly in her ears, but the shock from the lightsaber burn was overriding that pain, with almost languid heat seeping through her limbs from the wound. She could not move, sprawled out on the cold metal flooring, even if she was attempting any more to flee. The click of his boots crept up on her, the rhythm unsteady, and Liriael had one last flare of satisfaction that she’d wounded him enough that he limped. Small victories, indeed.
Her gaze was wavering, just as those boots came into view, and she rested her cheek against the coldness of the ground instead of rising to meet him. The blaster was still in her hand, but the saber had cut too much into her, and that arm only trembled faintly at her command. She had failed, but it was a distant disappointment, unable to intrude on the pain that she could no longer keep at bay. She wanted to say something more, to cut him one last time, a petty revenge, but even her mouth would no longer obey. If she was to die, than what did it matter if she had last words for him?
“I tried to help you,” he said, standing over her. “Don’t forget that.” Then his hand moved again, and a shockwave of Force energy struck the nape of her neck.
Alright, perhaps it did matter to her. “Your help sucks,” she whispered, her last humor to herself, as the blow struck her and she surrendered to the dark.
It was a petty gesture, but Glaysa plucked the blaster from her hand and pocketed it. There was some enjoyment to be had, at least, in melting it down later, or perhaps giving it as a gift to a well behaved stormtrooper. An animal growl of pain cut through him as he bent to retrieve the captain. He threw her over his shoulder, taking no pains to mind the wounds he’d caused. His own occupied almost the entirety of his thoughts as he moved from the alley to the door of the cantina ahead. Its denizens knew of him well enough that their gazes averted at the first glimpse of him. The Twi’lek bartender, though, flashed a row of sharpened teeth in greeting.
Together they took the captain to a back room behind the bar, near to the “shame door,” as it the narrow back entrance was often called. Her pack was removed and searched, but otherwise she was left untouched. A few credits passed hands, and a wry smile twisted the Twi’lek’s lips.
“If she causes you any trouble,” Glasya said, “you know who to call. Keep her here at least a standard day. Then let her get back to her ship. Without further incident, if you can manage it.”
“And this?” The Twi’lek held up the transponder, turning it under the single bright light.
Glasya shrugged. “Keep it. I’m sure she’d want you to have a little something extra for your hospitality.”
Busy with his prizes, the Twi’lek showed no concern for Glasya’s condition as the Knight of Ren moved with atypical slowness toward the doors. Glasya was glad of it. Outside, darkness wrapped around him as tight and comforting as his robes. He longed to be in them once more, in the skin he found most comfortable. The Wraith would be ready by the time he returned to the hangar. It was time to leave this place, and to begin the work that must be done.