Ask Children Of The Force

[Emryc Thorne]

He wasn’t sure what he had said, but suddenly the older Sith had faded into the confines of his mind. With more years on him, he was better at obscuring his thoughts. His eyes betrayed nothing, and even his breathing didn’t pick up. And yet there was something about the way he gazed off that implied that there was a whirlwind raging inside his mind not unlike the chaos they left behind.

When he asked his question, there was gravel in his words. Emryc simply shrugged, “You didn’t harm me for hesitating,” He admitted aloud, “And…” He tilted his head to look at the man, “I wanted you to stop looking at me as if I’m an insect.”

Respect was not a common notion among Sith, and neither was honor. In spite of that, he had found himself devoted to the ideologies. He followed the doctrines and principles laid down by many Sith before him, and he aspired to walk a very strict path. Any transgressions warranted punishment, even if the other Sith had no intention of doling it out.

The growling of the hounds drew closer. Emryc didn’t stop walking, glancing up every now and then to look for movements, “Would you have done things differently if it had just been you?”

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

The young Sith was right. He hadn't punished him in his moment of weakness. Was that a weakness of his own, or was it simply because it wasn't his goals that would have been affected by the man's transgression. Another thing to meditate on later when he had the time.

"Perhaps that was a mistake." He growled, but the menace didn't stick in his voice. He would never admit it, but he understood. There was no room for doubt in the mind of a Sith, but as men they were still prone to the failings of their human minds. He had known doubt before and likely would again. It was their job as Sith to rise above their weakness... something the young Sith had done.

"Your mistake is caring about how I look at you." He said, his eyes shooting venom at first as he glared at Emryc, filled with anger before softening once more. "Your are Sith are you not? You determine your own path, as I do mine. What need do you have for my respect?" The question was pointed, but perhaps he was giving his counterpart too much respect by asking it, humanizing him as he offered him advice... in his own way.

Pausing to consider the last question asked of him, he exhaled.

"No." He would not have done things differently. He was an instrument of battle, designed with one purpose. To kill. Today he had fulfilled that purpose and in doing so he had felt exaltation.

Once it was done however, he had only felt empty.

"If it had just been me, this night would have played out the same. I would have killed them all, and given the chance I would kill them all again." He looked at Emryc once more, seriousness in his voice. "You say I look at you as an insect, but you are wrong. They are the insects."

And he had crushed them. Like insects.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Emryc had to fight hard not to roll his eyes as Asminys lectured him about his comment from earlier. For a moment, he simply kept walking, but the tug of a smile pulled at his lips. He glanced at the other Sith and gave a lopsided grin and fired off his boldest words yet, “Maybe I just want to see a different expression on your face,” The older Sith had a permanent frown on his face, as if always smelling a rancid odor. But that was probably how he looked at everyone and there was no changing that.

He was right about the villagers, and it comforted Emryc to have validation that they had done the right thing. He had prayed to the Sith Lords of the past for guidance, and they always led him true. Even when he wasn’t sure of his actions today, in the end his actions were just.

The growling was even louder now, and they couldn’t exactly see anything in the darkness. Emryc stopped walking then, attempting to gauge how many beasts surrounded them.

“I can see the ship from here…” He whispered quietly. It was going to be near impossible for them to carry the children and make it, but staying and fighting was equally risky. They hadn’t truly worked as a team yet, and this was shaping up to be one of those desperate scenarios. The growls became louder, and he could make out red, beady eyes through the darkness.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

Asminys could tell that the younger Sith wasn't taking his words to heart. Perhaps he was wasting his energy. He looked at Emryc as if he had just tasted curdled milk, holding a look of disgust on his face at his younger counterparts comment. For a moment.

A small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

And then he laughed.

"You are a bold one." He had forgotten himself in the slaughter. The darkness had seeped in and left him hollow and a bitter mood had overtaken him. It felt good to laugh again.

He didn't have long to enjoy the lightened mood however as the growls of Kath hounds began to surround them in the darkness, their beady red eyes glowing in the night. The ship was in view, as Emryc had pointed out, but their way was blocked. Looking at the younger Sith with a mischievous glint in his eye, Asminys once more drew on the darkside, pulling power to himself.

"Race you." He said in a low voice before throwing his hand forward, blasting the Kath hounds that lay between them and the ship, clearing a path.

Igniting his lightsaber as he ran, Asminys made certain to fall behind Emryc as he slashed a leaping Kath hound out of the air. The boy held two of their charges to his one, which left Asminys with a free hand to fight the hounds while they ran.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Laughter?

Emryc had to pause to observe this. It was almost uncharacteristic from the man, as if it didn’t belong there. And yet when he did it, it held Emryc’s attention. He remembered the details of it, the flickering change in the eyes and the genuine nuances of even a sliver of mirth. It was delightfully unexpected, and he found himself having to bite back from doing the same. He made sure to look away when Asminys looked at him again, deciding to lock gazes with an insufferable kath hound instead.

When the man spoke next, Emryc whipped around to look at him again, about to open his mouth in protest. A race was hardly fair when he was lugging around two dead weight children. However, Asminys then moved to clear a path and Emryc exhaled in relief.

Drawing the Force to himself, Emryc propelled himself forth, breaking into a run. He may not have been powerful, but he was surprisingly light on his feet. As a kath hound leapt at him, he pivoted on his feet and kept running. He jumped clear over another one that lunged at him, “Enjoy that one!” He called out as it went underneath him and went for Asminys behind him.

One of the hounds ran at him on the other side and he cursed under his breath. He used the Force to throw both children high up in the air and collect some distance. He drew a saber and slashed it horizontally to cut through its head and completed the slash with a pierce into the heart of another that came at his flank.

At the end of the sweep, he switched off the saber and caught the two children that landed back in his arms by then. He glanced over to see if the grumpy Sith saw his trick, flashing him that same half grin again.

It wasn’t long before he was climbing up the exit ramp. He was panting and out of breath, looking back again to see how Asminys had fared. He would have to pull up the ramp as soon as possible.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

The race was on, though it was one Asminys fulling intended to win. Just not yet. Protecting the children, and by extension Emryc. Instead he followed closely. Close enough that when Emryc pivoted away from the first Kath hound to come at him, Asminys was there to skewer it through the chest and rip his blade forwards out of it's rear flank. When Emryc leaped over the second Kath hound, Asminys did too, leaping into a horizontal spin over its back to slash the mouth off of another kath hound that lunged at the landing Sith. He caught the Kath hound he passed over on the backspin, slicing its spine to the belly, smiling as he landed into sprint a sprint that kept him almost even with Emryc.

This was what he enjoyed. This was what he lived for. The heart-pounding adrenaline of a challenging fight. He was impressed as the younger Sith tossed the children in the air, his saber lashing out swiftly to dispatch two more hounds. He saw potential in the younger man, and he also so an opportunity.

Bursting forward's on Emryc's left as the children flew back down, his lightsaber would swing close next to Emryc's left side, before passing him by in a whoosh as he launched the blade into a spinning throw at a pair of Kath hounds coming in on their left flank.

Leaping forwards as his saber launched away and cleaved through the Kath hounds, Asminys caught one of the children on his right shoulder as they came down. As Emryc turned to smile at him, he would be met with a competitive grin from Asminys almost right in his face as he stole one of the children practically from his shoulder.

Powering forward to try to catch the ramp first, Asminys would pound up it, leaning into his steps as he pivoted around to face down the ramp.

Reaching his hand out towards his spinning blade and giving a slow sweep with it, he would direct the spinning blade in a long arc around where they had come. His blade caught a few of the hounds before it began its return, Extinguishing as it flew to his hand and then immediately to his belt before he slapped the button to close the ramp.

His heart pounding and breathing slightly accelerated, he shot the younger Sith a joyful grin. "Beat you."
@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Emryc didn’t even notice at first that the other Sith had nabbed one of his prizes. He was already carried forward from his momentum and couldn’t spare a glance to do anything about it. Both of them were winded and running into the ship, the ramp beginning to close.

He glanced over and caught the fire in the man’s eyes, and he could glean into his nature just a bit more as a result. Emryc set the child down gently on a nearby seat before buckling him in for the ride. Having the extra weight off was a relief.

“Maybe you’d care for a spar some day,” Emryc said as he started up the ship engines. He would jump into hyperspace and then go perform his religious rituals in one of the cabins.

The space station had provided him with plenty of chances to hone his skills in battle. Emryc was well versed in both armed and unarmed combat, and he wanted nothing more than to test it out.

It was only mere minutes before they were off the ground and bursting out of the planet’s surface. With ships being the only way to really get around from the space station, Emryc had become an adept pilot in his short years.

After the jump to hyperspace, he stepped away from the cockpit and went into a spare cabin. He opened up a bag and began to take some things out, setting some small idol figurines out on a shelf. They were made in the likeness of the first Sith Empress and other Dark Lords from that era and since then. They represented the likes of Kravos, Siris, Vader and others.He then proceeded to light an incense and circled it around the figurines.

Emryc took his upper body clothing off and neatly folded it into a pile. He then knelt before the figurines, placing his hands on his knees. His torso was far more toned than appeared under robes, his back riddled with countless, long scars.

“By verse of hate and song of the Force, with choir of bone and chords of pain, I am the celebrant of ruin and creation,” He began to speak slowly, “By path of hate and praise of Andraste, I bow to blood and carnage, to charge and to plague upon those not worthy. With sight of hate, by command of the Force, I am weaver and reaper, the shaper of souls and their devourer. I lead the congregation of slaughter. I bring the revelation of the purge. I bring a mercy of liberation. My path is deluge, my wake is holocaust, and my march is fealty. I am the servant. I am the priest. I am the undivided. I am Sith,” He exhaled slowly, “And I shall mark my fallacies upon my body to serve as a reminder of my transgressions.”

With that, he grabbed onto a cat o’nine tails and whipped it back over his shoulder. He felt the claws dig into his flesh, eliciting no more than a deep wince and a soft grunt now.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

The door sealed behind them, leaving whatever Kath hounds remained to feast on the remains of their fallen pack. Asminys placed the two children on one of the benches and strapped them in before grabbing a trio of sedatives from the medkit and injecting each of the children with one to keep them out for the ride. He could play kidnapper but there was no way he was going to deal with a set of squalling brats if they happened to wake up during the ride.

He joined the younger Sith in the cabin as the ship shuddered to life, taking a seat in the co-pilots chair. Somewhat surprised by by the offer of a spar some day, Asminys appraised Emryc in a new light. Where he had first seen him as a boy who had yet to embrace the darkness, he had seen him overcome his weakness, admit his failings, and impress him with his skills.

"Maybe I would." He responded with a neutral tone, a small smirk lighting his face as he gave a slight nod. He hoped the young man would give him a challenge. Fighting was his life, and there was nothing he respected more than a challenging opponent.

They rode the rest of the way up to the jump point in silence, and Asminys watched Emryc leave the cabin once they launched into hysperspace. Doublechecking the hyperspace alarms, he sat in the cabin for a moment. His thoughts kept returning to the events of the night. The approach to the village, bursting through the first door. Burning the village. The walk back to the ship, the grin on Emryc's face that had broken through his sour demeanor after the slaughter. The race back to the ship.

He had had enough with his thoughts. Leaving the cabin, he intended to check on the children when he heard the start of Emryc's prayer echo through the confines of the ship. Approaching silently, he found the cabin door open and Emryc inside, bowed before burning incense and figurines carved in the likeness of ancient Sith.

Asminys leaned against the frame of the door, arms crossed as he watched the ritual. His eyes were drawn to the long scars that laced the younger Sith's well muscled back. Asminys eyes followed the light glinting off Emryc's toned back as the younger Sith finished his prayer, a verse that Asminys had never heard before.

Asminys was only a little bit surprised when the whip cracked and a fresh red line appeared across the younger Sith's back, blood slowly welling to the surface. The younger Sith only let out a small grunt in response to the pain. Asminys breathed slowly, quietly as he watched, his eyes glued to the spectacle in front of him. The darkside stirred within him, taunted by a singular drop of blood that slowly travelled down the younger Sith's back as he viewed the young man in a new light.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

“By verse of hate and song of the Force,” He spoke, his voice shuddering slightly as whipped himself again. The claws dug deep, raking along to open up old scars and create new ones. His back was a tattered canvas painted with the brush of pain and the missteps in his life. They had all been of his own doing, and he felt the tightness and the pulling from every little bit of his wounds.

Blood and sweat were rivers that trickled in between the ugly mountains ridges of welts and scars. The wounds were raw and angry, the blood being expelled along with the poison of doubts and shame. Muscles rippled and pulled with each strike, and he felt the pain burn from his skin down to his very core. With each grunt and exhale, he professed his devotion to his religion and to his goddess.

Andraste’s figurine stood before him, the tiny reminder of a being that had commanded most of the galaxy at a time. His lip quivered as he paused for a moment, sweat dripping down his forehead and down his hair. Drops of blood pooled on the ground behind him.

“Is it so different than what you have done?” He said with a gasp of pain without turning to look. He leaned forward to touch his forehead against the floor before slowly rising to stand. He turned to face the older Sith slowly, his battle carved chest rising and falling from exertion and pain.

“Your painted body,” He said quietly before going to grab some wipes to disinfect the cat o’ nine tails. He had no shame in what he did, and he was open about his devotion. He prayed each night and each morning, but he only hurt himself if he had made mistakes. His back suggested that many mistakes had been made, and many more would come.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

Asminys watched in fascination as Emryc continued his ritual of self harm, carving fresh strokes in the painting of scars that laced his back. He watched intently as the young man shuddered and convulsed in pain, each stroke leaving a raw remembrance of the agony that would harden into a permanent scar.

By the time the younger Sith was done his back shone with sweat and dripped with blood, leaving evidence of his devotion all over the floor. Asminys attention was glued to the spectacle, memorizing every scar and welt of raw flesh, his eyes tracing each mark of penance along the sheen of his muscular back. Many would see something ugly, wretched ropes of scars marring perfect flesh.

To Asminys it was beautiful.

Pulled from his enthrallment by the man's words, Asminys remained quiet as Emryc finished his prayer's, touching his forehead to the ground before standing. If he met Asminys' force damned eyes he might be startled by what he saw in them. Yellow iris's alight with a raw hunger as he took in the rise and fall of the younger Sith's battle carved chest.

He closed his eyes. Breathed deep, quenching the fire that burned brightly within him down to an ember. It would not do to lose control of his passion so visibly. Opening his eyes again they would still burn with darkness, but dimmed as he answered.

"These marks are of pride." He answered as a hand moved to touch the tattoos on his bare shoulder, tracing one for a moment. "I hold my scars here." His hand moved once more to tap the side of his temple, indicating his mind where he held all the trauma of his failures in his psyche. "Earned in the pits of despair, where the Cadre-Masters would leave us to languish with our failures."

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Emryc had missed the smoldering embers that were Amsinys’ eyes, but there was just a flicker of it in the Force. It was the tiniest slip, just enough to make Emryc question whether he sensed it at all. He didn’t anchor to it, focusing instead on his words. They made him grin.

“I carry them on my back so I don’t have to carry them in my mind,” It was true. The wounds and scars were his reminders, but it allowed him to keep his mind clear and level at all times. He repented and he moved on, and he didn’t carry his burdens where they could potentially cloud his judgements. It was simple enough for him to believe it, but it remained to be seen whether it could continue that way.

“And what do you do when you fail?” He asked, genuinely curious. Many Sith usually attempted to cover up their failures. They only paid the price when caught by someone above them. The greatest Sith took time to find penitence and govern themselves. It was what allowed them to be survivors and operate by principles. It was what elevated them above the farm animals they had butchered in the village earlier. Of course, he half expected Asminys to profess that he simply didn't fail, like many Sith claimed.

Emryc walked over to grab a bottle of disinfectant. He grabbed some rags and walked over to Asminys, silver eyes meeting his yellowish hues, “You mind?” He handed the materials over to Asminys and spun around, “It’s always more difficult doing this myself.”

The wounds needed to be cleaned and the blood wiped off. There would be no comforting salve applied or any sort of healing gels. It was strictly to clean.

His gaze remained on the figurines he had lined up, “We have fallen far from grace.”

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

There it was again. The cocksure grin that seemed to easily light up the younger Sith's face. Emryc's words were honest and he spoke some small wisdom that seemed too much for his age. Such was the way of the Sith Asminys supposed.

"Would it be too unbelievable to say I never fail." He chuckled lightly. He knew the taste of failure as did many of the Cadre. It tasted of bitter poison and ash, suffering and isolation. "I carry my failures with me to be sure not to repeat them. Meditate on them, evaluate my mistake, and then move forward with new determination." Perhaps a simplification of the process in which he burned his failures into his mind, replaying them over and over until he had achieved perfection. He wasn't perfect. But Force damned if he wasn't going to strive for as close as possible.

Taking the rag and bottle of disinfectant, he hesitated as Emryc turned to bare his wounds to him. Only for a moment but his eyes were once again drawn to the mosaic of scars and blood, a testament to the younger Siths resolve and devotion to their shared creed.

Dousing the rag with disinfectant, he was not merciful with his cleaning of Emryc's flesh. Rubbing the course rag down his shoulders and back, he moved it with slow and deliberate strokes. He wanted to hear the younger Sith gasp in pain as he relived each stroke of the whip, the burning disinfectant travelling each mark in the order they had fallen. Asminys remembered.

"Perhaps," He spoke roughly, his attention mostly focused on the task at hand. "Though, perhaps in falling we find new grace." He said softly, longingly, as he pulled the rag away. The temptation that lay before him was too strong, and he resisted no longer. He ran the back of his forefingers down a particularly long and jagged scar. "We will become gods again." He said with fervent belief echoing in his voice.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Emryc mock groaned when he dropped the line about never failing. To his surprise, Asminys was light natured about it. His words rang true for Emryc as well. To him, the echoes of his mistakes lingered along with his pain. There was an allotted time to fixate on it, but he ultimately moved on. He had seen too many Sith lose themselves from clinging to their burdens.

Asminys was not gentle in any way, and Emryc hadn’t expected it. He hissed as the copious amount of disinfectant was applied to his skin. The older Sith would see the skin on Emryc’s back angrily frothing and reacting to the liquid. His shoulders and back tensed up, sinewy cords bristling and roiling at the touch. The feeling of some of the Sith’s digits tracing along a scar elicited a jolt that began from the base of his back and crawled up his spine to the nape of his neck. He told himself it was the effects of the alcohol.

He grinned at the man’s words, “You are only a god if others worship you as one entirely of their own volition,” Emryc looked back at the figurines again, “Our people have a habit of giving themselves titles without earning it.”

Emryc tilted his head slightly to the side to half look at Asminys, “Tell me about this Cadre,” He asked, curiosity in his voice. He questioned anything that detracted from absolute devotion to the Dark Lord and the Sith of old.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

Asminys was not disappointed with the reaction to his rough treatment of the younger Sith's wounds. His hisses of pain were a delight to Asminys' ears and he enjoyed watching him tense as the alcohol did its job. Letting his finger linger on the scar for a moment, he withdrew, turning the rag over and once more dousing the clean side.

This time Asminys' treatment of the wounds was not so rough. The rag would glide across the edges of Emryc's wounds, barely scraping them as he washed blood from untattered skin and scar alike. "You're not wrong. But sometimes people must be made to realize the truth."

His eye's fixated at the task at hand, his yellow Sith eyes burned as he followed the rag over smooth and marred skin alike. He almost didn't realize a question had been asked of him until he noticed that the young Sith was watching him over his shoulder. Looking up and meeting the younger Sith's eyes as he asked of the Cadre, he frowned. It wasn't something he liked discussing, delving into his memories to talk of a long and painful history.

"The Cadre was my life." He began, glancing back towards the hold where the younglings they had stolen for the cause lay dormant. "An experiment, we were told later. What product comes from younglings raised to do one thing." He couldn't have been much older than the oldest youngling in the hold when he formed his first memory. "We fought daily, with rods weighted like sabers, they were covered in tiny needles that injected a venom that burned as a thousand suns and left our limbs numb as if cut from us."

His eyes flashed with the memory of thousands of fights and hundreds of deaths. "A lethal blow would leave us unconscious, and we would awaken in the pit of despair. Sometimes it was a new torment, other times just the silence and the darkness to drive us mad." Days, weeks, months. Time had had no meaning in the pit, only pain and memory of the failure that had landed him there.

"The Masters pit us against each other constantly, my Cadre-brothers and sisters. Tournaments to establish our standing, privileges', identities." He had earned his tattoos, earned his name. Before that he had been no one. "We were nobody until we earned the right to show our faces or have names of our own. Everything we had we fought for bitterly. They taught us to fight and to hate, each other, but more to their failing, them."His voice was wrought with a dark hatred and his eyes blazed with the stuff as he met Emryc's gaze once more.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

Emryc was vaguely reminded of when people pitted animals against one another for show. Most of the practices were illegal in the inner rim, but they ran rampant in Hutt space. This Cadre gave him the idea of children being forced to do the same, and he suddenly felt a lot more privileged about his upbringing. He had been on the space station as long as he could remember. Every day was methodical and strict, and every day meant hours of combat and training till collapse. However, he knew he wouldn’t die.

He did notice that Asminys mentioned that the Cadre was his life. Did that mean he had walked away from that path? If so, something must have lured him to the true path of the Sith - his path. That pleased him to hear, though he wouldn’t voice it aloud. He had strong judgement against people that were off the path.

“So tell me,” He said after a moment before turning to face him. There was a small, yet respectable distance between them. His silver eyes were mottled with gold, but only faint traces. It would be years yet before they changed, “Should I punish myself some more for exposing my back to you the way I did? You had every chance to kill me right then.” He paused before continuing, "Or are you weak to not have taken the chance to kill me and remove a potential threat? How would your Cadre judge it?"

Emryc didn’t flinch or lower his gaze, and he certainly had no qualms with standing as an equal to the other Sith. He may not have been on as many missions or had seen as many battles, but he knew who he was. There was a creed he held to, and he knew it. It ensured that he was sculpted from principles and molded by confidence, and that seeped into every inflection of his words and the way his gaze bore into Asminys for just a moment.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

Emryc turned to face Asminys, and for a moment he was aware of the closeness between them. His golden-yellow eyes met the silvers of Emryc's, and he noted the small flecks of darkness that floated within them. It was his words however that struck Amsinys, driving confliction within the older Sith.

The idea of the younger Sith once more punishing himself pleased him, drove a fire within him that he yearned to flame. He also felt anger at the idea of weakness, both the suggestion of it from the younger Sith, and the truth.

He had been distracted.

Suddenly, the weight of the lightsaber on his hip was there again, and he knew his counterpart was similarly armed. He had let his attraction for the younger Sith lull him into complacency, so focused on the young man's taught back and the scars that graced it that he had let his malice and paranoia slip away.

Still he met Emryc's gaze, full of pride and wrath. His lip curled up for a moment, twitching. He held his gaze with the younger Sith, his eyes promising pain and death... but also passion. The Darkside burned within him as he fought the urge to lash out, strike him down for his insolence. It burned within him as he fought the urge to reach out and grab him by the mouth, to show him the true meaning of passion by forcing his desires upon the younger Sith.

How would the Cadre judge him.

How had he judged the Cadre.

"Your decision to punish yourself is your own." His voice heated as he spoke. "Killing you now would be a waste, just as the Cadre-Masters sought to waste our talents for their amusement." He remembered well the day, the Masters had decided the Cadre's final test would be to pit the last survivors of the experiment against each other, halving their numbers. "You stand before me, devoted to the cause of the Sith, your scars show your devotion well." He paused, his eyes grazing down the man's chest for a moment before he continued. "We killed our masters instead of each other, rejected their false ideals and embraced the ways of the Sith that they had mistakenly taught us."

"One day you may stand in my way, and I wont hesitate to cut you down. But your usefulness to the Sith Eternal does not end now just because you may stand as a threat to me some day in the future." They had been taught devotion and loyalty not to themselves, but to a greater cause. It was clear that Emryc felt loyalty to that greater cause as well.

@Sreeya

 

[Emryc Thorne]

He could feel the ripples in the Force, and he saw the slightest twitch in the muscles on the older Sith’s jaw. There were a great many things coursing through his mind then, and he was actively setting up a dam to prevent the tidal wave from spilling. Emryc saw it all happen through the veiled windows of his eyes that had been entirely opaque seconds prior.

By the time Asminys finished speaking, Emryc was pleased with the answer. He had butchered the false Sith and had found the path of a true Sith. He internally questioned himself on punishment, but the decrees did not invite betrayal unless it was to cull the weak. Asminys was not weak, and he clearly did not think Emryc was weak either. This meant that neither needed to repent for their actions.

He allowed a silent moment to linger between them - long enough for Asminys to keep looking into the mottled silver eyes of his. Long enough for him to study every detail of his face and carve it into memory. Long enough to say many words without uttering a single one aloud.

And then Emryc stepped back. He took his supplies from Asminys’ hands and walked over to grab his clothing. He gathered his belongings and his figurines, dutifully placing each one in its designated box.

“If I continue down the path I’ve started,” He finished wrapping everything up and looked back over at Asminys with a smile, “You will wish to kill me one day.”

He walked towards Asminys to leave the cabin and go back to his own quarters. However, he paused briefly as at his side while exiting the room, speaking barely above his breath, “And it will be because you need to repent.”

He continued walking without another word, leaving the cabin empty and hollow, the sweet, lingering scent of the incense still in the air.

@Arclight

 

[Asminys]

He finished speaking and silence lingered between them. Holding eye contact with the younger Sith he was once again drawn into the pools of silver. The tiny motes of yellow floating in them were indicative of the darkness that dwelled within the man. Darkness that would one day grow to consume him just as it had Asminys long ago.

And then just like that the moment was over. Emryc turned and gathered up his things, leaving Asminys standing there once more to watch him. The longing look had passed now however, aware of his weakness he restrained himself from his lustful thoughts.

The younger Sith's words hung in the air as he left. Asminys stood alone in the small cabin. The lingering scent of incense masked all but the faintest hint of copper, the smell of fresh spilled blood. One day the younger Sith would stand as a threat to him, he had assured him of that.

One day their blades might clash, not in a spar as the younger Sith had offered earlier, but in violence.

Asminys looked forward to that day.

Turning from the room, he made his way to his own chambers. He had much to meditate on.

/endthread

@Sreeya