[OPEN] Desolate Abstraction

[DeathToll]

Zsaekriel lifted a chesty breath and folded his arms, fists tucking underneath. This Keshiri pondered bringing up a recount of earlier words, but no duel was ever the same; as well, he did not think 'Knight' would appreciate any more attention to her beliefs to further question her name and reasons for being here. Instead, Zsaekriel thought to turn the two female's attention on each other, as in any situation - one must turn unfavored odds to one's advantage.

To Nune'-'s first comment, Zsaekriel just shifted his eyes down and up; examining her as she settled with her tea. Then, as she asked about topic, his eyes darted side to 'Knight' and back to Nun'e. He took an audible breath, before speaking.

"...Can you guess?"

Zsaekriel's eyes pinched, resembling a smile without the smile. His eyes again looked to one, then the other. A slight tilt of his head and hint of raised eyebrows gave pause and politeness to his request.

"...If you'll permit my curiosity?"

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at the the man Zsaekriel as he made a question and she was about to speak when she noticed the woman begin to have tea and she listened as as Zsaekriel asked another question and she nodded. "Please Sir Zsaekriel what would you like to know." Slowly Knight looked at the woman and wanted to ask her more but didn't know how or could think of the words as she just made a face and then went back to silent contemplation internally berating herself for her weakness as she wanted o be better.

 

[Miranda]

Nuné took a long sip of her tea, it was earthen and spicy with a hint of bitterness. She couldn't quite place the taste, she had steeped the tea before falling asleep that day from a box of rations that she had been given to keep in her quarters. It was warm, and the taste would soon grow on her. Beggars couldn't afford to be choosers in this situation.

The young woman then arced an inquisitive brow to Zsaek and offered a wry smile, "You want me to hazard a guess as to what you two have been discussing, after me having just met you...and having just arrived and heard but tiny snippets of conversation that could have been referring to anything?"

Nuné figured the man must have been having a right old laugh to himself right now. She didn't quite know how to take it. Was he being facetious, or just enigmatic? Nevertheless she laughed a little to herself and sipped her tea again.

"I would say...you were probably discussing past lives, spent on Bastion in duty to the glorious former Emperor, the same past lives that we all once shared, before being cast off here to this forsaken ditch of a planet. Am I close?"

 

[DeathToll]

"Hmm.. Are we so obvious?"

Zsaekriel shut his eyes, almost as if he were unable to smile fully with the rest of his face. Reopening them and softly admiring 'Knight', Zsaekriel continued.

"Every book, I suppose, has in common a beginning."

In this light, with the turn of his cheek further than before, a small almost unnoticeable scar could be seen along the curvature of his left eye socket and cheek bone. Soon others would be realized, and in the numbering of all those scars it would eventually be lost in singularity as but one of many that practically made up his skin. Zsaekriel noticed his chest plate resting against the wall over his grieves and some other pale steel, hidden by his feet. This was how he looked when not in the traditional Imperial Knight armor. Now he was even more stripped. It was interesting to Zsaekriel, how naked he felt before these two comrades. Battle was his home. He had allowed himself distraction for a time, and looked back up at Nune'. These two nice people allowed him to ease back into a state of comfort.

"And your book...?"

 

[Miranda]

The young woman was certainly not accustomed to divulging her 'life story' to complete strangers, nor was she in the habit of talking about herself at all in the best of situations. However, the scenario in which the once grand Imperial Knights now found themselves was just utterly not the best of situations, nor was it normal. They had been cast out, banished, hunted, and expelled like an awkward clot into the unknown reaches of the galaxy. Once spread so thin that calling out to others through the Force each Knight would have been met with absolute silence. It was a deafening and heartaching silence. But at last, as the long meted years shifted on, the Imperial Knights had reformed and mended the festering wounds of the Purge.
People become so much closer after suffering great tragedies together.

And so, Nuné Talar decided that for once in her life she would open up and tell her story.

"Well...it is a tale of little consequence I should think, to be honest. Not much different from the rest of our kin. I was on Bastion when the great Purge commenced...when our friends and allies turned like a malevolent tide against us. I remember running. I cannot remember much else...just...running. People were being slaughtered all around me, but I just kept running. I don't remember how I managed to board a ship, but I did...it could have been a refugee vessel...or a smuggler's craft...I can't remember the details, my memory is a blank canvas from those days. I'd like to keep it that way. It's for the best."

Nuné then rested a moment and caught her breath, she had not realised it before, but there was so much freedom in speech, in talking to those who understood.

"I made my way to my old home, Naboo...I sought out my parents and told them everything. They vowed to hide me, keep me secret for as long as I needed. I found work at the Palace, serving as a Royal Handmaiden to the Queen. It was the perfect concealment. An exile playing a civilian playing a decoy. No one came looking for me, for years. Only a few months ago, a band of Imperial Knights caught wind that I was still alive, sought me out...and brought me here."

She glanced up at the other two now, her hair was messy and somewhat unkempt and she clung to a sand-beaten cloak about her. The desert wasn't the most ideal place to beautify one's self. She had no need to look noble or dignified now anyway. She was back amongst her true people. Her Order.

"So there's my book...I hope you enjoyed", she offered a small wan smile and then returned to her tea.

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at the woman as she spoke and came a little closer not touching as she squinted and bent a little to look up at the woman as she tried to remember her face from years ago and slowly Knight shook her head as she pulled back a little disappointed in herself and spoke with a frown as she tried to think of the proper way to word her statement. "I thought I was the only one who was on planet at the time, I can't remember your face from all the others." Slowly Knight went back as she leaned against the wall and hugged herself remembering as she shook herself out of it and looked up with a frown. "I am sorry, I know I shouldn't but do you remember a girl named Ayumi? Do you know if she survived?"

 

[DeathToll]

Zskaekriel looked back and forth, his fingers gripping the tip of his chin as he nodded his head repeatedly and understandingly. He was fairly subtle and calm in this moment. It would be a totally different side seen to him if ever the others were to fight with him on a mission.

Zsaekriel had succeeded in turning the two females' attention in on each other, for now, and would examine their behavior as he did. He could not help but compare his times of pain. Though he had many to list as such, his mind referred only to the pain sown by the 'Purge'; as he suffered much physical pain. But he knew torture. It was as much a part of him as this inquisitive side, though his pain was not just a part of his mental stimulus ...but it was also sown into his skin.

 

[Miranda]

Nuné arced an eyebrow at the other woman a moment as she seemed to inspect her and encroach on her personal space. How odd, she thought to herself. Her cerulean eyes then shifted back to Zsaek a moment and wondered what he was thinking, he seemed to suddenly go quiet in some form of introspection. It was a little awkward.

And then the woman, 'Knight', began speaking to her directly.

"You thought you were the only Imperial Knight on Bastion when the Purge went down? Are you dull? Hundreds were slaughtered at Bastion... countless of our brothers and sisters fell...and only few were able to flee." She shook her head a moment in disbelief.

"I ehm...no I'm sorry to say that I do not know of whom you speak, nor if she is alive or dead. Have you tried searching the databases and records? I had to fill out extensive paperwork when I arrived...you might find something there."

Nuné shrugged and downed her tea and poured herself another cup. "So...Nexu got your tongue Zskaekriel? You're awfully quiet. What's your story anyway? You said you've been here for too long."

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at the woman as she placed a hand over her mouth and bowed her head. "I am so sorry. I misspoke before, I meant I thought I was the only one who survived. I haven't met any others besides the commander that I knew. Please forgive me." Slowly Knight moved back and went to the wall more as she tried to cower but couldn't wanting to not be chastised for her mistake. She had to stop making them if she wanted to advance and help the others and not be a burden.

 

[DeathToll]

And like a strike of lightning, his eyes tightened to near slits. His mouth seemed to shrink, his eyes shifted to the floor, and his hand drifted back down under his bicep into the constricted knot of his arms. Zsaekriel whispered.

"...the chains are too tight..."

...The words echoed in his head with a poisonous flow through his veins. He could feel the pain
slashing as it traveled inside of him. There were two men standing over him. One wrenched his arms
together behind the chair he sat in with bone breaking force, and the other spat in his face
and inside each slit into his flesh. There were two mens' blurred faces in the glass window on the wall,
watching and laughing. Zsaekrie's body was severed and broken, and the interrogators liked it when he struggled.
It only worsened his body's wounds; stretching open the carved skin and muscle, contorting
and breaking already broken bones and dislocated joints. Zsaekriel couldn't move enough
for their tastes, so they made the mistake of loosening his chains...​

"I had only just been promoted to Knight a month before. Titles can be so diluting... I wasn't allowed in the Thrown Room, but was tasked with it's outer defense. We were deceived. Believing we had pushed them back, we were ordered to pursue. ...It was a massacre."

Turning his gaze to the left and center of the hangar, where all the others trained and prepared, a new light spread across his cheek down to the flexing muscle along his neck like spilling paint. More scars could be seen, like a pattern of two inch lines ranging in the dozens upon his face alone.

"Alone, I was all that was left of the Southern Corridor Guard. Indeed I escaped."

Just then, without moving a muscle, Zsaekriel seemed to visibly loose his hard edge. It was as if the light had shifted in that moment, but hadn't.

"...But I went back."

The hollow sounds of his interrogation echoed again, ringing in his ears; but he contained himself, still looking a statue of immovable structure.

 

[Miranda]

The galaxy was made up of so many curious and unexpected things. Sentients inclusive in this fact more so than anything else. Nuné Talar had come to realise this over the course of her fleeting twenty-four years. The two sentients that she know found herself communing with were prime examples of such a universal fact.
She watched for a moment as 'Knight' suddenly reeled away like an injured creature, Nuné had not meant to offend or chastise her for her earlier strange remark about Bastion. The woman seemed really sensitive, and Nuné was not used to dealing with hypersensitive people.

"Relax...no need to apologise, it's a sore subject for all of us, regardless of whether it was almost a decade ago or not. The pain seems everlasting from that tragedy. It's a sore spot for all of us, and rightfully so. Please, I didn't mean to be so abrasive...would you like some tea?". Nuné often found that when she had accidentally affronted someone or scared them off because of her rather brusque personality, she ended up making matters worse or seeming overly eager to patch things up. They couldn't afford to dislike each other in such a dire situation as the Imperial Knights were now. They had to get along. They only had each other now.

The other kind of curiosity that one finds in the galaxy is the tortured soul. Indeed, all the Imperial Knights were under this category, to one extent or another. They had suffered great loss, great punishment, great agonies. Zsaek seemed to be more tortured than most however, as he revealed fragments of his past, slowly. He was an exceedingly cryptic fellow, so it seemed. Nuné felt however, that he was more than capable, that he was strong and resilient and stalwart. If she ever found herself in the midst of battle again, she would gladly have him at her back.

"The tragic tale that is echoed by all our voices my new friend... do not fear, for we are all behind you. You are our brother, and I your sister, and we shall guard each other throughout these dark times, and we shall emerge once again into the light of glory and hope."

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at Nune as she nodded and came forward a little as she looked carefully at the woman and nodded at the question of tea. "Yes please." Slowly Knight looked over at the man as she became more curious again. He was a mystery she wanted to know and at the same time didn't but the more she learned about him the more it seemed he had had a harder life after the purge then her. Hell they both seemed to have had a harder life as she offered her hand not putting it on his shoulder. "Are you okay Sir Zsaekriel? Do you need me to get you anything?"

 

[DeathToll]

"Get -me- ..."

Zsaekriel instantly snapped out of his sulking moment of self pity, almost upset that he had allowed himself to loose focus. He was taken aback by 'Knight's' kindness, but reacted a bit abruptly.

"Should a Sith present his head, I'll cleave it from his neck with my -own- hands."

Correcting her with some sharpness, but not angrily barking by any means, Zsaekriel simply stated the truth of it. If there is something to be gotten, he would get it himself; and the only thing he wanted at that moment was the Sith's lifeless heads in a burning pile before him.

Zsaekriel cooled down a bit, looking back to the women in his company. He settled his thumbs back into the folds of his belt to clasp loosely along his waist line. He sighed with content in their welcoming huddle. It had been some time since he had shared any of this pent up history as well.

"Huhhh... The past only burns when we stare at it for too long."

A subtle hand gesture waved off any worry of pain or regret in the conversation past, neither wanting any tea; though his attention had shifted towards it.

"You seem to enjoy tea very much Nune'. Do you grow any plants of your own? I find that aspects of all life can be compared to the subtleties of combat."

 

[Miranda]

In her deepest introspection, Nuné tried to analyse her new acquaintances with that usual inquisitive and investigative mind that had always been with her, since even a very young age, when her cognition was still forming into something finite and real.
She now took another cup from her pack and poured some steaming tea into it and offered it to 'Knight', then turned her focus back to Zsaek. He interested her, and she couldn't quite place why.

"No one man is an island, Zsaekriel...entire of itself; every one of us is a piece of the whole continent. United we are always stronger, together we shall vanquish our enemies, not alone. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and that will be the Sith's calamity. We Imperial Knights, together, shall force that divide even further than it already is."

Nuné paused for a moment in reflection, and then she regarded Zsaek's other words with a gentle nod, "the past is indeed like the sun then".

A strong desert wind was rattling the sides of the hangar, Sriluur's barren landscape was so often prone to violent sandstorms. Nuné brought her cloak closer around her as she finished the last remnants of her herbal, bitter tea.

"Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world, my friend." And with that she smiled for but a moment at her recollection of the ancient saying, one which she favoured very much. A wise Corellian scholar of the Old Republic had said it once, many centuries ago.

"I used to grow all manner of herbs and spices at my villa on Bastion, and I returned to the hobby even after the Purge. My parents have such grand gardens on Naboo, and I experimented with many fascinating blends. I doubt very much that anything could grow in this desolate place though...sand just sucks life, and does not give it."

The winds howled furiously outside the hangar as the sandstorm swelled and beat, and Nuné was glad to be inside.

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at Nune as she took the tea and nodded her thanks while the woman talked. It felt like when she was little and listened to the knights on Bastion when she was little and when the woman talked about the desert sucking life she spoke up clearly. "But some of the desert flowers I have found are not bad. Maybe you could experiment with them." With a look Knight turned to look at Zsaekriel and spoke. "But sir knight we can't forget the past if we want to not make the same mistakes in the future."

 

[DeathToll]

"It is a misuse of gained knowledge and a waste of time to stare back at a ball of light, when it's rays point out your path even before your own feet."

Zsaekriel answered blandly. He had said nothing of ignoring the lessons that history taught, but rather spoke of not becoming consumed by it. The horrors of their pasts, Zsaekriel speaking from experience, would gobble up the attention and you'd be lost forever to madness. No. Duty above all else.

"The past has a way of marking us so that we don't have to."

Zsaekriel lowered his head a bit as his voice trailed. It was his own body that he spoke of. Just as any person is marked by their past, so was he marked. Though he did not linger on such depressing thoughts, he was more interested in getting his point (or truth as he saw it) across to 'Knight'. He softly looked back to her again and gestured to find what was familiar and relating to her.

"A flower grows away from its roots, does it not?"

 

[Miranda]

Nuné reclined back and made herself more comfortable as her companions continued discussing the matters at hand. She was thoroughly enjoying their company so far. She had not thought that she would so quickly and easily fall into place like this, to get involved with the others and relate to them and find her place. But she was slowly getting there. Steadily.

Her eyes registered on both of them for a moment.

"I believe we should learn from the past, but not be tethered by it. We must remember that history itself is so often a dubious subject... until the hunted have their historians, all the tales of history will always and only glorify the hunters."

She clasped her hands together for a moment, deliberating with some full purpose that she had not quite realised until Zsaek had spoken again.

"Indeed, as does a tree grow upwards and away from its foundations. But falling leaves return to their roots, Zsaekriel."

 

[Syn]

Knight looked at the woman as she spoke to Zsaekriel and knight hung her head a little as she drank, maybe when she was older she would have random sayings that promised wisdom. Slowly Knight wondered as she chewed her lip and scrunched her face slowly pulling her black hood off as she shook out her hair and tilted her head back. She wanted to prove herself capable but didn't know how as she listened more and went to speak but couldn't find something worthwhile to add to the conversation.

 

[DeathToll]

Zsaekriel almost smiled, if he was even capable of doing so, as Nune' had made a valid point; though in doing so she had only served to prove his point, in his eyes.

"Indeed petals and leaves must fall in number so that the seeds and pollen of its long growth from where it began may fly away from those roots and create its own."

Zsaekriel still felt his belief that the past was best left alone was a sound one, and still unshaken in its truth; though the secret of it was in fact his bitter hatred of his own past. Philosophical rhetoric would only get him so far, in the deepest places of his harboring wound of a soul. His best guard against it was seclusion from the pain and the guilt, to compact that information so tight that it almost didn't exist...

Yet still, this moment with companions gave distraction from those thoughts ...for now.