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Apr 16th, 2011, 04:06:17 PM
#1
The Hammer Falls - 8.326
Terephon was not a special planet to the Hapans, just another to add to their collection. De'Ville had slept through her trip through the Transitory Mists, the transport she was on nearly empty. Not many people visited Terephon, at least, who didn't own their own ships.
Now, in a speeder headed over the moors, she was feeling... itchy. Not literally, but a sensation under her skin of things that needed to be resolved. Things that her master would need to explain.
In the foggy distance a dark shape loomed, off the side of the road she was following, a huge mansion all by itself in the countryside. She pulled off to the driveway, approaching the house slowly and noting that it had no outer wall or gates. Its isolation was its protection, here where the grey sky met the green-grey moor.
Setting the brake on the speeder, De'Ville climbed out, gathering her duffel bag. She had sent him word she was arriving, but no one came to greet her, and she walked up the steps to the imposing front door in silence.
She found a doorbell and rang it.
Last edited by Lilaena De'Ville; Jun 13th, 2012 at 04:06:05 PM.
oh what a tangled web I weave
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Apr 16th, 2011, 04:32:41 PM
#2
The bell rang throughout the house as low and mournful as a death knell.
In his study, Salem exhaled and opened his eyes. With a casual flutter of his fingertips, he touched the Force and the front-door swung inward on its hinges. Beyond the threshold was a corridor and at the end of the corridor was the ill-lit study whose walls were lined to the ceiling with bookshelves, the study in which Lilaena's master now spent so much of his time.
Within a matter of moments, Salem's shadow darkened the doorway. He did not wear the mask of Callidus, though charcoal gray robes hung around his shoulders. He looked down the length of the hallway at her, his clawed fingertips curling a fraction tighter around the lightsaber hilt in his right hand.
“Malleus?”
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Apr 16th, 2011, 04:37:20 PM
#3
"My master," she answered, her steady pace bringing her down the hallway toward him, her bag slung across her body and hanging against her backside. A meter away from him she slowed, then stopped, kneeling, her face downcast with respect. "I have come with important information from the Empire uncovered during a recent mission."
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Apr 16th, 2011, 04:47:01 PM
#4
With an imperceptible narrowing of his eyes, Salem watched as she advanced towards him, studying her expression, her posture and not least of all the bag she carried. After a moments consideration, he slid his saber's hilt higher into the cuff of his robes and gestured Lilaena ahead of him into the study.
“Come then, my apprentice. You must tell me everything that you have learned.”
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Apr 16th, 2011, 04:53:55 PM
#5
Oh, I will.
Lilaena stood, walking into the study, or library, with Salem at her back, her back straight and head high. "The Empire has been experimenting with a new biological weapon. They call it the Morbus Virus."
She pulled her duffel around to her front, and unzipped it, reaching past her lightsaber and retrieving a datastick. Carefully setting her bag on the ground, she held the stick out toward her master. "All the information I recovered on the project, including the research notes and development experiments.
"The Alliance has all this information as well, though it appears that we were able to destroy almost all of the Empire's work while on Sestooine. Whether they have other stockpiles of the virus, or if a copy of their research was kept elsewhere, I do not know yet."
She met his eyes as he reached for the datastick, fingertips lightly touching his. A flicker of something crossed her eyes, but quickly vanished.
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Apr 16th, 2011, 05:13:33 PM
#6
Salem crossed the room to a desk-mounted computer terminal. At the touch of a button it hummed to life and soon it's screen was populated with scores of windows, each one representing a documents folder present on the datastick. He scanned the names of the files, key words and phrases jumping off of the screen at him: confidential; preliminary case data; morbus test batch four. He opened a file at random and was presented with line after line of raw test data. As an Arkanian, Salem possessed an above-average understanding of the sciences – in particular, those studies relating to genetics – but it would take more than a cursory glance to establish the true meaning and worth of what Lilaena had presented him with.
He lifted his eyes to back to her and smiled without a hint of warmth.
“You serve your master well, Malleus. Do you bring any other news?”
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Apr 16th, 2011, 05:34:25 PM
#7
She inclined her head slightly, accepting his scant praise of her abilities, and her eyes tracked down to her open duffel on the ground, the pommel of her lightsaber just visible on top of her spare clothes. When she raised her chin, she raised her eyes as well.
"You told me once you were trained under A'na Eldhil, the same as I." De'Ville's posture changed subtly, shoulders squaring, hips angling slightly, any trace of subservience disappearing from her stance. "Before she took me as a padawan."
He watched her beat me, she reminded herself, lest she lose her nerve. The center of her body seemed to grow warm as she remembered. Before Salem said anything in reply, she pressed on.
"The truth, of course, my master." The words had a slight tinge of mockery to them. "But also a lie. I remember Salemescro." Her green eyes burned into his white ones but she didn't move, only stood where she was, waiting to see what he might say, or do.
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Apr 16th, 2011, 05:44:13 PM
#8
The shift would have eluded a lesser man but the change in Lilaena was obvious to Salem; the Dark Side gathered around her like the first stirrings of a storm.
“What is it you think you remember?”
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Apr 16th, 2011, 05:48:26 PM
#9
His tone was not quite condescending, but it was close. "You were there. You saw what she did to me." It was becoming difficult to moderate her tone, but she just managed to hold back her anger, though she knew she would have hardly fooled a child, let alone Salem Ave.
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Apr 16th, 2011, 06:02:50 PM
#10
For a long moment, Salem said nothing. He would not deny the truth. He merely waited, watching, anticipating that her words were the prelude to something more - and yet she did nothing, glaring at him with impotent anger.
“How does that make you feel?”
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Apr 16th, 2011, 06:19:47 PM
#11
Her face twisted, the fury plain in her expression but turning into confusion and hurt. "How do you frelling think it makes me feel?! You were older than me! You watched her beat me, and you did nothing."
Lilaena took a step toward him, hands clenched at her sides. "How does that make you feel?"
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Apr 17th, 2011, 06:44:32 AM
#12
Salem paced out from behind the desk that had separated them, leaving the data-stick to download its contents onto his computer terminal. Their transition, as children, from wards of the Jedi Temple to fugitives on the run from the Galactic Empire had been marked by a drastic change in the pace of their training. A'na Eldhil had known that their time together was short, that she could not out-run fate forever, and so the limits of her patience had shortened accordingly. Failure to meet her nigh-impossible standards had earned both Salem and Lilaena a multitude of bruises and scars, though it was Lilaena – being younger and thus slower to learn – who had taken the brunt her masters anger.
“Do you think that it was within my power to stop her? What do you imagine that I could have done? Killed her?”
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Apr 17th, 2011, 09:58:55 AM
#13
Her face reflected her roiling emotions, and she shouted, "You left me with her! And then now... you lied to me, told me what you wanted me to believe about your training."
He was close to her now, and Lilaena thrust out her hands to the center of his chest to shove him backwards.
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Apr 17th, 2011, 10:33:11 AM
#14
The push staggered him a step, but Salem would not be provoked into violence so easily. Nevertheless, he was alert and poised to strike. The rage that seethed inside of Lilaena was unlike anything he had ever felt from her before.
“I did – as I have always done – what was necessary. I told you what you needed to hear.”
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Apr 17th, 2011, 11:02:32 AM
#15
"So now you know what I need?" Lilaena took another step forward, her body starting to shake from the internal pressure of her anger and pain. He was in arms reach, standing before her with no fear on his face, no anger. Just... blank.
Kill him.
She was breathing through slightly parted lips, still struggling for control, and confused as to why she still hesitated. Was he going to say something that would somehow erase his betrayal? Could he say anything that she would accept?
Once she had remembered him in her past, she had dreamed of it every night. Different scenes, little vignettes of history as seen through a six year old's eyes. Lilaena clenched her fists so tightly her short fingernails bit through the palms of her hands.
"It got...much worse after you left."
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Apr 17th, 2011, 12:05:01 PM
#16
It was difficult to think back to the time they had spent with A'na – not because of any trauma that Salem had suffered at her hands, rather because it felt as if he was remembering someone else's life, the circumstances so far removed from those of the present day. In his first years of freedom as a young man, he had been reckless and bold but above all things, he had been scared. Was it arrogance, that he hadn't felt fear in so many years? Or was it a sign that he had finally achieved complete control over himself and those around him? Now, watching Lilaena as she trembled with anger, he sensed that she was so close to slipping from his grasp.
He laid a hand on her shoulder.
“And yet... here you are.”
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Apr 17th, 2011, 12:18:01 PM
#17
She flinched as he touched her, part of her wanting him to comfort her, another part realizing everything he did was just another calculated move designed to- to what? Lilaena kept her eyes on his, not sure what would happen if she looked away.
"I am here," she said quietly, the heat of her fury condensing into ice. "But I do not know why, anymore."
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Apr 17th, 2011, 12:37:40 PM
#18
“When you first came to Onderon, you told me your purpose was to fulfil your master's wish and destroy the Empire,” he said, echoing the very same words which had been her mantra, her sole motivation and the fuel for the fire which had kept her moving, and alive, since the Purge. “Don't you long for the downfall of the Empire, still?”
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Apr 17th, 2011, 12:53:23 PM
#19
"Yes." The Empire had still destroyed the Jedi. They had caused her to be raised by A'na Eldhil. They had taken her and tortured her, leaving her broken and vulnerable in the eyes of Hawkins Grime, undermining what little respect he had for her.
"The Empire must pay." Her eyes tracked down to where his hand still lay on her shoulder, and she moved suddenly, grabbing his palm and twisting to lock up his arm and push it to the breaking point.
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Apr 17th, 2011, 01:20:53 PM
#20
There was a sickening crack and a spike of pain lanced through Salem's elbow and forearm. In the same breath, a shock-wave of energy exploded from inside of the Sith Lord – throwing Lilaena backwards, sending her tumbling over a low couch whilst the papers on the library's desk scattered into the air like a flock of startled birds taking wing. Salem's now broken arm hung limply at his side as he raked his other hand through the air, hurling a focused burst of energy right at his apprentice as she hurried to regain her footing.
“This is folly, Lilaena. I am not your enemy.”
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