OOM: Allies and Enemies
Nov. 4th, 2017 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
last_kallig(OOC: Lines in italics are taken from or adapted from canon.)
Veshikk Urk would pick the middle of nowhere to set up operations, Ibani thinks to herself as they cross the seemingly endless dunes of Tatooine. It seems like an eternity until they find one solitary building that seems to be the base of operations.
There are no guards, no traps, as they enter the building. Three figures greet them, two Sith flanking a being who could be Khem Val's twin were his skin not the color of living bone instead of Khem Val's blue and red.
"Ah, Khem, my proud friend. How long I have waited!" Veshikk Urk regards her, sneers. "I see you have found yourself a pet."
He's speaking Sith, so he wants everyone in the room to understand him, including his Sith minions, henchmen? They've only got warblades, not lightsabers, so they must have been new apprentices. And if Veshikk Urk killed and ate their masters... that would explain their serving him. For the Sith, authority comes from power, and what is killing and eating someone but a raw, savage, display of your power over them?
"You're going to have to do better than that to get a rise out of me," Ibani drawls. It still stings, but she's not going to show it.
Khem Val and Veshikk Urk both act as if she's not even in the room.
"It must have been a long fall from glory, Veshikk Urk continues, tone sneering, words meant to wound. "But you always were soft, weren't you? Always favored, always the best. If I didn't know better, I'd say you even loved that Sith animal you called a master."
Khem's shoulders shift with his temper and he roars back, "ENOUGH! I was not weak, you were weak. A slave to that monster, Ortan Cela."
Veshikk Urk moves sideways in a stalk and Khem Val matches his movement. Ibani tries to keep part of her attention on the Sith for when trouble starts. (There's no doubt it's going to now, with Veshikk Urk needling Khem Val like this.)
"Foolish Khem and foolish little Sith. Ortan Cela was cruel, it's true. Petty and insignificant by all accounts. That was the only reason your pitiful master trusted him, Khem, and that was his mistake, Veshikk adds, tone full of malicious glee.
Oh, oh shavit. It really should have occurred to her that Sith as infamous and as powerful as Tulak Hord don't generally die of natural causes. SOMETHING must have happened to Khem Val's former master, and it sounds as if Veshikk's master killed him.
The peace that had already been fraying snaps as Khem Val lunges toward Veshikk Urk with a roar, swinging his vibroblade down in a vicious arc. After that, she's too busy dealing with the two Sith to see how the fight between the two titans goes.
*****************************************************************************
By the time she's finished the second Sith, Khem Val is yanking his blade out of Veshikk Urk's corpse. He looks lost, an expression that seems terribly wrong on him. She ought to say something, but she knows how Khem Val takes sympathy by now.
"Is cremation acceptable for a Shadow Killer?" she asks as she rifles through the pockets of the Sith for identification. (She's not finding anything! Who doesn't carry ID in this day and age? Looks like they'll be going down in posterity as 'Sith serving Veshikk Urk'.)
"It is acceptable," Khem Val replies, "Why do you ask, my Master?
Because he was your friend once, she doesn't say. Because he's the last piece of your past. Because no one else will bury him and he might have been monstrous but he wasn't an animal. "Might as well cremate three as opposed to just two," she says, giving a carefully modulated shrug.
Khem Val grunts. "Memory has played me for a fool -- Veshikk, Tulak Hord, none of them were as I remembered. Now, my master, if it pleases you, let us leave this dismal place and never speak of these ghosts again."
"Won't be long, just need to make a placard and make sure this place will burn long and hot enough to do the job."
*****************************************************************************
The adobe walls of the building are wreathed in flames climbing toward the sky as their speeder bikes crest a dune and the building vanishes from sight. Time to go and find a pirate. With luck, Andronikos Revel can lead her to the artifact Zash wants.
Veshikk Urk would pick the middle of nowhere to set up operations, Ibani thinks to herself as they cross the seemingly endless dunes of Tatooine. It seems like an eternity until they find one solitary building that seems to be the base of operations.
There are no guards, no traps, as they enter the building. Three figures greet them, two Sith flanking a being who could be Khem Val's twin were his skin not the color of living bone instead of Khem Val's blue and red.
"Ah, Khem, my proud friend. How long I have waited!" Veshikk Urk regards her, sneers. "I see you have found yourself a pet."
He's speaking Sith, so he wants everyone in the room to understand him, including his Sith minions, henchmen? They've only got warblades, not lightsabers, so they must have been new apprentices. And if Veshikk Urk killed and ate their masters... that would explain their serving him. For the Sith, authority comes from power, and what is killing and eating someone but a raw, savage, display of your power over them?
"You're going to have to do better than that to get a rise out of me," Ibani drawls. It still stings, but she's not going to show it.
Khem Val and Veshikk Urk both act as if she's not even in the room.
"It must have been a long fall from glory, Veshikk Urk continues, tone sneering, words meant to wound. "But you always were soft, weren't you? Always favored, always the best. If I didn't know better, I'd say you even loved that Sith animal you called a master."
Khem's shoulders shift with his temper and he roars back, "ENOUGH! I was not weak, you were weak. A slave to that monster, Ortan Cela."
Veshikk Urk moves sideways in a stalk and Khem Val matches his movement. Ibani tries to keep part of her attention on the Sith for when trouble starts. (There's no doubt it's going to now, with Veshikk Urk needling Khem Val like this.)
"Foolish Khem and foolish little Sith. Ortan Cela was cruel, it's true. Petty and insignificant by all accounts. That was the only reason your pitiful master trusted him, Khem, and that was his mistake, Veshikk adds, tone full of malicious glee.
Oh, oh shavit. It really should have occurred to her that Sith as infamous and as powerful as Tulak Hord don't generally die of natural causes. SOMETHING must have happened to Khem Val's former master, and it sounds as if Veshikk's master killed him.
The peace that had already been fraying snaps as Khem Val lunges toward Veshikk Urk with a roar, swinging his vibroblade down in a vicious arc. After that, she's too busy dealing with the two Sith to see how the fight between the two titans goes.
*****************************************************************************
By the time she's finished the second Sith, Khem Val is yanking his blade out of Veshikk Urk's corpse. He looks lost, an expression that seems terribly wrong on him. She ought to say something, but she knows how Khem Val takes sympathy by now.
"Is cremation acceptable for a Shadow Killer?" she asks as she rifles through the pockets of the Sith for identification. (She's not finding anything! Who doesn't carry ID in this day and age? Looks like they'll be going down in posterity as 'Sith serving Veshikk Urk'.)
"It is acceptable," Khem Val replies, "Why do you ask, my Master?
Because he was your friend once, she doesn't say. Because he's the last piece of your past. Because no one else will bury him and he might have been monstrous but he wasn't an animal. "Might as well cremate three as opposed to just two," she says, giving a carefully modulated shrug.
Khem Val grunts. "Memory has played me for a fool -- Veshikk, Tulak Hord, none of them were as I remembered. Now, my master, if it pleases you, let us leave this dismal place and never speak of these ghosts again."
"Won't be long, just need to make a placard and make sure this place will burn long and hot enough to do the job."
*****************************************************************************
The adobe walls of the building are wreathed in flames climbing toward the sky as their speeder bikes crest a dune and the building vanishes from sight. Time to go and find a pirate. With luck, Andronikos Revel can lead her to the artifact Zash wants.
