#lord ignolis

Elutherius stayed locked in a rigid silence until a muscles twisted sharply within his body. He fell forward onto the slick metal. Rain splattered and cooled the open burn wound in torrents that tormented him as much as it relieved. He gasped against the landing pad on the apartment balcony. The condensation of his warm breath fogged up his wet skin.

A heaviness settled behind him. The metal bowed by fractions of atoms under the Massassi’s booted feet. They rested by his squirming calves as Elutherius squirmed and kicked at the ground.

One foot gained purchase on the balls of his feet. The flat of his palm pushed at the ground. He arched into a broken bridge. A gasp grated his throat as the slick durasteel gave under the sandal sole. His teeth clicked as his chin bit the ground.

Elutherius squared his shoulders. His left side sagged to the ground. The muscles fell limp. He was surprised by his body’s own heaviness as it struggled to understand being permanently rent. tendons severed from bone and burned away. A silent crisis. Elutherius pressed his palm firmly against the floor until the bones in his hand ached. The stiff ligaments in his fingers stretched backwards. Pain was a recourse from pain. 

Black spots swam at his eyes. His dim unseeing eyes staining the world a watercolor of navy blues and grays. But as his consciousness ebbed from this world, a clarity washed over him. It washed from the bruised bones in his hand up his arm. Elutherius shoved, and he rocketed up. His figure twisted in a crooked shape against the stark outline of lightning. An inhuman shape, but it was apt; he’d become something more.

The wounds screamed ragged and raw over the back of his ribs, but Elutherius stood on pigeon toed feet. His back locked into jagged heaving shapes. A strange buoyancy filled him. Invisible cloth packed into his wounds, filling them painfully with whispers that clouded his head. Somehow it remade him whole.

“It still--” he gasped. His lips were wet, but his mouth was dry. Elutherius straightened himself, one limb popping at a time. He hadn’t realized some of his convulsions had thrown his shoulders out of alignment until they slotted back into place by force. “It still hurts,” he rasped. He stretched his back, and though a wave of sickening sear filled him, the black faded from his vision, the world coming into a sharp focus.

Elutherius’ lips parted as he stared out over steep blue spires cold against a hot sky. Steam rose form the dark clouds winding its way against the edges of the city. 

“I--” Elutherius stepped forward and his body followed in perfect rhythm. Hot nasty pain followed it as naturally as blood did the pumping of the heart.

“This is power, Apprentice.”

Elutherius turned to look at his Master for the first time. He was as dark as wine, but his features chiseled themselves into a high arched face as proud and cruel as it was aloof. He stepped forward. The thick matte cape flared gently in the misty downpour. Elutherius reached to touch it as he drew level. Leather. This was what leather looked like. He stroked it absently.

Elutherius’ back was still warm and quivering from blood, but it was okay. He felt something enter him for every drop he lost. Something more solid.

“Pain leads to power for those strong enough to grasp it. You are only as humbled as you make yourself.” He placed a heavy clawed hand on Elutherius’ shoulder. “This lesson used me to inflict its meaning. Pain, you must remember, is not the absence of love.”

“Yes Master,” Elutherius said breathlessly. He glanced up warily and wondrously at the large brooding Sith Lord framed against the light polluted skyline. A strange thing to be told by this man after such a long complicated history, but in seeing his Master for the first time, Elutherius realized that pain and the endurance of it also won favor if one survived.

He looked back out over the great city, spread in glorious freefall below. He shook with pain but knew he’d keep his feet underneath him now. Defiance of limitation. 

He’d not survived. He’d thrived. Elutherius thrived in defiance of debilitation. Poverty. Death. Pain. He’d stared it all in the face and spat.

The medical bay doors whirred open with Wax’s eyes. The sound reverberated through his hazy-half sleep to the hard red light of the ceiling. Alarm. When he moved to push himself up his muscles responded as though on delay. A grating in the distance grew louder.

His biceps tightened against the pillowy resistance of the bed, but his own weight had never been heavier. His breaths quickened as pain shot through the frontal mask of his face. Deep deep in the bones. He tried to loosen his jaw—

“Ah, he’s awake.”

--to alleviate the tight tension, but something stopped him from widening it. His hands grabbed his face and the claws scraped against the bandages. Captured? Invaded? Was the Eclipse fallen? He could feel his heart.

Farkle, they gave you bandages? Wax thought to himself. His inner voice strangely soft.

“Indeed, he is.” The harsh grating formed into chesty words.

The air plunged into a bitter cold. The red light across the ceiling stayed, then vanished like a lamp light being turned off. Wax spat blood. Not a hard decided spit. He rather pushed it out of his mouth and felt the coppery drool slide down his chin.

The Medbay. The Eclipse’s medbay. The familiarity of it rushed into existence. They hadn’t been under attack after all. Wax reached to rub the gooseflesh from his skin. Prior having been covered, it was now bit by a nip in the air outside the ancient bricked up stone. The relief of being jerked out of a too ready wakefulness didn’t come as Wax found himself cast into another place he was unfamiliar with.            The building was stone. He was laying on a hard wooden pallet. His long boney fingers splayed over it glowed white in the gloom, but the warm glow of his eyes that lit darkness was not present. Was he blinded?

As he thought it, the vision of his hands dimmed as though he’d called the affliction upon himself. He pushed against the sturdy wood. A pain made itself known in his face, and his breaths became more labored as they crossed his lips. A deep pulse in the adjoin of his nose to his eye socket, through the left side of his cheeks buried itself into his sinuses. Persistent, untenable. It didn’t relent, it didn’t fade. Kurt whimpered and shook from pain. Cold. The crushing sense that he might die here on this flimsy piece of wood. Alone. He needed to find his strength; he needed to move.

“It’s your birthday.”

The red light spanned across the ceiling. Dim. Familiar. His body heat fell back through him all at once. The warmth was overwhelming.

Kurt shot up in bed, like cold water had been thrown over him. Ziost. The dust that made them into gray statues of the damned. Soulless living relics that haunted dead ground. Morkhala's amber eyes stared at him under ashen visage. Blood drained from her ears. Something that sent chills up Wax's spine wailed in the distance before rushing forward and grasping his body with chill hands. 

 "Go stand on the vent," echoed through the room. A cold whisper of what had been a powerful command. He grabbed his rifle from his back, but the metal melted into his palms, heatless. Something next to him fell onto the bed and he twisted to look, picking out Zi'aa's equally distraught yellow eyes in the gloom. K

urt was twisted up in the sheets. Cold sweat spotted his brow. The pillow was clenched in his claws that had sunk deep into the fabric, like some sort of animal. "Zi'aa," he choked out, but the word was lost to the hollow sound of ringing in his own ears. 

 She looked dishevled, like Kurt had dragged her out of her own nightmare, but she touched his face. Her palms were small, smooth. He yanked his claws out of the pillow. The fabric gave soundlessly, but he cared little. He curved his hand around Zi'aa's and shuffled closer to her. The sheets pulled around his legs. Stiffly they half met each other in the middle of the bed. Both of them ruffled by sleep and disquiet dreams. She said something. Her lips moved around the hollow sound filling his ears. At that moment, it didn't matter what it was or wasn't. The need for comfort was mutual as they awkwardly folded into each other. Her fingers reached into his hair as her lips said something that sounded half-frantic against his collarbone. 

 He had to reach across the bed. His legs were trapped at one end, his back strained toward Zi'aa, like a stretched out piece of Taffy, but he pressed her into his arms as best as he could manage. Slowly, breathing her scent in, fight turned into fatigue. His cheekbone ached where it rested on her slim shoulder. Kurt's eyelids dropped. He realized they weren't both fully awake. 

Zi'aa pushed him away with gentle guiding hands, but he stiffened despite the soft minstrations. His yellow eyes searched her dimly lit face with an apologetic arch to them. She turned away from him. "Zi'aa," Kurt repeated quietly. He wasn't sure if his lips had made the sound, but he reached for her shoulder. She turned back to him with a tired sad smile and pressed a hard peice of metal into his hand. The roundness of the cuff was familiar. Kurt looked down at his red pulsing comm link and knitted his brows. He looked up at her questioningly. She returned the gaze. 

 "I don't know," her soft fair voice said in his mind. It was strained with emotion and sleep. "If you need to take it, go." 

 Kurt quickly kissed her brow and extracted himself from the tangle of sheets. He stumbled to his feet on the cold metal floors that leached any lingering warmth out of them until he was behind the dividing wall. The black gloom opened up into a natural star light. A burden he didn't know had been clenching his chest lifted. He licked a stripe up his palm and shoved his hand through his hair. Some thick tangles snarled out. He winced, discarded the clods of gel and ripped out hair on the floor with a shake of his palm, then clicked the red button. Whoever caught him at this hour would merely have to deal with the unprofessional consequences of their actions. 

 In his palm a tiny blue manifestation of his father built itself into existence. Immaculate somehow for the hour with wide shoulder pauldrons part of cruelly shaped armor, hair already slicked for work, and - though Kurt couldn't see them - cold beads of yellow eyes looking down his proud chiseled nose at Kurt. "

Captain Wax," he said automatically. Kurt's carefully practiced professional tone fell flacid. "I was deafened in an altercation unfortunately. Is it urgent?" 

The robotic message made his insides curl, but he knew not what to say faced by the patriarch of his House. Someone who had declined to look upon him for years. 

 Wax's Lord's lips moved with deliberate enunciation. It wasn't for his son's benefit. It was merely a facet of how he spoke; Lord Ignolis lowered himself for no one. 

So. I. Have. Heard.

 Each word dropped Kurt's heart. So I have heard. His cheeks dimpled as his face rearranged from shocked vulnerability into a severe calm.

 "My Lord."

 Who. Are. You. Posted. Under. You've. Involved. My. House. In. Matters. I. Would. Tend. To. 

 Wax read each word without tone. Without inflection, but he knew. He knew the calm scathing voice of his father. He knew the danger behind it. Darth Maliscentiam had gotten back to him upon her wake. Dread dropped into the pit of his stomach. Anyone else would've defended themselves. Plead their case. Wax knew better. He answered submissively. 

 "Darth Quietus, my Lord."

 Kurt never addressed any Sith as such. "Lord" was satisfactory for them. Good. It was the only word Kurt read from his father. His eyes stared determinedly at his pixelated lips until the light from the holo made them see painful blooms of stars he blinked away. 

 You. Will. Disengage. Anything. Other. Than. Your. Job. Captain. (Lord Ignolis' mouth twisted sneerishly at the word) Until. I'm. Through. With. Mine. Am. I. Clear. 

“This might sound strange coming from a Sith –” Lord Ignolis said as he cut his steak. The scent of watery copper spiced the air as though the wound was fresh. “– but you and Uktaizia have been a good son and daughter to me all these years growing up in my house. You serve me loyally in the place my own son cannot for little reward.”

Even though his seat at the Pureblood Lord’s table hand been naught but a skillfully woven fairytale cooling into acceptance, Elutherius’ spine grew long and his chin tipped, like a Hound that enjoyed the strokes of its master. Lord Ignolis’ son at his left hand and directly across from Elutherius bloomed into flame.

“You have something to say, Tansilm?” Elutherius asked under a thin guise of deference.

A rogue smile caught his cut lips and twisted his Glasgow smile into a smug shape. At the address of the childhood pet name from his former slave, the flames licking Kurt Wax turned into cold coal. Elutherius’ cheek burned until it was frozen under Kurt’s glare. Elutherius bit the inside of his lip to hinder the progression of his smile from amused to cheeky. This colored his sass with suggestions of arousal, but vaguely interpreted allure was par for the course for Elutherius. He briefly caught Taizi shaking her head next to Lord Ignolis’ wife. He imagined her rolling her eyes in the fragments of her face she’d allowed him to piece back together.

“No, nothing to add,” Kurt replied in his stiff military cant. The cut of his eyes  reopened one of the scars on Elutherius’ cheek. “I know Elly more intimately than most at this table. When he is passionate about something, you won’t find a more ambitious worker, my Lord; it is natural his determination would pay off.”

“Thanks, Tansilm.”

Without Force sight Elutherius couldn’t see anything of Kurt but a pale hued red that moved bodilessly in his color desaturated vision. It was as though someone had tried to paint a figure, but the color had bled into a formless shape that carried traces of resemblance to what the artist intended. Barely ovular arms, something of a head and neck that sucked into a void of darkness; Elutherius supposed that Kurt was wearing black clothes. Perhaps his Imperial officer uniform left on after clocking out. Paltry but... preferable to the hallucinations.

Elutherius also supposed, from the way the air grew taut and hard to breathe, that his lip had started to curl. The human readjusted himself on his seat.

“It’s good to know you share the same sentiment, Kurt –”

Elutherius reached out with his legs until his toe brushed on something. He sussed out the line of an instep and flicked delicately up the ankle so as not to scuff Kurt’s polished boots. The air slackened all at once, like a sigh. Kurt’s boot tapped Elutherius’ foot curtly twice.

“– You wouldn’t have your successful career in the Imperial Army if not for Elutherius’ advice, wouldn’t you?” Lord Ignolis’ voice danced in false revelation, and the room on Kurt’s side snagged into a pinch. “Not only for me, then but for my eldest son, you’ve done so much. Although Uktaizia is my late brother’s child, I’ve always loved her like my own. It is remiss that I’ve left you titleless and her without a future or security as my gratitude for having you both in my lives, Apprentice.” Taizi was no longer shaking her head; she was no longer eating. “One day I will give you your true name, your Sith name, but I’d also like to give you my old title. Would you do me the honor of being a husband to my daughter? I can think of no happier option.”

No one was eating now.

The watercolor figure of Taizi’s brown skinned arms dripped with maroon, but she felt crimson to Elutherius’ eyes. That was the tone of her words - a low blood red husk.

“Is that what I was invited back here for, Khaûtimak? So you can pretend I’m your daughter, then marry me off to the biggest Dorian passion fruit in the galaxy?”

Elutherius chose to divert his attention to a particularly interesting part of the ceiling blob. Ah– the detail. He bit the inner corner of his cheek and hoped no one would ask him to clarify on Taizi’s most recent disclosure about his private life, but if Kurt’s anger made the room hard to breathe, Taizi forced all the air out of it and dared anyone to complain as they suffocated; nobody had the capacity to be concerned with it as she launched into a soft-spoken, voice shivering tirade.

“Taizi, please let us carry on dinner,” Lord Ignolis said in a long suffering voice that reminded Elutherius of the sort of smile people had worn in public when their children were making a scene.

“Me? Me? I’m stopping you from having dinner, Khaûtimak? That’s rich. That’s rich when this is a thinly veiled attempt to hide your shame that I’m not a proper little kriffin’ lady. You won’t even stoop to marry me to a proper Pureblood Lord  or a Darth because you’re afraid I’ll embarrass you. No, I get the human slave boy–”

The words hit Elutherius like a slap in the face.

“–who you molded into your perfect–”

And it wasn’t as though he didn’t know that Taizi spoke in inferiorities that existed only in the mouths of Imperials.

“–little Sith Lord he never would’ve been–”

It was the reminder the Empire had lashed into his skin with raised edges that he would never been more valuable than his own complacency.

“–because your perfect son didn’t want–”

He forgot that she saw him as less than.

“–to bec–”

“Shut your mouth.” Electricity snapped around the tendons of Elutherius’ flexed hand. “Before I have to remind you that your mother was a nobody human slave too, Half-Breed.” The words were a touch too hyperextended, too throttling, too venomous for a Sith that most considered mellow.

The Force filled Elutherius. At first he thought it was a breath that sank too deep, but it overextended his lungs past the point they’d pop inside his throat and rib cage, like fleshy balloons. His body was open and he swelled out of it so that where the universe began and he ended was where the impossible started. The Light in his muscles, and bones, and eyes whimpered  as Darkness took him a little too far, sheltered by the deep gorges of Elutherius’ matted scars and tugged by the puppet strings of Ignolis’ Force presence. He pushed a little when Elutherius wobbled and suddenly falling off the cliff wasn’t the Sith Apprentice’s choice anymore. It was his master’s.

“Elly.”

What Elutherius had and would always know as Kurt’s voice wrapped around him with a pair of gentle but firm claws. They bit into his shoulders and Kurt pulled him away. 

“May we be excused?” Kurt didn’t wait for an answer. He dragged the smaller man back, and Elutherius stumbled with him. 

The last thing Elutherius remembered was his Master’s aura darkening before they hit open humid air of the balcony. Condensation immediately clung to the skin as the nocturnal sounds of the rain forest did to the ears.

Kurt shook his claws off of him, and Elutherius felt... lost without the grip or the Force. He breathed in, and Dromund Kaas’ darkness breathed back a millimeter from his face. It was present but merely patient - not insistent, like Lord Ignolis’ pull.

“Congratulations are in order, then.” 

Kurt’s voice came from the direction of the balcony. Elutherius tracked to it in the nil light. He walked until the toe of his sandal met the void that descended into darkness and then placed his hands on the rails to balance out the cosmic sense of dread in his stomach. It was wet against his burned palms.

“Taizi won’t marry me.”

“It’s quaint that you think she has a choice.”

Elutherius tasted bitter amusement on Kurt’s tongue.

“Ignolis wouldn’t touch her.”

“No, no,” Kurt sighed. His clothes squeaked against the metal as he leaned forward. Elutherius was already flicking through plans to catch him if he fell. “He wouldn’t, but my father’s authority is final as the head of our House; if he arranges a marriage, she cannot refuse it.” Kurt exhaled hard through his nose. “Besides,” Elutherius tensed in preparation for the ‘Dorian passion fruit’ comment. This hadn’t how he imagined Kurt finding-- “you’ll be good for her, and I’d like to see my friend and sister happy.”

Elutherius untensed and stared into the abyss of trees below. That dense, huh? He found himself chuckling deep in his belly and didn’t stop until it reached the base of his throat and threatened to spill from unguarded lips. 

“Quirt-- you-- Ha--”

“What?” Kurt asked cautiously. Elutherius could see his eyes narrowing in the recesses of his mind and wished that the darkness wouldn’t render Force sight unusable.

“I... Taizi isn’t who I want.”

“Is that what she meant by Dorian passion fruit?”

Elutherius blinked. Clever. His stomach started tying knots with itself. There wasn’t any going back now.

“Yess--”

There was silence for a moment. “Funny way to say you’re interested in another woman,” he muttered in his intensely analytical way. “I thought she was saying you were too soft for her because,” Kurt cleared his throat. “Slavery weakens the mental constitution of those in its service. Though you were never like that, so it struck me as overly harsh.”

Elutherius started to laugh. The railing pressed into his stomach as he genuinely and loudly laughed until he started to feel sick.

“You know, I’ll take this from Taizi, but from you it’s just tiring, Elly.”

“Quirt, you’re so stupid,” Elutherius wheezed.

Kurt tutted and gently plucked his father’s apprentice back so Elutherius stumbled into his chest. Elutherius’ stomach ate itself.

“I’m not the one doubled over a safety rail.”

Elutherius relaxed into Kurt’s chest and closed his eyes, trying to feel close to him. He was solid, warmer than the jungle. Elutherius felt like he was spinning on solid ground, but that wasn’t a bad feeling. He closed his eyes as an affectionate arm wrapped around his slight waist, engulfing him. With anyone else, he might’ve been doing social calculations, but he knew Kurt well enough to not misinterpret the man as anything but painfully platonic. Elutherius could accept that for the rest of his life if he had to, but this... It felt nice.

“I’ll tell you why someday. Promise.”

Kurt shook his head. His tendrils brushed the top of Elutherius’ head unconsciously. The little beings on the Pureblood’s chin wound into Elly’s hair.

“Should I care why people are trying to leap off of safety rails now?”

“Kind of. You never know. The reason they might be falling is you.”