#askcarminelegacy

[askshivanulegacy]

❣- What calms your muse down? ღ- Sexuality? ⌚- Does your muse worry about time? for Lathi

Hallo, friend Anon!

Lathi actually belongs to my RP partner in crime @askcarminelegacy, but she will be happy to provide your answers below! (I think I can see where you might have been confused, if you clicked on the Intelligence Profiles link, but I applaud you for looking! Looks like I need to figure out how to clarify whose char is whose. No worries tho! ♥)

[ladykf-writes]

Seran for J, Saare for N and F, Lathi for R

For this meme. Feels rollercoaster minis, just how you like it.

Seran - J. When words aren’t enough.

Braden had been his father’s friend first, but Seran had grown close to him fairly quickly. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with him on trying to enter the great hunt.

There were no words for the way he felt, walking in on the gruesome sight, both Braden and Jori killed in cold blood. It was hard to breathe, his pulse pounded in his ears, and even before Mako arrived he knew he would fight and he would win. And he would kill Tarro Blood.

Saare - N. The color green. + F. An absent look or touch.

She wasn’t positive, but she thought maybe the sweater Blakk had been wearing had been Seran’s once. A thick green material, too large on him but perfect for the hunter’s broader figure, and just the sort of warm comfort he liked best. 

He must have felt her watching him, glancing up briefly from the model he was working on with a gentle half smile, the quick sort of expression that came when he wasn’t thinking and just let himself feel. If she had to bet, she’d say he had no idea he’d done it, going back to work as if he hadn’t just warmed her through with such a little thing.

Lathi - R. A deafening sound.

Thermal detonators were not Lathi’s weapon of choice, but they were handy and easy to hide on one’s person. Unfortunately, if you weren’t quite far enough from them when they went off, they could leave you partially deaf for several moments. Fortunately, for all the trouble Lorena had caused him getting in, she was blessedly light on her feet and quick on the way out.

Together, they staggered to his speeder, and he let her bump him to the back. Odds were good that she’d have a better chance to hear anything for a bit, and she drove like demon anyway.

[askshivanulegacy]

Me: UGGGGH, crisis of FAITH and MORALITY

Carmine: what, trying to play true to Iegan and not lose yourself to hauntings and guilt?

Me: ....

Me: how did you know

[askshivanulegacy]

Mako: Interference on the comms, boss ... can't get a lock on Blakk's position.

Seran: *cups hands around mouth to make a megaphone.*

Seran: ONLY A PANSY USES KNIVES!

Blakk: *un-stealths from up a tree.* I SWEAR I'll stab you in the face from here!!

Seran: *smirks.* Found him.

[askshivanulegacy]

askcarminelegacy said: YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON THIS IS WHY WE ARE FRIENDS YOU MATCH MY HORRIBLENESS *sobs*

*waggles eyebrows.*

[askshivanulegacy]

The Canvas of the Force

He was a puzzle.

He didn’t exist, as far as Iegan Varr was concerned.  Of course, the Sith knew of creatures that repelled the Force, that could hide from it or use it to hide.

But not this human.  Not this boy.  This was different.  He didn’t repel the Force - there was no bubble of Forcelessness.  He didn’t use it to hide - there was no seam in the fabric of reality.  He simply didn’t exist.

And yet, Varr’s sources told him the boy very much did.

She certainly believed so.

Varr examined the spot where his servants had left the boy.  The Force flowed through it unhindered, neither binding to the cellular midichlorians nor diverting around them to create a form.  He could see nothing, and were it not for the energies reflecting from the restraints around the boy’s arms and neck, Varr would have trouble believing anything was there.  Reaching out, he felt for and grasped invisible hair and pulled the boy’s face to his, twisting it this way and that.  

Nothing.  She was in love with this?

Disgusted, mildly perturbed, Varr came to rest, cross-legged, in front of the creature to meditate on its existence.  He ignored its futile demands.

Over the course of three days, Varr’s sight began to discern the fine rhythms in the Force from the air in the creature’s lungs as it inhaled and exhaled.  The air formed minute eddies around the edge of the boy’s form, playful around its hair, and the Force rode those, too.  But these required concentration, immersion, to see.  He would have thanked it for the lesson in attunement, but the effort would be breath wasted.  The boy lacked the energies forming a soul and was less than the smallest of the beasts Varr kept.

What drew her to this thing, Varr had no idea.  She certainly lacked the truth of Miraluka sight.

Varr wondered if he could bring color to the vacant, transparent being in front of him, and locate what it was she saw.

The first strike was a dull red across its cheek, clapping a pleasant shock into the Force.  Varr twisted the boy’s head, but the color didn’t take, vanishing almost immediately from smooth cheekbones and soft skin under his fingers.

Varr struck again.  And again.

It was a start, he realized.  He could feel the boy’s ache as dim shades of red, purple as he let the twisted arm remain in its forced position, and deep violets along bruised ribs.  Golden worry had blossomed inside the boy as its emotions bubbled into the Force, and scarlet was fierce and hot in its indignant anger.  Its furious words cascaded a delicious counterpart to the color, a chaotic broil that bounced around the room.

Wonderful.  He would paint the boy with the Force.

Varr took his time.  It was an intricate process, the colors not easily taking, their hues at once fickle and lacking in variety.  He likened it to painting a rock in the rain.  They ran constantly, trailing off in rivulets or bleeding off like vapor in imaginary sunlight.  Yet persistence was its own reward - they pooled in the sheltered nooks and crannies, becoming the foundation on which the rest of his vision could be built.

And he did, layer by ephemeral layer.

By the time he’d finished, the very walls of the cell echoed the incandescent symphony of his living artwork, a liquid mosaic of reds and golds and purples, blues in shades non-Miraluka had no word for.  Green had been difficult to achieve, but withered hope had let the color linger, and, spawned from it, an exquisite crystalline web of yellow.

He wanted to capture that yellow, anchor it somewhere in the form to be called forth again.  His lightsaber was the perfect tool.

And he’d wanted to send a message to her all along.

Dialing down the weapon to surgical precision, he began to carve his message on his now-visible canvas with all the patience, love, and care a finishing touch deserved.

Here’s your prince.

“Enjoy him, princess.  I did.”

[askshivanulegacy]

Fade to Blakk

Fade to Blakk

by

The Shi’vanu and Carmine Legacies

Summary:

Blakk has reluctantly become drawn into the little family made up of a Sith, a hunter, and a slicer. Insecurities are easy to ignore until his hero falls, leaving him wondering if he's really just an intruder on something that was never meant to be his.

Notes:

At long last!  Finally we get around to posting another story. :D  As always, this is based on the events of the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic. It does feature some canon characters, but the focus is on several original characters: Agent Omega Blakk, Bounty Hunter Seran-vin, and Sith Inquisitor Saare-ha.

Spoilers:  

None.  The story universe adopts the major class events as canon, but diverges on specific mission events. This particular story does not follow any particular mission - it is an original story set within the SWTOR universe.

It hadn’t really even been the most intense fight they’d ever been in. Over the months since that one time on Balmorra that Seran tried not to think too hard on, he and Blakk had more close calls than either one of them admitted to the lovely and very dangerous women in their lives. And it was great. The thrill of battle,and of seeing Blakk’s skills and experience begin to catch up to his sharp mind, was wonderful. Being a part of that … he’d never seen himself as a team guy, but this? This he could do. Even when people were shooting from everywhere, and Blakk was shouting at him for his apparently sub-par piloting, and there had been some literally big guns, and anti-air, and there were some very, very stubborn Mando’a … it got rough, and close, and gritty, and he loved it.

But he knew, in the back of his mind, that one of those times it would get really ugly. That was life, and he had the scars to prove it.

Still, that moment, that one moment when he’d turned in time to see some thug with his vibrostaff pulled back, and he’d been up in the air firing and giving aerial intel to Blakk through their earpieces … he knew. He saw the strong arm pull back, and it was too close to dodge, the man was in the air, and Seran twisted back, but it wasn’t enough.

The pain was legitimately the worst he could remember, and he’d very nearly lost limbs before. A gasping, gargling sound escaped him as the staff punctured his chest piece and kept going, and the pain …  His vision wavered and began to gray out, and he tried to hold on, but even he had his limits. Something … it was through. He was pretty sure it was through, and though it obviously hadn’t gotten his spine, there was a whole lot of bright, too rich blood coming too fast. His last thought was that he was really, really hoping Blakk had actually paid attention to his and Saare’s lectures on field medicine, because he was going down, and then he was out.

Blakk normally tuned out the sounds of battle - the shouts, the screams, the explosions, the blaster fire.  It all became part of the background drone from which he picked out only what he needed to hear:  approaching footsteps, a weapon charging, or Seran’s intel, for example.  

But the agonized howl, so like the normal screams of battle, and yet not - so much worse, heard both through the air and his earpiece, in that voice he could identify anywhere … it chilled his blood and had him whipping his head around to see Seran, a crimson scar and bright silver blade marring his chest, as he plummeted from the air.

For one eternal, horrible instant, time stopped.  The glimmer of red droplets through the air, the raw pain - the pure shock - on Seran’s face, were etched into Blakk’s memory.  The way the hunter’s entire being contorted in deepest agony before gravity took hold … it was something he’d never forget, and in that moment, Blakk would swear that he could feel the same blade pierce his own heart.

He must have screamed, for an instant later, it felt like his throat had been grated raw.  Time flowed again, and he was running, and the other thugs were falling dead around him …  He couldn’t remember slaughtering them, but when he reached the crumpled form of the bounty hunter, his knives were clattering to the ground, hands already bloody as he fell to his knees.

“Seran!  Gods, no … Seran!”  Shaking, Blakk stared at the blade impaled through the Zabrak’s chest.  His hands wavered upon the staff, unsure whether he should pull it out.  Everything he knew about combat medicine said to leave it in, prevent more loss of blood.  But he couldn’t, Seran was … Seran was …

Blakk’s fingers curled around the edges of the Zabrak’s armored vest.  “Seran!”

There was a choking sputter, no words, and it was both a relief and horrible to hear, because there were flecks of blood on his lips and Seran was gasping. Some part of Blakk was expecting shock. Seran should be in shock - he should be DEAD - but he wasn’t. He wasn’t, and Blakk clung to that fact, to the fact that Seran-vin was one of the most stubborn people he had ever met, and the Zabrak had all but promised to never leave him alone.

“Oh gods …”  Terrified Seran would choke on his own blood - and equally afraid of moving him and making the injury worse - Blakk gently lifted Seran’s head to rest in his lap.  “S-Seran, I d-don’t … what do I do?  I don’t know what to do!”  His eyes began to blur and his throat to burn.  He clutched Seran’s vest hard enough for his fingers to ache.  “Gods …”  There was so much blood … the vibroblade didn’t seem to prevent it from flowing so much as provide a cruel path, beckoning the life-giving fluid to abandon the Zabrak.  It pooled beneath him.

The coughing was bad, it was shaking the hunter, and it shook the weapon in his chest, and there was more blood - bright, coming fast, and that meant … that meant arteries, right? The weapon had hit an artery. Or worse. And oh gods, he was going to - no, no Seran wasn’t going to die. Not Seran. That was just … unfathomable.

And then there was a rattling moan, and slightly glazed eyes opened - opened - and they were full of pain, but there was life and something verging on awareness there. It shouldn’t be possible - everything insisted he should be dead - but he wasn’t, Seran wasn’t. And … and his lips were moving, just a bit. He couldn’t speak, not quite, there was a sickening gurgle, but he could make out words, almost. There was a c, definitely a ‘c’ in there. And vowels. Short word, just one word.

Comm.

Comm, stars, Blakk had his comm!

Digging with bloody gloves through his coat - and he couldn’t find it, why couldn’t he …?  Off came the gloves, and he was grasping the comm unit nearly hard enough to crack it and dialing the frequency he knew best.  It couldn’t connect fast enough; he prayed with everything he had that Saare-ha was there to answer.

“Saare!  Saare!”  Gods, was that his voice?  He couldn’t recognize it.  “Gods, Saare, it’s Seran, you’ve got to pick up, you have to be there, please, please, I need you!”  He thought something was wrong with the unit, until he realized that it was his hand that was causing it to shake so violently.

There was a pause, an enormous, silent pause that lasted too long and he thought for a horrible moment there would be no answer, and then there was a click and something in that garbled, gravel tone of that monster that followed the Sith around for reasons he still didn’t get, but that meant, surely - “Blakk?”

Blakk could have sobbed his relief, and maybe he did, because he had to force his next words out through strangled gasps.  “Saare!  It’s Seran, he’s hurt, hurt bad, and I dunno what to do …”  Another gasp.  “... Help me.  Help me!”

There wasn’t even a pause before Saare was snarling orders, and he didn’t realize she could actually speak that garbled, strange language her creature did, but she could, and there was a roar of sound, but she was talking again, fast but calm and … and giving instructions. Short, clipped, to the point instructions of things he could do, things that Seran had in all those damned pouches that would help, could buy them time, and she promised - she promised they were coming, and she was calling Mako, and Seran was not going to die, and they would get there in time, and Seran was not going to die …

But the blood was still pumping its way out of him, and Blakk could barely hold his hands steady to inject the kolto and other medications - all of it, just inject all of it! - and he’d crushed two vials in his hands before he had them loaded and administered properly.  And then he was packing his coat around the staff to steady it and stem the flow of blood, but there was still so much!  It was so red, everything was red.  He trembled, doing his best to hold both Seran’s head and compress the black coat - no, it was red, everything was red - against the wound.

Don’t die, please don’t die, Seran, you promised, you promised you’d always be there, you can’t, this can’t be happening, you lied, why did you lie?  Don’t go, please don’t leave me, I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t know what to do, Saare’s coming, you have to hold on, you have to, because you promised, gods, Seran, I need you, you promised …!

Suddenly, there was someone there, black and red, but smaller than Seran and there was white - and someone was sobbing.  It might have been him, but he didn’t care, because Saare had come. He had called, and Saare-ha had dropped whatever it was she’d gone back to the city to do, and come.  She would know, she would know how to do this, how to take care of him, how to make sure Seran kept his promise. He had to be there. He’d been there so long, he couldn’t … he couldn’t leave now, not when Blakk was starting to believe Seran had meant it when he’d said he’d be there.

Something was pulling him away from Seran.  No.  No, he had to be at the Zabrak’s side, because it was his fault, and he had to fix it, he had to try, had to help … the blood was streaming in ribbons down the crimson point of the blade protruding from Seran’s back, and Blakk had to stop it, it was too much!  He struggled against the force separating them.

“No, Seran!”  The cry was ragged, torn from him as he struggled to free himself, to get back to the man where he could do something. And he was moving, but never managing to actually catch him, and didn’t Saare know he had to be there? Seran had always been there.

Every. Single. Time.

He’d popped up at the most bizarre moments, but right when he was needed, even if Blakk could never say it, even when he didn’t know how to ask, Seran knew and he was there. He was always there, and Blakk suspected it was more often than he’d been aware. And Seran didn’t have to - he’d done what Saare-ha had asked - but it was between them now, Seran and Blakk, all of this, those blasted holovids and nights spent talking about anything and nothing and just learning to be.

Seran knew … so much. There was so much more, Blakk was learning. So much more to Seran, but the man didn’t look down on him for that.

You can’t die, Seran.

Blakk redoubled his efforts to reach the hunter, one shaking, bloody hand stretching out for him.  Seran needed him now, as much as Blakk had ever needed him, and Blakk was failing him.  Just when he thought he might actually be starting to get his life together … he was failing again, and it was so much worse this time.

But there were strong arms holding him back, carrying him, he dimly realized now, along with Seran but just out of reach, just outside of where he needed to be.  

“Seran … let me go, let me go!”

“Blakk.” Saare-ha’s voice was sharp, not quite scolding but still strong. “Be quiet before you panic him …”

Panic him?  As Blakk wiped his eyes, he realized Saare was right.  Seran was still conscious, still aware, if only partly, and Blakk’s sobbing couldn’t possibly be helping him to cope, let alone know that things would be okay.  Blakk should be trying to reassure the hunter, and not acting as if the world had just ended, even if it felt like it had.

Because things would be okay … right?

“... and I’ll need your help,” Saare was saying.

Blakk took a shuddering breath in a bid to control his sobbing, letting his head fall back onto the shoulder of - it was the Dashade, wasn’t it? - who carried him.  His gaze never left the bounty hunter.  Again, Saare was right.  He needed to pull himself together.  He still needed to help Seran.  He would and Seran would be okay.  He had to be.

to be continued ...

[askshivanulegacy]

★ (Seran and Blakk, obviously)

“The hell, Seran!?“  The exclamation came out a little thin due to the whuff of air when Blakk suddenly found Seran’s shoulder pressed into his stomach and  himself with an upside-down view of the bounty hunter’s backside.  He pounded Seran’s back, but only succeeded in bruising his arm - damn that man’s armor!

"Frakking hells, put me down!”  He would have attempted a kick, but Seran’s strong grip on his legs kept him from getting the leverage he needed.  Grunting as Seran began to walk - and Blakk could hear the bastard’s insufferable grin - he gripped the edges of the armor for support.

”Seran!!”