#nephriteassassin

[bastardsunlight]

[ TRAINING ]: during a sparring match, sender ends up pinning the receiver against the wall. (Kitana @ Jade)

“You are learning, highness,” purrs Jade, her arms pinned by one fan, the other at her throat. Her lips are curled in a beautiful, cat-like smile. She is not at all displeased to find herself at the princess’s mercy.

Pinned against a wall

[bastardsunlight]

In the assassin’s chambers an agent of the shadows in this empire where all eyes report what they see creeps the cloaked princess. Without a sound she slips a folded scroll of old, loved material into a place where Jade is certain to find it, words written in a dying language: one that only they know. Kitana retreats from the light and back into the corners of this castle, already thinking of the next occasion upon which she will catch her friend’s eye and think of things she cannot say in present company, long for the day that she can shout them across the realms. It is then, when Shao Kahn meets his end that they will all hear it just as well as they know it.

“Loved is the girl who laughs in green and strikes wide to the knee, then up to the chin.”

She has grown up alongside Kitana. She is her handmaid, her friend, her confidant—sometimes, in her deepest dreams, her lover. The words fill her with joy, fathomless and unquenchable. She feels a smile on her lips, usually drawn so tight and sharp, eyes hard, seeking treachery, but now only half-lidded and beholding the message of a love long built but never fulfilled.

Not yet.

She pulls up her hood and slips into the darkness of the palace, perchance to meet that love and exchange more than words.

[bastardsunlight]

"When you say "don't stare too long", I can't help but feel there's an ulterior motive." - Kitana @ Jade

“Perceptive as always, my empress.” Somehow, when Jade says “my empress” it has a different ring than when anyone else utters the words. She is not servile, but reverent, and maybe just a tad possessive. "I must ask, what do you think I mean by that?"

[bastardsunlight]

Jade, do you have any regrets?

“That I have only one life to give for my Empress,” she responds, gazing dreamily at Kitana from a respectful distance. Her eyes harden suddenly, however, and she retrieves her staff, extending it and pushing it up under the stranger’s chin. “But it is a worthy life and will not be given up easily.”

[bastardsunlight]

Jade, what do you want… Really?

“My desires are simple,” she responds, swinging the bohard over her head into a spin and then, dropping gracefully into the splits, she maintains the rotation of the staff above her head. Sliding upward and planting it, she lifts herself into the air, bringing it up and over her head and then slamming down to the ground beneath her. “And singular. I want a return of Edenian glory… an Empress on the throne to rule with justice, where once tyranny held sway.”

I will place Kitana on that throne, she thinks to herself, her eyes hardening with the resolve in her heart.