Once you get this you have to say 5 nice things about yourself publicly, and then send it to ten of your favourite followers uwu
Okay, five nice things about me:
1. I’m usually a sweet person, I try to be kind and I do try not to judge people unfairly. But somedays I slip up and can be rude.
2. Ummm unless someone is into hurting other people for fun I don’t judge based on what people like? I might disagree with you on what could be considered fun but I won’t make fun of you for liking it. Okay I might, in a joking way but I always add ‘Ohman I’m so sorry I was just kidding’ right afterwards because I’m worried I’ll have offended someone.
3. I like making gifts for people I don’t know if this falls under nice things??? but I rarely give them to others unless they’re in my family because I’m worried that they might take it the wrong way. (Like the I’m in love with you wrong way)
4. I try to smile at strangers, when they smile back at you it’s a great feeling but I do it just to let them know that ‘Hey, I hope you have a great day! Whatever was making you frown or sad won’t last forever you’ll be okay, keep your chin up pal!’ But I don’t know, a lot of them might think I’m smiling at them because I think they’re cute?
5. I share my food. You put the nicest thing about yourself last right?
[Something I've been meaning to write for a while now. Apologies for lateness and liberties taken with characters. <3 Snugglu to Ryza and Josh!]
x-x-x-x-x-x
"You said you knew where she was.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. “Tell us. We’re getting her, no matter what. It’s going to be messy and violent.” His eyes dropped to her lightsaber, lingering on it and everything he knew it stood for. “If you’re going to have a problem with that, then stay here.”
"They have a saying about healers, Makiel," Zashii replied with freakish calm. “Those who know how to put you together… also know how to take you apart."
There was a small beat of silence as she let him digest her meaning.
"I intend to dissect these people. Now. My visions tell my Ryza is in Shadowtown. A dangerous, unsavory area. But I see you are prepared; and Cyraas can hold his own," she added.
Zashii didn’t mention herself. It wasn’t worth mentioning. If they did not know by now that a Jedi could handle herself, they would learn in very short order. As would those who dared hold her friend hostage. Take her away from Zashii. Hurt her.
She would stop the pain, and inflict it ten thousand fold back on those who deserved no mercy.
They didn't even see them coming. How could they? No, they did not see the danger until it was on thier doorstep, in the form of a squad of soldiers in plain armor, a redheaded man with unerring aim.... and a woman, a woman who flickered in and out of the gloom like a terrible ghost, wielding a yellow and black blade- but worse than the blade, and burning hotter, were the molten eyes under a darkened hood.
Imperials, prisoners- the smart ones fled as much as they were able. The stupid ones ended up dead, gunned down or carved into pieces and left in the streets. Cyraas had disabled communications and security devices. There would be no help for them here.
Not unless you counted the oblivion of death.
For they had taken what was hers, hurt her friend, tortured her, and she would make them all suffer for it.
With her saberstaff she was a creature of lightening and the shadow of a storm, using the Force to vanish and reappear and slice and vanish once more, a terrifying thing to face. Behind her, Makeil and his squad blew the enemy to bits, and she did not need to look to be able to know that Cyraas was hard at work as well. She could feel the latent Force Sensitive's pulse in the life energies of the universe, but it was peripheral. She was focused on someone else's for now.
Hold on, Ryza. I'm coming.
Zashii didn't see the concerned look her smuggler friend [more?] gave her back as she cooly cleaved a man from nose to navel. The guard slumped. She was stepping over his body before the flesh finished cauterizing.
A door. A simple, single door between her and her goal.
The Jedi healer didn't smile, but she did give a single, soft 'heh'.
"Sweetcheeks?" Cyraas moved to her side. "Want me to slice it?"
"...Not necessary. A moment, Captain." Zashii placed her hand on the door and tilted her head slightly.
Sudden screeching, metallic sounds filled the air and made him wince, though she made no move to cover her ears. The door buckled, crumpled, drew inward on itself like it was collapsing into a single point of gravity. It ripped from it's thick reinforced hinges, compressed into something the size of a beach ball.
"They'll know we're here," Mak observed.
"Excellent," Zashii said. How dare they. How DARE they. Take and hurt my friend, while I am protecting the Order, unable to help her- no, it shall not stand, let them come. Let them see my power.
LET THEM SEE WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF.
A thought, and she faded out of sight, just as the first patrol team thundered around the corner in response to the wooping alarm. Makeil hurled a grenade thier way, and so did Cyraas. Zashii sheilded herself from the blast with half a thought. She did not think to wonder where this power came from, where before, she struggled under the burden of Sheilding the members of the Order from the Plaugemaster. She didn't wonder why the dark whisper was silent for once in her head, nor why the candle sputter of a life fading from the Force made her want to grin. She took damage but didn't feel it, didn't care, it didn't matter, she could not be stopped.
Screaming. It went from professional to terrified as they moved through the complex. Ryza was close. She could feel it, a thready beat of life, in agony, but alive.
Zashii needed to know where. So the next patrol that came around she decimated, all but one poor ensign, who she slammed against the wall and held there.
"Ryza Adaria. Where is she?"
"I-I-I-I-"
"WHERE?" Zashii hissed, stepping closer to him.
"I'm not- I don't- I'm new here oh please don't-"
"Liar. You. Will. Answer. Me."
He made a gurgling scream, one cut short as she closed the distance between the two and put a finger on his forehead- she was inside his mind between one breath and the next.
The ensign's screaming rose a notch in volume and desperation.
She dug deeper. There has to be- yes. Here. An image, faintly and in passing, of a mirialan in a cell.
"Silence," she told the boy, and his scream was cut off mid note... but his mouth was still open even if she'd jut severed his vocal cords with the Force. That took care of the noise, but it didn't quite have the same effect. No. He needed to die. But more importantly, he needed to suffer.
His cracked airless shriek went higher; blood began to drip down his face, first from his ears, then from his tear ducts, his nose; a rapidly growing stain on his pants said he was bleeding through EVERY orifice. It smelled warm and metallic and lovely. She dropped him. The ensign writhed on the floor in a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood.
And he was still screaming.
"...Uh, didja, uh, get what y' needed, Zashii?" Cyraas asked. Makeil didn't spare the boy more than a moment's look.
"Yes. He didn't know anything, but he saw her."
"Ah, gotcha. Pity y' had t' do that t' him t' get him t' talk."
"Oh, no, my dear. I liquefied his kidneys after. He'll be dead in fifteen minutes, but he will not enjoy them," Zashii answered conversationally, and moved past him as he gaped at her with real concern now. The edge of her robe left bloody trails on the floor as behind them, the boy still screamed.
The Jedi consular blew a hole in the next wall and they continued through the base, killing everything in thier path. There were no survivors. Zashii ensured it. Any who were not killed immediately she executed with a flick of her wrist, leaving hot metal gashes in the floor and severed heads behind her.
Around the next corner was thier goal. The team of rescuers stopped. A man, in a dark robe, was there. He had an unsheathed blade spitting crimson venom.
Zashii laughed.
"What's so funny, Jedi?" he snarled.
"Well, it could be yer face. Y' got an ugly mug there, boy," Cyraas cracked.
"You- when I'm done with this Jedi dog here, after I make her watch me eat her cute little friend's eyeballs, then I'll make you watch me have my way with them both before I kill you."
"Unlikely." He turned back to Zashii at that single chilly word.
"Think you can match powers with me? I am Sith. I've been here for weeks, pumping this girl for information. I'll make you beg just like I made her!" he howled, and threw lavender electricity at her.
But she didn't move. In fact- With a swelling of the Force that would make any Sensitive's hair stand on end, she merely deflected it to one side with her bare palm. It was easy. So easy. Fools.
Zashii's blade sprang to life.
"My turn."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Cyraas knew something was off, had been since they left the hotel, and she was wearing those strange dark robes- but never in all his life did he expect Force Lightening from Zashii Narlu'un, Consular, scholar, healer. The intensity of it cracked the air and blew back her hood, revealing the formerly peridot eyes he was used to. Except they weren't her eyes at all. They glowed with something that consumed her from the inside, oozing through the cracks in her mental barriers, turning them a fearsome YELLOW.
He knew a moment of fear.
She was smiling, a cracked and broken slash of elegant lips twisting her face into half a snarl as the Sith screamed.. Cyraas holstered his gun and ran for her.
"Zashii! Zashii! What're y' doing? Stop- this ain't you, this ain't my Jedi! What'd Yuon say if she saw y' like this?! Zashii!" No nonononono this ain't workin', this ain't working, no I will NOT lose her too- not t' this!
The smuggler grabbed her hands in his, her snapping purple lightening hands, and was instantly suffused with pain, but he didn't let go. He'd never let her go. She needed him-now more than ever, even if it felt like all the muscles in his body were on fire and popping like hot piano wire and he gave a strangle cry despite himself.
It stopped. He buckled, dropping to one knee. The sith behind him fell a la sack of potatoes style. The third degree burns on his face were clear evidence that he was dead.
Cyraas looked up, gasping.
"I- I- I-.... Cy-Cyraas?" Zashii asked in a terrified tiny voice, suddenly a completely different woman.
"Heh... Heya, sweetcheeks..." Oh, stars an' space don't never let me do somethin' that damn stupid agian. My errythin' hurts.
"You-"
She didn't finish, Makeil moved past both of them.
"Later, you two, we need to get Ryza out of here," he snapped.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Zashii backpedaled away from Cyraas on the floor and the cell door Mak was currently hacking. She felt sick and shaky. And-
She'd hurt Cyraas. CYRAAS.
What is wrong with me?
The humm of a deactivating force feild drew her attention away. Ryza!
Curled in a fetal ball in a corner was a green sack of bones and bruises. The place smelled like excrement and blood and lightening, not all of it new; and the walls in the Force were drenched in terror and despair and pain. Zashii went to her.
"Ryza?" she asked, very softly. "Ryza, it's me, Zashii. And Makeil, and Cyraas. We're taking you home."
She was mumbling something. Zashii leaned in to hear.
"...please no more please no more what do you want I told you already please no more please..."
"Ryza-" The way the former smart-talking smuggler flinched when she touched her made Zashii see red again. She barely controlled her urge to destroy something, someone, anyone. Slowly she helped her sit. "Look at me. It's Zashii. Remember?"
"...............K-K-Kid?" Slowly, Ryza uncurled and looked up.
And screamed. The sudden BLAST of overwhelming panic/fear/despair/pain/terror sen Zashii staggering as if from a physical blow. Ryza kicked out at her, despite her weakened state, and clawed at Mak when he went to her.
What the...??
She didn't stop until he'd applied a sedative, a strong one, and she slumped into his arms.
Zashii stared, confused and hurt. Cyraas came up behind her, limping a bit.
"Hey, sweetcheeks."
Oh Force. Cyraas. The knot returned and she felt sick again. "I- Cyraas- You- I-"
"Shhh." He put a finger on her lips and smiled gently. "S'alright. Kay? Yer alright. But- Mebbe it's best if y', uh, don't be around her for a bit." He nodded to Ryza, far too skinny and beaten. "Till you, um, lose the eyes anyways."
The consular stopped. "...Eyes?"
"Uh, yeah. Might wanna put somethin' on yer hands too. I'm- ok, just all wierd n tingly hurt and not in the good way, but you... I mean, void damn...."
Hands?
She looked down.
Where the Sith dead on the floor had third degree burns, so did she: horrific spiderwebbing ones from her wrists to her fingers, charred flesh in a grotesque tattoo marking where the lightening sprang from her fingers. The pain hit her then, almost overwhelming, and she became aware of a hundred other hurts and a blaster bolt wound on her side. Everything swayed. Zashii put out a hand automatically to catch herself on the wall and nearly screamed herself when she did.
Cyraas caught her.
He always catches me, she thought, dizzy. Why is that?
It was there she saw it. In the mirror bright, polished metal of the torture chamber walls.... the eyes of a Sith looked at her own reflection in utter horror.
They were her mother's eyes.
In her head, faintly, someone laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.
"No. Oh, no...." He got to me. He got to me. I'm not safe, I'm a danger- I'm- I failed, I hurt Cyraas-
Zashii yanked away from his warm supporting arms. "Get- Get Ryza to- to my ship, superior medical equipment, kolto tank- I- I- I have to-I'll be back-"
She vanished. Cyraas leaped forward to keep her from running and swore as he missed her by less than half a second.
