Prisoner on Pallaxides

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

Bryna didn’t move, nothing of the Cathar's apparent informality in her posture. She held herself poised, austere.

“That is none of your concern,” she said, in the rolling tongue of her people, the De’v’eni Bas’t’ek dialect of Bast’yr.

As the old words passed her lips, Bryna watched the lines of Bron’s face for any sign that he understood the significance of her invocation of the so-called Devine Tongue.

[Bron Korso]

The girl rattled off some strange dialect that he wasn't familiar with, and Bron angled his head to the side, sharp eyes trying to decipher by her expression what her words failed to tell him.

"I'm afraid," he finally began, "... that what you speak of... "

His own features drew into a pained look, lips drawing back to expose yellowed teeth. One of his lower lateral incisors was missing.

"Your words fall upon deaf ears, Stranger. But... "

His head shook then, eyes closing as he straightened up to his full height. Even his stature rivaled that of the Selonian, though there was no doubting the fact that his body did not hold the sheer power that the other did. He was a simple, desert-bound Cathar, after all.

"... the Holy City is everyone's concern."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica's ermine eyes moved from Bryna to the Cathar and back again. They spoke to each other in an alien tongue she did not understand. Therefore, it was important to feel whatever emotional context she could divine from the encounter There was little to go by, only a pervading sense of careful nervousness. It did not escape possibility that Bryna had lapsed into her local tongue in order to conspire some kind of attack to free herself. Still, the Selonian did little to mark the time, other than flick her tongue briefly over her nose.

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

There was no recognition in Bron. Not for the words Bryna had spoken or for her face. It felt like something was falling inside of her, like a pit had just opened beneath her and her insides were rapidly plummeting into it, leaving an icy-cold pressure in their place.

Bron did not know her. Bryna swallowed, tried to centre herself.

“I am Lupine," she said, switching to speak in Basic. "By my blood and birth, I have every right to enter the City.”

[Bron Korso]

"Everyone has the right to visit the Holy City," he answered, though his tone was considerably lower. Her claim to be a Lupine was met with narrowed eyes, and Bron breathed in deeply of the desert air, his nose trying to identify the smells that he could detect of both the girl and the Selonian. Unfortunately, the Selonian greedily took up the olfactory landscape, and it wasn't long before the Cathar let his eyes close, head dipping for a scant moment.

"The last of the Beast-Gods left us many years ago."

His eyes opened then, sharp orbs of pale red as they studied the girl.

"You are not her."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica pushed her senses onward. The nictating membranes partially shrouded her eyes as she drew in a long, measured breath, and drew it out just as deliberately. Everything this Cathar spoke seemed to come from a feeling of earnestness. The Selonian could not be certain on this, but the more this creature spoke, the less a deception it seemed.

Of course, this made Bryna's situation more perilous. Unlike the Cathar, Vissica could sense an imbalance here. There was something beyond the feeling of threat that hung over her. There was surprise and bewilderment in hearing what this peasant had to say. Surprise, bewilderment, but not anger. No, a...sadness? A feeling of loss? This sudden sensation was peculiar.

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

Bryna felt her shoulders threatening to sag, the weight of Bron’s indifference to her far heavier than she had been prepared for.

Her. The last of the Beast Gods. “Loklorien,” Bryna said, not aware that she had been about to speak the name until it passed her lips. All of a sudden, her heart was thudding like war drum in her ears.

“My mother.”

All pretense of affecting her fathers arrogance fell away like a veil. Her face changed; she was a young woman again, vulnerable, earnest. She moved forward, almost forgetting the presence of the Selonian at her back.

“Please. Do you know where I can find her?”

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The name Loklorien hit Vissica's ears, touching a nerve like a live wire. The effect was smothering, and only by the Knight's force of will did she maintain her composure. Though if one looked, they might see cracks in the facade. Her paws began to sweat. Her mouth grew parched, with her tongue thick against the roof of her mouth. Vissica strained to hear the continuing conversation over the heavy thud of rushing blood in her ears. Had Bryna always looked the way she did? Vissica stared openly, not certain whether her memory was betraying her or not. The shape of the woman's ears, of her nose, of her lips. That shade of straw that was the fur of her mane. Coincidences on the surface, but with the force as your ally, coincidences seldom were what they seemed to be.

Vissica drew a deep breath in through her nose, taking in the scents as they held in the warm, dry air. There was something in the way she smelled that was so familiar, but yet elusive still. She squeezed her eyes shut, giving her fullest attention to the sound of her voice. Was there anything there? Hope and yearning and hunger and fury beat red hot under her skin. If she opened and relaxed her eyes, would she see her? So close and within her grasp that she only had to reach out around that delicate pale-skinned throat and squeeze. The allure of vengeance and righteous anger pumped through her quickening heart. It was the purest hatred she had felt since Manaan, and in that realization, Vissica knew that it must remain sheathed. With all of her might.

For now.

[Bron Korso]

She stepped forward, shifting into his space with earnest desperation, it seemed. The expression on her face was like that of a lost kit, trying to find home and the warmth of a familiar hearth. Still leaning on his staff, Bron angled his head downward so that his full attention was on the girl. The name she'd uttered was not unfamiliar with him, but this face now, it was not. He'd known that the woman - Loklorien - she had had a child. But there was no way in the blessed God of Sands that she'd grown so quickly.

He kept his thoughts to himself, for now.

"I've heard that name," he finally offered.

"But, she did not reside in the Holy City. Imram'Lien was only a place that she visited on occasion."

There was a sense of curiosity that flashed in his eyes, but he kept the feeling in check.

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Bron did not know her. He only knew of her mother.

“I…”

Bryna’s throat tightened, the undertow of emotion roiling beneath the surface of her threatening to pull her into it. I can’t do this. I can’t. She wanted to scream those words, but when she thought them, she pictured her father bleeding in the middle of the Maid’s pit. This was not the Cathar she knew, not the Cathar where her father was almost certainly dying.

She pursed her lips tightly and swallowed, trying to force the emotion to go away, but her mouth still trembled.

“If.. there’s even a chance that she’s there, I need to go there.”

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica stared at Bryna's lacrimal display, catching the glinting beginnings of a tear she kept trapped with a tightening of her expression. She could sense emotion, deep and raw, dredged up as unguarded as she'd seen her captive to this point. There was little reason to doubt this feeling was genuine, and if that were true...

The Knight's cuirass raised and lowered with deep, metered breaths. She wet her lips.

"Tell me of this Loklorien."

[Bron Korso]

Still he watched the girl. She was like some frail wisp of moon-strider, held in place by the most fragile of silkweb strings. A far cry from the confident creature that had approached him at first.

And when the Selonian spoke, Bron felt his eyes finally shift upwards to stare at the much larger companion.

A single eyebrow lifted.

Moments later his full attention was returned to Bryna.

"There is certainly no chance that she is, Child." His voice was soft this time, as he worried that anything too harsh would send her fluttering away in the gentle breeze that now swirled the sand around their legs.

"Perhaps she returned to the place that she came from? I once heard long ago that it was in the Core."

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

The sound of Vissica’s voice startled Bryna. How had she forgotten that the Selonian still stood behind her? She turned, just enough to regard the towering Imperial, her expression betraying her surprise.

“My.. mother? As I told you, my father sent me to find her.”

She twisted back towards Bron, or at least the figure who looked like Bron. There was something in his expression that she recognised now, almost like tenderness, that pulled at her.

“Where did she come from? Do you have any way of contacting her?”

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"You only told me of your mother, not her name. Loklorien..."

Vissica drew in a breath, again closing her eyes. She pushed her insights to their brink. There could be no mistaking the feeling. She was certain now.

"Loklorien s'Ilancy."

The Selonian's eyes opened, meeting Bryna's eyes.

[Bron Korso]

This pair was curious indeed; while the Selonian seemed single-minded, the girl was much more flighty and delicate. Like the desert jenatra that bloomed only once a year, sustained by the meager morning dews and clinging to life by drinking in the rays brought by the unyielding sun above them all.

He chose the girl.

She claimed to be of the same stock as the departed Loklorien. A Beast God. But were they truly 'gods'? Or did they inflate their stature and standing? They had come to Cathar long ago, living in solitude. Many told stories of great, beastly vornskrs that began to roam the sands after their arrival.. creatures certainly not native to the husk of a world that Cathar had been since the Sith Wars. Obelisks had been constructed in reverence to keep the beasts sated; obelisks that served as barriers as much as they did shrines and altars. Offerings of food and coin... even blood.

None ventured past the obelisks that guarded the foothills of the Vercor Mountains.

"I cannot contact her. When she left, it was sudden. But I can tell you.. when she left, you were but a cubling of barely 6 cycles."

He reached out to rest a finger upon her forehead. The calloused pad traced a line across to her temple, then down the side of her face to rest just below her jawline.

"That is, if you are the daughter that you say you are."

[Bryna Van-Derveld]

There was no mistaking the effect that her mother’s name had on the Selonian. The fact that Bryna could recognise it, could see how it cut through Vissica’s composure in a way that Bryna had not seen in their brief time together, didn’t make it any less confusing.

“Do you… know mother?”

There was no time to process that revelation. Not when Bron’s voice commanded her attention. When he reached out to touch her, she didn’t flinch. She barely even heard what he was saying, at first.

If you are her daughter. If.

Rather than carefully brushing her cheek, he might as well have slapped her. Bryna swallowed, her jaw flexing.

“If she is not here, then… then there is nothing on Cathar for me - for us,” she added, taking a step back and looking toward Vissica.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica's attention was fixed upon the expanse that lay beyond the obelisks. It was clear from her unflappable gaze what she intended.

"Take us to the Holy City."

The wind picked up, and the Selonian bore into it unblinking.

[Bron Korso]

The steel in the Selonian's voice was unmistakable. All the same, he continued to half-way lean on his staff, the knurled wood slightly creaking with the small bit of weight that he placed on it. His hand pulled back, away from the girl, coming to rest over the top of his forearm.

"And what is it you hope to find there, Selonian?"

His voice was like weathered waterstones.

"I have already told you that the one you seek did not live there."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The scents she winded on the hot breeze were not known to her. If Loklorien s'Ilancy once called this place home, she could divine nothing of her essence from the wind. But deep within, Vissica could feel there was something profound connecting her nemesis to this place.

"I search for the truth, Cathar."

The Knight turned away from the vista that lay beyond the obelisks, meeting the alien's glittering eyes with her own.

"In whatever form it takes."

[Bron Korso]

The Selonian was singularly bent, it seemed, to discover whatever 'truth' that she so fervently hunted. Whatever it was, Bron found himself allowing a frown to curl down the corners of his lips, exposing the tips of his teeth. None had actively sought out the old citadel that had once been home to a single, solitary occupant.

His attention focused upon the girl once more.

"And what truth are you hoping to find, Daughter of Gods?"