Upon A Rise

[Samar St. Maurelle]

Wrong.

Bugs. A city of bugs. Giant Fyreflii's darting to and fro in a durasteel forest; innards alive and well, kept safe inside dead shells. The planet was infested with them.

Wrong.

He watched them with hooded eyes from atop Gideon's Casket. Sentients on their way home to their spouses, lovers, children, pets. Dinners and holoprograms. Clamouring in the skylanes for speed because time was credits, time was life. A second saved was a second gained.

Wrong.

Beneath he could feel them; they'd started in the cockpit and moved on down the passage to the bedroom. His bedroom. Ignorant whelp enjoying the fruits of their labour when he hadn't earned a bit of it. Too stupid even to know she didn't mean it, didn't want him really.

Wrong.

It made his blood boil to think of it. That secondhand mechanic--hadn't even bothered to inspect before jumping under the hood, the bastard--with her perfection. Every little moan that escaped the 'steel hull was like a hot iron; each mark scorched and stank. Records of the bug's transgressions.

She played her little games.

Wrong.

Samar shifted against the rusting chill that had settled in his joints. Below the bend of his knees an unpleasant prickling had taken over, declaring his dangling calves a colony in the name of Paresthesia. The man frowned and with one swift motion hurled himself off the edge of the ship. He landed softly below.

With total certainty he began a slow ascent of Gideon's ramp, pausing momentarily in the open doorway to still his rushing heart. In the half-light his features were cast sharper than they truly were; Samar appeared quite terrifying.

He was, really.

Footsteps sounded on the panelled floor. Snapping his head toward their origin, the man stepped fully inside and took a moment to straighten the edge of his shirt collar. He had to look his best--Keiran was nearly finished.

Samar had games of his own.

[Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs]

Control.

That is what she had, here. It is what she has. The insatiable appetite of a young devil, clothed in a supple and lovely satin epidermis. She played her games, she played them well - and none was ever the wiser.

Control.

The jealousy, the anger felt wafting by on the lanes of cadescent emotion forces her to a pounding, demonic desire. The whelp, the little nothing cooped up in the beauty, knew nothing of it save for the physical sensations that now crackled his nerves to the point of overload. He could say she was too much, but he was in too far already. Hang on, and enjoy the ride.

It's the last you'll ever have.

Control.

The patience outside the transaction is sparse to begin with, and has grown shorter. He cannot wait. The thought of his wild vengeance gives to her a greater pleasure than anything she could ever give to this other man. This worthless man. Such a short slice of time, and she bores of him.
He is left to his own devices, which after the deal, are completely spent. Such little effort it took.

How disappointing.

Control.

The tiger, her beloved, he awaits outside. Her approach grasps his attention like the impending death of a vessel hurtling toward a star. Keiran is pressed against him, a hand playing at the nape of his neck, sultry words tingling his ear. She will enjoy more what happens next than anything of the past seven minutes.She plays her games, and Samar always gets his part. A game within a game. Lusts braided tight with desires.

He goes, then. Another soul, soon devoured. Another blood, soon tasted.

[Samar St. Maurelle]

With a rabid shake of his head, Samar blew traces of the man's scent out of his nostrils. Keiran needed a shower for she was riddled with leftovers. An unacceptable odor that masked his own marked territory. Deep within his chest a low growl began to rumble.

A hiss of fabric against fabric announced his departure from his half's embrace, as Samar stalked into the small quarters. Out in the corridor a muffled yelp of surprise drifted; caught with his trousers down, the mechanic not expecting the brother he'd thought had gone.

Samar knew she was listening. It made his skin flush with arousal even while his fingers twitched in anticipation of what came next. They would start with the face.

Wordlessly the brother took a step forward, his lips parted in a horrible, yawning grin.

The brief scream of torment that rang through the ship was followed by a beautiful, clean crack. Then silence.

Samar emerged, alone, moments later. Once fastidiously white, the man's shirt was splattered darkly with blood. This triviality seemed to bother him much more than the fact that his face was also smeared with the organic matter. Staring down at the stiffening material, Samar frowned in deep displeasure before prodding Keiran with his deafening gaze.

"Ratu'ahc." Which was cheater in their tongue, the tongue of Two. He looked pointedly at the blood-stained heel of her shoe. Long, nimble fingers crept up to the corners of his mouth and meticulously wiped away stray smears of blood. "Started on him. Hole in his throat, flesh already dying. Bad meat."

He crept closer, face petulant like a thwarted child. "Easy, easy, easy, too easy. No fight left, no fight for my turn."

Whenever he reached this state of wound-up dementia, Samar's speech became crippled and manic. Thoughts came out half-formed, as if the agony of restraint was too much to express clearly through.

Still sulking, he began to unbutton his ruined shirt. "Cake. Can't have and eat it too."

[Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs]

Seated, her endless lengths of leg were crossed, the blood and matter-stained heel rather visible, discarded on the floor, away from her bare feet. Meticulously, she was inspecting her nails. She had already switched her violated fabrics for something purer, more comfortable - a robe. As the demon, her completion, exited their private chamber, she could see...could feel his distraught and displeased state. But the clean snap had reached her little morsels of ears, and a deeply aroused look held strong on the most feminine features that composed her face. Keiran lifted from the seat, and stepped soft toward Samar against his disorienting words, and began to help him continue to undress.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I just had to have one again for myself." She whispered, undoing the last button of his soiled shirt, pushing it off his shoulders and following the falling article of clothing down his properly muscled arms with her long-fingered hands.

She looked up at his face, bringing one hand to it. Her touch was disarming enough, a seductress well-brought, and she thumbed at the blood smear on his left cheek.

"Can you forgive me? I feel so...disgusting. It needs to be scrubbed clean." A hellish sparkle flickered in her deep eyes, her lips pouted. His physical warmth was so wonderous. She looped a finger of the opposite hand through one belt loop, then lowered the right hand, did the same, and tugged at him.

"You're dirty. You need scrubbing too."

[Samar St. Maurelle]

Samar grunted and nuzzled the silken cascade that was Keiran's hair. The proximity of her body made his own throb in response, stroking the thwarted sense of carnality. The evening had not gone according to design but it had at least come to the same end; he and his had been restored to proper order.

Grasping her slender forearms, Samar began to step backwards. The motion pulled his sister along the murky artery of the ship. Her robe--could hardly be called that, a mere wisp of thread against skin--was disposed of halfway to the 'fresher and by the time the two stepped into the sonic shower, not a shred of cloth stood between them.

"Ice." Samar remarked, tips of fingers caressing the unforgiving bend of Keiran's spine and bare-chilled skin. He leaned in closer and kissed her cheek, hot breath spilling suggestively across her jaw and tumbling down the slope of her elegant neck to settle in the hollow of her throat.

Quiet delight radiated off the man as he pressed the shower on. Keiran laughed and it was her soprano trill that unleashed a deep and terrible shiver; Samar closed his eyes and swallowed against an impossible unravelling. He was coming back to himself, she was bringing him back, but this was dearly satisfying--to hover, breath, wait.

Soft hands that were forever cold trailed across his stubbled jaw. Samar growled with impatience and dove forward, lips curling into a mean smile against her neck before he withdrew. Keiran's hands tangled in his hair, twisting until his scalp protested. Neither of them moved individually. Instead, like a great provoked beast, the two rushed at one another and met in an erruption of flame.

Samar felt panic flare beautifully in the pit of his stomach. Fingertips skimmed over the sensitive scars on his back, the jagged line of his hip, prodded curiously at his bellybutton (they'd been connected, joined once.) Little bursts of flame settled in his bones; this heat... he meant to drown in it.

They were long since clean. Neither moved to exit the 'fresher. With his heart straining at it's tethers, Samar braced himself against the wall of the unit and stared at Keiran; for one long moment neither moved, held captive by the beat of want, want want.

He flew apart.

If there was sound he couldn't hear it, and if there was light he couldn't see it. He was lost, utterly broken, the galaxy content to forget his name. He no longer existed.

Until a whispered touch pulled him back. Always Keiran.

Samar opened his eyes and was startled to find that he was dressed in crisp clothes, seated in a deep chair. Keiran's sly face grinned down at him.

"Ungh," Words came like hard-won treasure. Samar cleared his throat. "Is the scum quite dead?"

[Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs]

So delicious. What a treat.

Poor Samar. He didn't quite realize where he was.

The deep chair was dark crimson, and it enveloped the crisp, light colours of Samar's fresh clothing quite well. He didn't have to try very hard, Keiran would think, to be seductive sitting on that piece. Keiran herself was dressed quite well in dark, pinstriped trousers and a lighter blouse, her legs covered halfway with knee-high nylons. Standing over her completion, a deceptuous grin accentuated her sly face as she looked him over, pleased with him. Pleased with herself. She played idly with her hair, twirling one index finger around and out again, around and out. She sniffed the air, a delicate wrinkle coming to her small nose as she did so.

"It smells perfect." Keiran loosed in a lazy breath, and flopped back on to the freshly done bed. Clean, crisp duvet atop dreamy sheets, and she propped herself up on pointed elbows to adress Samar again, more pointedly.

"The aberration has been dealt with, brother. Don't worry yourself." She flopped backwards again, one arm relaxed by her head, pointed towards the headboard where her suit jacket hung. The other hand rested on her stomach, rising and falling with diaphragmed breaths. "Our concern now is what happens next. We can't very well remain here. That wouldn't be very exciting, now would it?"

She looked like a dream, laying there, under the soft light setting. The evening had gotten later. Even the cockpit area where there were no lights turned on, was coated in the gentle tones of pre-dusk.

[Samar St. Maurelle]

Samar grunted. There were scratches on his arms, too wide to have been caused by his sister's finely shaped nails. They distracted him, those tracts of scraped flesh. Little roads painstakingly forged along his body, worn into exhistence by toil and struggle. The pilot must have resisted his inevitable end more than Samar had comprehended during his frenzy.

Violated. Someone had taken his skin. Left marks on his body. He regarded those three jagged red trails as forgery, false signatures claiming ownership of something they had no right to stake. Samar's nostrils flared.

He was aware of his sister's voice, absorbed everything she said like a thirsting traveller. It took a moment for it to register.

"No." Samar spoke barely above a whisper. It was loud, for him. "Far too long here. We're all dried out, cracking; wind's got to blow us away."

With meticulous precision he crept out of his chair and onto the bed, curling around his sister, fitting himself neatly into her curves. His face was buried against her ribcage; there was a flattened edge to his nose, molded from this very position in the womb.

A broad palm rested warmly on her belly, long fingers splaying out like a dead spider.

[Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs]

Keiran reached for the hand upon her silky midriff and pulled it up to her mouth, kissing it longingly, and examining each finger with a seemingly intence concentration shadowing in her eyes. She considered his words a light moment, how cryptic they often were. The puzzle of his mind often brought her an undefinable pleasure. Samar was a beast, to be sure. A beast gorging itself on the treats nestled in her hands. Sedate, licking lazily at the salts.

She replaced his hand back where it had been a moment before, and propped herself up on her elbows, a sudden thought occuring to her pretty head.

"I fancy an unfamiliarity. I'd been browsing some information, and one dull, mostly inhospitable place grabbed my interest."

More like an odd nudging. A pulling gut-feeling, a faint call. Her feminine curiosity had gotten the better of her on this count. Keiran quickly slipped from her brother's warmth and fetching her suit jacket, padded out of the room while slipping arms into sleeves and buttons through holes. She was headed for the cockpit.

"Come, my lovely brother. This must be planned." Her voice faded the further away she walked, touching soon to the cockpit entrance. "We should be quick and go before we beco..."

It caught her. An unfamiliar presence. Her head turned.

She saw it. The back of an unfamiliar head. She growled her words almost ferally.

"Who...THE HELL...are you?"

[Samar St. Maurelle]

He moved before his sister spoke, her alarm relayed to him like a bolt of electricity, one which ignited within him a fury of overpowering defense. Samar rose swiftly and in silence. Lips set in an ominous, thin line paled to a milky-white against bleached skin, the colour drained from them as he frowned in deep displeasure.

Samar saw the figure as he stepped beside Kieran, placing a hand around her upper arm and situating himself slightly forward. A snarl rumbled in the man's throat, and his icy eyes narrowed menacingly. The imbecile who had so brazenly invaded their home was dangerously close to becoming the second corpse of the night; Samar refrained from attacking only because of a warning pulse from his sister.

She wanted answers before he played.