A Subtle Suffering

[Xand Zyarck]

Years Ago...



If only I had been there... Xand thought, as he watched Tae'liade's broken body being feverishly mended by a variety of strange medical droids. She was his only sister, and the odds of her survival were slim - at least that's what the first medical droid (the one he had ripped to pieces with his bare hands) had told him.

Xand, a young Falleen with more brawn than brains, could not abide to be given bad news. This was doubly the case today, considering that he had learned only a few hours ago that the Empire had begun launching an orbital attack on their home city. Even from where he stood, a solid days travel away, he could hear the burning of ozone. When all was said and done, Tae'liade was really all he would have left - if he was lucky.

"If she doesn't pull through," Xand said to the chief medical droid, wiping the blood and oil from his scaly green hands onto his plum-colored vest, "you'll be next." All across the floor of the small medical station were large fragments of droids - droids that had told him there was no hope for Tae'liade!

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

The medical units were swift to suppress her attempts at reaching toward him. Xand, the only constant left in her life. At one point, she might have hated the fact that he was always present. He ever seemed to be looming over her, like some superior shadow with a smug expression that she longed to hit. But now, now she would do anything to actually touch him and assure herself that the ripple of reality could not take hold of his existence. She could feel his anger and she pondered if it was she who had stirred his ire.

Visibly, she winced away from the flickering lights above her and let out a steady scream that gave even the metal creations, desperately trying to stop the flow of blood from her wounds, pause. It was his name tearing its way from her lips. The pain in his expression. Was he injured as well? Everything was dyed red, now. Even sleep, which seemed all the more lulling every time she attempted to blink, was painted a slick shade of crimson.

Stay with me, Tae. Stay awake...

Always growling at her. She tried to hiss at him in return but found she could not. They were trying to put something over her face. Sleep seemed inevitable now. She knew what she'd dream about. The same old beginning and the unexpected, tragic end. This time, when her eyes closed she couldn't seem to open them.

[Xand Zyarck]

Days Earlier...



"You're only a burden, Tae'liade." Xand spat, his powerful green biceps rippling as they pinned Tae'liade against one of the walls of the corridor in which the two Falleens stood. "I'm insulted that our father would even think my time could not be put to any better use, than looking after you." The subtle scent of his pheromones rose into the air and teased her nostrils. His intense green eyes drove themselves into her with fierce intensity. It was true, that the two shared a more than platonic bond... but it was also no secret, that Xand only regarded her as a pleasant diversion, and never his equal.

When their father had given him the news, that it was time to collect a rather large debt from Yorba the Hutt, Xand had been ecstatic. It was his first opportunity to walk in his father's footsteps - at least, he felt that way, until he learned that Tae'liade was expected to accompany him. He hadn't said a word in protest at the time, although throughout the rest of the afternoon in their father's presence, he had glared at Tae'liade every chance he found.

Now that they were at last alone in the North wing of their estate, he wasn't holding back. His scaly green fists pounded deep dents into the metal walls of the hallway, missing her head only by inches. "You're a child. You will return to our father, drop to your knees, and beg him to be reassigned to a different task." his voiced shook her with it's intensity. She wasn't being asked... Xand was telling her. His fists pounded into the wall beside her head several times as he spoke. "Now go!"

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

Despite her firm desire to appear brave, Tae'liade flinched away from the fist that slammed into the wall next to her head. Inky violet lashes swept down, shielding those vivid green eyes from his fierce scrutiny, and her heart began to beat wildly within her chest cavity. She had witnessed her brother in a rage previously but never had she had the full wave of his wrath come crashing down upon her head. Or right next to it, as it would appear.

She took each of his words like a blow, wincing from the stress driven through each syllable. Her nails, sharp and painted black, dug into the duracrete wall he continued to press her back against. Their surreal relationship, up until this point, had been encouraged by their father. The Zyarck family line was not one to be tainted by outsiders, after all. To maintain their sovereignty, it was necessary to assign mates. Xand found his partner to be insufficient.

And why shouldn't he? Tae'liade had been born with a less than satisfactory constitution that most males of her species found repulsive. Her weakness defeated the purpose of their assignation and thus she couldn't understand why her father held so firmly to their tainted ideals. Not to say that she, as a Falleen, was completely without merit. She determined early on that the reason her kin hadn't ended her life at birth was the enhanced potency of her pheromone complex. It was a force of its own. Even Xand, in all his brutish glory, seemed daunted by the chemical excretion.

"Xand..." She murmured ever so softly to him, opening up her jade eyes. Were she only capable of soothing his anger with her wiles. Unleashing them upon him now would only result in something extremely deadly.

Slowly, she moved under the barricade of his arms and stood at the center of the long corridor. He towered over her but the assemblage of armor she wore afforded her some strength she wouldn't have had without it.

"I will not be a burden, brother. Please... let me go with you.." She could feel the rage building up within him again but she would not run from him this time. That just made him all the more angry. It was her deepest wish that he would allow her to prove herself.

[Xand Zyarck]

Xand watched her, his chest heaving and muscles tensed. "No!" he roared, his voice echoing down the hall loudly. He moved forward towards Tae'liade, and slammed her against another wall, shaking her somewhat brutally. She was his mate... but that wouldn't afford her any mercy now. "You'll not rob me of this glory, Tae'liade! Now withdraw from this assignment..." He pushed her up against the wall a second time, the pressure causing her some pain. Tae'liade had to know though, that Xand was hardly bearing down upon her with even an ounce of his strength.

His restraint however, was wanning. "Don't embarrass yourself. Training is training - this is reality." His furious eyes fixed upon her as he asserted that very astute fact. "I've taken you as my mate, time and time again... is that not glory enough?" he asked, releasing his grip on her. After a few seconds of silence, he turned and began to walk away. He knew that he needed to soothe his nerves in private, even if only for a few minutes.

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

The metal plates of her armor dug into her back as she was slammed around once again. A soft hiss escaped her lips and her fingers clutched at his arms this time. The soothing intention laced through the desperate caress made him loosen his grip slightly but not enough to give her any comfort.

"All right.." She murmured, hanging her head in defeat. This would no doubt anger her father as well but she'd rather face his wrath than Xand's. She knew the abuse coating his angered words all to well; A burden weighing down the mission, an embarrassment holding him back, she who would rob the glory. It did something terrible to her. She felt so low.

Stiffly, she slipped away from him again and moved down the hallway.

What will it take to make you understand, brother?

-----

"What an unfortunate turn of events, my girl. I would have very much liked you to accompany Xand on this mission. It's just as well. Something else has sprung up and I was debating whether to ask you to stay anyway. An assassination mission is to be assigned immediately and the location of said mission is just outside the city limits. Interested?"

She'd prove herself one way or another. "Of course, papa..."

A secretive smile tugged at her lips for she knew that Xand lurked somewhere in the shadows behind her.

"You'll leave immediately."

The scattered details of their last meeting seemed so trivial at the time.

[Xand Zyarck]

-----

Xand had been completely unprepared when the first of the blasts hit the city. The floor beneath his sturdy legs shook violently, and the sky outside of Yorba's small palace lit up as if the sun were raining down upon it. In a flash, thousands of Falleen perished. Suddenly, Yorba the Hutt's debt didn't seem to matter. He remembered what he had said to Tae'liade.

The roof shattered with a loud crack, and rubble started to crash down around him. In an instant, he throw himself from the nearest window, falling several stories to the landing pad below. One of his legs let out a snap as he hit the ground, but the pain didn't really matter. Where had their father sent her..? His green eyes scanned the horizon, and squinted at the hot blue flashes that burned away the sky. "Tae'liade..." he whispered, leaping into his ship with urgency. His father and mother... they were probably already gone, but his sister... she couldn't be dead.

Xand, never one to understand his own emotions, didn't know what frightened him so much. Maybe it was the idea that his sister would die with his harsh words in her heart - and maybe it was the thought that he would die without her by his side. "You fear that which you don't understand, and that which you fear, you hate." his father had once told him.

"NO!" he roared as he pounded his fist against the console of his ship. He smashed the navigational computer controls, and tiny sparks licked his blood knuckles. He was trying to guide the ship through a rain of destruction, never knowing where the next blast would fall. He couldn't afford to think now! Where was she? "Tae'liade, I'm coming." he said out loud, not realizing that in his rage, he had also managed to knock on the ship's commlink.

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

:: Target Eliminated ::

Glistening droplets of blood dripped down the length of the sterling wrist blade, extended forth from the ebony sheath wrapped tightly about her forearm, and splashed groundward into the crimson pool that had begun to gather at her feet. After a few moments of silence, the hand that was not clasping the throat of her target roughly reassigned the comlink to the strap slung across her anterior shoulder.

:: Excellent work ::

The response came and Tae'liade flexed the muscle of her arm, dragging the carcass closer to her reinforced helmet. Neon scanners swiftly worked over the humanoid's visage, registering all the necessary information into the Zyarck Asssassin Database. Then, when it was finished, the woman dropped the lifeless corpse to the ground and somehow managed to ignore the gory splash of coagulating plasma against the toe of her combat boots.

:: Return ....crsshh ...... Citadel. Immediate response to.... ::

More static.

Tae'liade roughly ran the pad of her scale ridden thumb across the channel button on her communication device. She could only marginally decipher the soft growls and grunts that made up her native tongue. The continuous screeching and static slowly began to wear at her nerves.

:: Inva... crssshhh....Empire. Crsshhhhh..... Vader... ::

The brilliant flash of pristine white, threateningly sharp fangs was hindered by the looming shadow of the colossal ship above. The craft hovered in the atmosphere, enveloped in the yellow haze that this district was named for. Pupils of a narrow diamond symmetry dilated behind the head gear as a beam sliced through the defiantly calm breeze and into the towering spire of the bacteriological research outpost. Several explosions followed, causing the solid earth beneath her feet to quake and gargantuan hunks of debris to sail through the air.

The Obsidian Citadel was falling, crumbling, disintegrating. The home she had known for all her life, the family that had raised her, was perishing before the snapping jaws of the Empire's fleet.

She moved then, narrowly dodging the collapse of a duracrete building shattered by chunks of wreckage from the city. Clawed hands snagged the alloy pikes jutting out from the fractured establishments around her, swinging her closer to safety. Her mind raced with thoughts, memories of her silent mother and her demanding father. She recalled the good times that all seemed to be coated with bad. Each situation was haunted by a single individual.

Her foot crashed through the wall she had been scaling and shards of metal and stone imploded around her leg, piercing it. Her grip loosened upon the sill of the window and she crashed backward into the mouth of darkness below.

Brother....

[Xand Zyarck]

Xand had been circling the city, calling out through the comm unit on his ship. "Tae'liade?" he called out, over and over again, keeping as clear of the bombardment as he could. "Can you hear me?" he asked, the shock of another explosion reverberating through the interior of his craft. "Tae'liade?" It felt hopeless.

He had already flown over the place he had once called home; it had been leveled to the ground, and was merely a dirty pile of rubble and steel now. Everything he owned, save his armor and his ship, was buried somewhere beneath it. "Please Tae'liade..." he said, hoping that she too, hadn't been buried along with the rest of his life.

Then he heard what sounded like a moan come across in a faint transmission. It was hard to convince himself that he hadn't merely imagined it, but when he heard it for a second time, his green eyes lit up. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

Tae'liade...

Some sound rumbled up from her throat; it escaped her lips and was swallowed up by the smoke-filled air. Through the haze of destruction came careless beams of sunlight, vivid yellow on a grey background, that began to dance across the contorted visage of the Falleen woman. Sharpened teeth pierced the plush lower lip and a steady stream of blood cascaded down the right side of her face.

One of her eyes, sliced in a perfect line right down the center, fought to open but stubbornly stayed shut. Her other eye, blurred by tears ushered by the consummate agony tearing through her skull, desperately searched the uneven earth for some means to free herself.

Upon landing she'd been covered with debris of all sizes and densities. The smog and hunks of duracrete had blocked out the sun for the longest time. But now, the horribly bright thing chose to shine right in her eye. She was only dimly aware that her leg was still trapped within the wall it had crashed through and the left side of her body was pinned to the ground by what had once been one of the pillars surrounding the Citadel.

Her right arm, seemingly the only part of her with minimal damage, was sprawled weakly against the broken pavement and lay somewhat close to the remains of what had once been her comlink. The sleek deisng was splattered with her blood and she idly watched the inner workings of the device as it vibrated with activity.

Can you hear me?

"Brother..." She coughed out, a torrent of vital fluid gushing forth from her mouth. "You're okay...."

[Xand Zyarck]

He could hear her... but she didn't sound strong. Her voice was laced with suffering. "I'm here. Just hang in there." he answered her over the comm. His eyes were scanning the ruins beneath the ship, looking for some sign of her. "Where are you?" he asked her.

There were Falleens everywhere, many of them badly injured. None of them were Tae'liade though. He looked at the comm unit and tried to pinpoint the source of the transmission. The ship's computer had concluded that it had originated someplace directly beneath them. That troubled Xand; the only thing he could see below the ship was debris. "Can you see me?" he asked through the comm unit, and flipped a switch that opened the ship's entry hatch. Hot wind blew into the cabin, and Xand listened to the comm for a few minutes more. There was only silence, and the occasional broken breathe.

Bringing the ship down to hover just a few feet above the rubble, he walked towards the entry hatch and down the loading ramp, standing against the whipping wind while he surveyed his surroundings. Their city was being beaten into the ground. He shook his head and leapt into the maw of chaos below, landing on a solid piece of steel with a loud clank. Without hesitation, his massive hands took to their task: clawing and digging through the ruin beneath him. For all of the strength he put into it, there was some element of care and restraint. His simple mind considered what pieces might be best moved before others. He feared that if he moved too carelessly, he could cause more debris to fall onto Tae'liade.

Every once in a while his hands met with something sharp or something hot, and a growl of defiance escaped from deep within his chest. Pain would not deter him. A massive eruption sounded out from just a few kilometers away, sending another wave of hot air crashing against him. He braced himself fast, and continued with his search. Fear would not deter him, either.

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

Tae'liade's expression contorted further as a blast of acrid, ardent wind scratched across her already raw face. She could hear the crashing above and she wondered if it was someone actually moving or just the dull blasts of the attack on her home. She couldn't tell the difference anymore, didn't want to stay awake to find out. If she tried hard enough, she could almost convince herself that the warm air was comforting.

Then, a familiar growl found its way into her ears and she was forced to make her senses more keen. A large piece of rubble was removed from her direct line of sight but her gray skin made her seem at one with the crumpled stone. Slender fingers twitched against the slab of rock they were resting against but try as she might, she could not gesture toward him.

"...Xand..." She whispered harshly but far too softly. There was no way he'd hear her. Then, a bit more forcefully. "Xand..."

Her chest spasmed and she erupted into a fit of gory coughs.

[Xand Zyarck]

Xand looked upon his sister, his knees buckling under the weight of his guilt. It had been his fault. It had all been his fault. "Tae'liade... please forgive me." he uttered, his words failing him. He wrapped his massive arms around a large metal beam that was weighing down on her, and lifted it with a roar, tossing it aside. "You need help..." he told her. He didn't know anything about medicine! Judging from what he was seeing though, she didn't look well. "Please stay with me." Picking her up carefully with arm, Xand grabbed onto the loading ramp of his ship, and pulled them both up and into the cabin.

Tae'liade was bleeding profusely, so Xand did the only thing he could think of, and tore apart shreds of his clothing to wrap around her wounds. His immense strength made the tourniquets extremely effective, but they would only stave off the inevitable. He had to get her to a medical center, or she was going to die.

He sealed the ship's entry hatch and piloted full speed across the ruined city, watching as death continued to rain down someplace off in the distance. The Empire was sweeping the planet. If Tae'liade died, he resolved that he would take his own life. She didn't deserve to go into the darkness alone. Not when his selfishness had sent her there.

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

------

Blood shot eyes wrenched open and were immediately flooded by the chemical complex that could only be bacta. Tae'liade's jaw clenched slightly and gingerly, she reached forward and pressed her right hand against the clear glass making up the large tank. On the other side, a single medical droid observed her in return, clicking away at a console she couldn't quite make out.

She remembered so little but she knew she had been near death. How long had she been kept in this confining space? Where was her brother?

A series of bubbles escaped the oxygen mask and she thrashed an arm forward violently. The medical unit's eyes flashed in a unpleasing imitation of surprise and she became aware of the whirling lights above her head. Clawed hands, that had taken on a blue hue to match the ambori solution, tore at the mask strapped to her face.

[Xand Zyarck]

Xand had been sleeping when Tae'liade awoke inside of the bacta chamber. His tired eyes opened lazily, and the sound of air bubbles climbing through bacta draw his attention. He glanced to over, and caught a glimpse of Tae'liade's feet as they kicked up and out of the fluid filled chamber. She was alive! He jumped to his feet, dashing up a small flight of stairs, to the platform where his sister lay coughing and dripping with bacta. Her naked body was drenched, slick and bruised... and to him, was more beautiful to behold than ever he could remember. For days he had watched, and slept, and watched. All the while, he had maintained a resolute hold on one of his curved blades.

If she died, he wanted to be ready to die, too. Of the six medical droids that had originally maintained the facility, only two now remained. The others had failed him, and in turn had been destroyed. The three that now oversaw the facility had wisely remained silent in his presence - or at least it seemed that way to Xand. He had no idea that those particular droids simply happened to be incapable of auditory communication.

Without wasting another moment, Xand barreled down onto Tae'liade and wrapped his scaly, green arms around her. "Tae..." he said, unable to say communicate what he felt. "I'm sorry."

[Tae'liade Zyarck]

Bi-colored eyes darted about the flickering complex in complete horror and confusion, desperately attempting to focus into a solitary line of vision. Bold text scaled her mind and vivid lines pumped out vital signs that raced up and then began to plummet downward. Tae'liade's body quaked against her brother's strong frame and his arms secured her to him even tighter.

She took comfort in that even though she found it difficult to breathe. Perhaps she should have left the mask on for her chest burned with each labored breath she choked in. Her bewildered gaze shifted again, swiftly to her discomfort, and locked on the medical droid who was approaching their position.

GH-11 Medical Analysis Unit. Registry number: 009751. Property of the Falleen Medical Facility. Active Patient listing, 1: Tae'liade Zyarck. Formerly in critical conditions. Optic replacement surgery, muscle fiber reconstruction, bacta submersion.

The words raced before her vision.
"Stop it!" She hissed, shoving her face in the crook of Xand's neck. Sharp teeth grazed the flesh there and one of her arms weakly draped across his shoulder for support.

"Make it go away... I just... want you to stay..."