The Age-Old Dance

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

His time aboard the Dauntless had been spent largely in isolation, as she'd wished him to acquaint himself not only with the repaired prosthetics that the Alliance had so graciously allowed him, but with the countless tomes and books of their people. He'd been given his own quarters, quiet, with little to distract him from his concentrations. Again, it had been what she'd wished. Many times she'd come to spend time with him, answering whatever questions he may have had. Talk never strayed beyond that of discussing their people however, as she felt it best to set her own self to the wayside.

And now, stepping into the sparse rooms that belonged to Vega Van-Derveld, Loklorien s'Ilancy silently closed the door behind her. She stood quietly, eyes half-closed as she pulled in that intoxicating Van-Derveld scent; to smell one of her own! She drew upon the Force like some ravenous, undeniable entity that yearned for more, pulling every feeling she could of him toward herself.

Letting out a long breath, the Lupine gave a quiet order to activate the soft illuminating lights throughout. In the here and now, it was only her and Vega.

She blinked slowly, and smiled.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

He did not need light to see her, sense her, smell her, yet as the room gained some illumination, Van-Derveld's gaze – a thousand-yard stare, eyes pale and sunken – was firmly focused upon Loklorien s'Ilancy. Just as she had left him, he had been knelt in the darkness, palms resting on his thighs and bloodless lips parted, so that every ragged breath could be heard, catching in his throat and rattling in his lungs. Now, he inhaled deeply, with a long gasp born either from awe or effort but when he spoke, his voice was hollowed by mechanical voice-box buried in his throat.


“Blood of mine...”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

s'Il afforded him a respectful bow. If she was in any way disturbed by the unnatural sound of his synthesized voice, the Lupine gave no indication. Instead, she stood in the entryway, her gaze locked with Vega's own. She took in his kneeling form, his pale countenance and haunting eyes.

It was apparent that the Lupine was satisfied with what she saw.

She stepped further into the room, her booted feet falling silent on the floor as she closed the distance between herself and Van-Derveld. Slowly, she knelt before him, and a stillness descended upon the two Losstarot.

With little ceremony, s'Il reached out a gentle hand to caress the side of his face, feeling every facet of his features.

"Noble Cousin; you look so much more healthy than when I first laid eyes on you."

His greeting had warmed her heart.

"How do you feel?"

[Vega Van-Derveld]

Healthy... it might not have been a word easily applied to Van-Derveld, yet there was no denying he had improved since the time of his arrival on-board the Dauntless. Broken limbs had been mended or replaced entirely with new, cybernetic implants whose joints felt powerful and strong under his command.

“I am reborn,” he said at last.

Her hand against his cheek was warm, but it was the sensation of a deeper connection within the Force that had stalled his reply.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Pulling her hand away to rest in her lap, s'Il watched him with a keen amount of interest. His very posture and the way he now held himself lent truth to the words he'd spoken, and satisfied with what she saw before her, s'Il gave a nod.

"So you appear to be."

She brought in a long breath, exhaling before going on.

"But it is your awareness, your sense of self that I am most concerned of."

The Lupine pulled an open book towards her, flipping it closed in the process. She let her eyes linger on the leather covering for a few short moments. Her eye shifted back to him in a sidelong gaze as she sent her own thoughts outward to pierce into his, to burrow their way through his mind.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

He watched as she withdrew the book, closing it and effectively putting an end to his meditations for the time being. In consideration of the question posed, Van-Derveld's brow furrowed.

“I am aware.. of my potential, cousin,” he ventured, though it was clear that even as he answered some part of him was casting about in search of the deeper root of her curiosity.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Then it would be fitting to realize your potential, I would think."

There was a brief tick at the corner of her mouth, as if a smile fought to break through the calm exterior she wore. Rocking back, the Lupine rose to her feet, holding a hand out to him.

"Or at least, we can begin to do so."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

The hand was clasped and Van-Derveld pulled to his feet. In weeks past, he might have stumbled, but his footing seemed sure now. There was no cause to mourn the limbs he had lost, not now that he had begun to master the new flesh and bone given to him. It was made of harder stuff than bone and gauze-thin skin. With his spine straight, he stood taller than her, a hint of aggression in his posture, the way he bent towards her, eyes boring into hers.

“Show me.”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

There was not even a hint of intimidation as she stared up at him, and despite his taller stature s'Il remained as though a sold fixture; a statue anchored securely to the thin-carpeted deck beneath her boots.

The smile that had previously fought its' way out finally appeared, lips drawing back thinly over her teeth. It was a goading smile, as she wished to see the lengths of his patience and how short the leash was that he kept upon his temper.

Her voice was low, almost a whisper.

"Show yourself."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

The flesh of his left cheek twitched with an involuntary tick that might well have been a maggot writhing beneath his skin. To ask such a man to show himself was asking a lot, when his sense of self had been almost entirely eradicated. The young man who had enrolled into the Corulag Imperial Military Academy had been picked down to the bone by the Dark Side, his very limbs literally taken from him in his quest for... what? Power, of course. That was why he was with s'Ilancy, because she had it and he wanted it, and indeed because he had something that she wanted. The energies of the Dark Side writhed around him, untamed and unrefined, like a nest of vipers.

“How?”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

The Dark Side that enveloped him was of such an entirely different taste than what she had become so used to with Dan. Where her own master possessed an infinite, pressing malignancy held with precise control, Vega seemed the polar opposite. His rage was plain to see, the hate in his eyes a tangible thing. s'Il supposed that if she could've heard his real voice, it would contain amounts of vitriol and hissing poison to such levels! It was a curious thought none-the-less.

The sight of the man before her was tinged with such roiling evil that for the briefest of moments the elder Lupine mused that perhaps - just perhaps - her next action would be unwise.

Yet, it had to be done.

Shifting so that she only partially faced him, s'Il straightened her shoulders, her head angling to afford him a deadened white-eyed stare.

"Hit me."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

The Imperial academy of Corulag did not breed men who questioned orders, and although he had long since graduated from it's ranks, some part of Vega still clung to those old lessons, and to the ruthless efficiency with which the military operated. Without hesitation, he threw the punch – his fist striking upwards, at s'Il's up-tilted jaw, with all the power and mechanical precision of a piston.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

He obeyed without a word of protest, and with satisfaction the Lupine angled her head ever so slightly to the left as his fist missed by scant millimeters. Overjoyed, s'Il reached up with honed reflexes to grab his outstretch wrist with her right hand. She held it in a steel grip, her nostrils flaring with his scent, and lanced out with the knife-edge of her left hand on a path that would take it into his ribcage.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

A rational mind might have tried to dodge, to writhe away from her grip – but Van-Derveld was different. Instead he threw himself into it, and her. The pain was like fuel to his fire. The dead-weight of his body crashed against her smaller frame as, without any of the art or martial finesse that Loklorien herself possessed, her pupil tried to wrestle her down to the ground, his teeth bared in a mask of zeal that he seemed to relish.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Her legs wide to afford her a firmer base, the elder Lupine held her ground as the two grappled. Her small stature belied the true strength that she possessed, and s'Il stood firm as he pressed in close. Their bodies pushed against each other, each unrelenting - hers unwilling to be pushed down and his unwilling to be denied. It was the age-old dance that came so naturally to the Lupine race, neither relenting.

Her feet shifted then, and s'Il pivoted to the side, her grip on him tightening as she used his own body against him to send him to the ground. His hold was tenacious however, and she fell to one knee even as she twisted her hold on his wrist.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

He hit the floor with a grunt, the burst of pain spreading across his shoulder-blades washing a momentary look of lurid rapture across his face. It had been a long time since he'd known a challenge like this, since he'd felt resistance that he couldn't smother within a matter of minutes, and it was absolutely intoxicating. His spine arched upwards, his head soon following with teeth still bared, ready to tear his teacher's throat out.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Such a feral beauty that was now displayed before her!

With an inhuman growl in the back of her throat, she met him half way, eagerly drinking in his rage. She fed on it, a gleam of pure ecstasy in her eye, and her free hand went up to cup his open jaw with an iron grip. With their faces inches apart, she bared her own teeth in response to him.

With her hold on his wrist, she brought it out and around so that he could wrap an arm around her, further facilitated by her slight shift forward, once more bringing their bodies into contact. Her eye scoured his face.

"More," she urged.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

She was just inches away and he could smell her – not just the fetid stink of humanity, but the potent scent of them, what she was, what he was! His heart slammed against his chest, fire burning all around it and through his blood, pulse pounding like war-drums. He felt the flow of the Dark Side moving with it, within it, giving him the strength to press further towards her. In all the years since his defection, he had never felt more alive than in that instant, something deep-seated and primal waking inside of him, spreading heat to heavy, bloodless limbs.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Yes!

She could feel it stir in his soul, wake from the slumber. More than the Dark he existed in; more than the malignancy he practiced with glee, it was his birthright and primal being, the waking Lupine that she desired.

Her eyes closed as she tasted of his newly emerging awareness, arching her back in his hold. In the next moment she whipped forward, teeth sinking into his exposed trapezius.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

His lips shaped a wordless cry, whose sound died before it could be formed. The instant of stillness was all too brief and within seconds his teeth were buried into her as hers were into him, his ragged nails digging half-moons into her shoulder-blades in an utterly savage embrace. There had always been a fierce longing in him to know this woman – to know everything that she knew – but never before he had felt it as such a powerful need to devour her, to make their two bodies into one. He felt it rising behind his eyes, a molten river that was so close to flooding.

[Darth Acera]

The inhuman growl that erupted from her throat, traveling past her teeth and his flesh, filled the air around the two Lupines. She savored his budding inner self, more than the blood she tasted, and in return she allowed him to delve deeper into her own being. She gave freely; all that was good in her, and all that was the worst. She was Darth Acera. She was the Apex Lupine of them all. She was the new mother of their race. The blood that he now tasted of for a second time was filled with her strength, her resolve, and her deepest desires.

The change was slow to creep upon her as she controlled its' pace. Her teeth in his shoulder ponderously grew to sharp points as her body in his embrace seemed to shift; to press closer to his body. She bore down on him, muscle and tendon moving beneath skin, and her features slowly became more severe; tawny yellow tendrils crept into the normal blue hues of her eye.

Another growl as the change continued in his arms, and Acera let another growl pierce the air.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

There was a sinister majesty to the way she began to shift from one form into another. It was as if a mask was being drawn away, lifted from her face with a steady hand.

When it began in him, however, it was an entirely different beast. His chest thrust forward, body convulsing as if struck behind. It felt as if someone had reached into the tail of his spine and thrust a length of barbed wire into the cord itself, and now each cruel hook was clawing its way towards the base of his skull. Other, ill-fitting things pushed into his joints and bones – but in those places where he was more machine than man, there could be no change.

Wiry muscles strained against fabric, crawling with veins that throbbed and squirmed beneath the skin like furious centipedes. His face elongated, not into a smooth muzzle but a misshapen maw of teeth that looked as if they had and the face they sat in had been worked over with a lead pipe, his ears showing the only sharpness in his features. The faded blue of his eyes became piss-weak yellow, whilst faded grey fur sprouted in ragged tufts and patches across his exposed flesh.

This twisted slab of flesh sat atop his two mechanical legs, bony knuckles grazing the ground as his chest heaved with ragged breaths.

[Darth Acera]

The shock white vornskr stoo tall, her eyes cast upon the monstrosity that was Vega Van-Derveld. He was truly a beast, a veritable crime against all living things in such a form. Not entirely man and not entirely beast, he stood like some Weit-Fällt bred demon.

The contrast between the two Lupines was amazing, yet the same blood coursed through their veins, and Acera shifted her stance, massive paws scratching along the thinly-carpeted deck as she moved in close to Vega.

She could feel him, smell his essence, and with a muted whurffle the elder Lupine ran her nose up the length of one 'arm' and across his shoulder to the underside of his jawline.

She inspected every facet of his hideous features, taking exquisite delight in his awakening.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

One eye wider than the other, Van-Derveld peered back at what he might once have been. If his current state was a reflection of Lokorien s'Ilancy, then it was made in a broken mirror. Here and there he even bled, the violence of the transformation having torn what was already near-necrotic flesh. Yet although his body had become a think of gruesome malformity, his mind had gained a magnificent clarity, as if the change had suddenly lifted a veil from his eyes and slipped shackles from his wrists. His monstrous hunger uncoiled in the breast of the beast he had become, stretching its jaws with relish, at home at last.

[Darth Acera]

Holding her head high, the elder Lupine backed away to take him in in his entirety. She gave a gruesome, tooth-filled 'grin' at the sight.

But, he was still so far from coming full circle; his knowledge of his own House being a rather dismal affair. But, she would rectify that with ease. However, the time for that could be postponed, as now his reawakening - his first Change - it was a momentous affair.

And with the first Change came the Branding.

Each House Brand was bestowed upon a child following their initial transformation, as it marked their coming into the Bloodline fully, with both forms being manifest at last.

A whurffle, and the great white vornskr slowly began to revert.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Hours later...


They had shared in the moment of his first Change. His first step into truly becoming what he was meant to be... what he had always been. Her hungers had been his, and his had been hers. It was a cyclical existence between the two that transcended anything physical, and for as much as she had reveled in their bonding, she knew that he too had pulled deeply from a well that he'd never known existed. Within himself, within her, within the blood that they shared. She had given so freely, allowing him to absorb all that he wished; to drink from an overflowing cup of ageless memories and sensations.

But now was the time for him to stand ready, to be given the mark that he would carry with him for the rest of his life - the mark that would forever identify him as a being apart from all else. A mark of nobility and prestige.

He had knelt before her, facing away with his shirt removed. White flesh, in some places marred and pocked with old wounds, was bared before her as she stood over him. In one hand she held the iron - a simple piece of silver shaped in the familiar intersecting crescents. The handle was wrapped with yataga hide, and was the only part of the iron that the elder Lupine would ever touch. She had once been the center of this ritual herself, but Lupine flesh was only touched once with the flat of the iron. Only once.

Her shoulders squared back. She gave the back of his head a malevolent grin. Her free hand went out then to grasp at the side of his neck, and she let the silver devil hover over the skin between his shoulderblades.

"This will sting, Cousin," she hissed.

Silver touched flesh...

[Vega Van-Derveld]

In the instant of contact, white fire burned behind his eyes. The past reached into and through him, pulling him back into himself, to a place before the pain. He saw himself as a young man, with shoulders-squared and head held high, receiving for the first time the insignia of the Imperial Army. The pips of a private were pinned to his chest, thumbed hard into place by his commanding officer. Like the rest of their dress uniform, it had been left behind when battle called. Then, they were supposed to be as one, without markers to tell them apart – and in truth that was what they had become, the squadron falling man by man, succumbing first to the pitiless cold of Hoth and then to the hunger, until there was only Vega and a heap of what could surely, surely not, have been human remains.

In his minds eye he blinked, and he was there again, in the present, feeling the puckering of his skin around the brand. It pressed into him as if he were molten, as if he were raw clay, so easily made pliable in the right hands. Vega sagged forward, the pain across his shoulders too much to sustain. He could taste his own burning flesh on the air.

“Enough.”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

She heard his voice; heard it and let it hang in the air. For a several seconds more she pressed the silver crescents into his skin, unheeding of the word he'd spoken.

She let him languish beneath the cruel inevitability of their weakness, touched by its' unforgiving nature.

And then she pulled away, releasing him to stand back, the branding iron still in hand and held to the side. Wisps of acrid smoke lazily drifted from its' branding surface and the silver calmed itself after contact with Lupine flesh.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

The pain lingered. That was even there at all was miraculous. It was clear for anyone to see that his body – at least, what was left of it – was in a state of collapse, of rapid decay. The smell of his burnt flesh was putrid, as if he were a rotten fruit whose skin had finally burst. Half-turning his head, he looked to her out of the corner of his eye, a lazy sneer on his lips.

“What now?”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

His expression was only met with a raised eyebrow, and s'Il moved to one of the few tables along the far wall. A small wooden box rested upon it, the lid open. Intricately carved and obviously old, it was accented on each edge in gold - which was just as painstakingly etched as the rest of the box. Even the locking clasp was fashioned in gold, bearing the same markings. It held in its' shallow depths silk and linen, currently unfolded and waiting to receive the branding iron once more - to hold it until the next time it would be used.

"Now," her voice was quiet in the aftermath of the branding, and she reverently set the iron on its bed of silk and linen, folding the outer edges over to cover it.

"... now you look upon the steps that you've taken down your path of discovery."

The lid was closed, and the clasp gave a small clack as she locked it. She kept her gaze on the box, eyes half-closed. The stench of his burning flesh was still heavy in the air, and the Elder Lupine gave a slight frown at the scent. His was a body already dying, but if she could bring back his inner self from the brink of the abyss, then perhaps his physical form would follow. He was a Van-Derveld. It was a name of power, and she chose to look beyond the madness associated with his House. His family had been strong once; proud, unstoppable, unrelenting.

"But that is not all," she finally stepped away from the box to walk toward his kneeling form.

She held a hand out to him.

"You must restore the strength and power that once belonged to your House."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

He allowed her to pull him upwards, his bionic joints sounding a mechanic whine as he straightened to his full height. The influence of House Van-Derveld was well known amongst the blue-blooded circles of the Imperial aristocracy – at least, it had been until both heirs to the family had betrayed the Empire – but power and strength... those were not words Vega had ever linked with his ancestors. Breath wheezed through his vocal-box with a pressurised intake and release that brought to mind the ghastly Lord Vader.

“My family taught us nothing of what became before them. Did they know?”

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"That I could not tell you. If they made no mention of it, then it is very possible that they themselves did not know."

She moved to one of the few utilitarian chairs that dotted the already sparsely furnished landscape of his quarters.

"What I know of House Van-Derveld is from before the Great Migration. Not after."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

Another of the chairs groaned as he dropped like a dead weight into it. Pain spread from the branding as if silver had been pressed against it once again. His head lolled backwards, surly, as he stared across the empty room at her.

“Tell me about this Great Migration.”