Original Sin II

[Master s'Ilancy]

So many years from now...


The Dark was all that she could focus upon. It invaded all around her, and thrust itself against her defenses like an unrelenting drumbeat that continued on into perpetuity. It hammered and railed, it thrashed and wailed. Such ferocity, such malign determination. It was a tangible evil that twisted the air about her, and inwardly she recoiled. Still, like thick roiling smoke it laid siege to her mind.

As Loklorien s'Ilancy, now a master of the ever-tenacious Jedi Order, struggled back up from the recesses of her subconscious, her memory of the last twelve hours eluded her recollection. She could remember the shuttle that'd been ferrying her to Dac, and the background chatter of the pilot and his comrade, but beyond that there was precious little her memory could call upon. Had they been pulled from hyperspace? They must have been. Her current state certainly did not alleviate any fears of some sort of ambush, and the elder Lupine felt the first pangs of frantic mental catch-up coming on.

She'd been restrained, that much she could make sense of.

The stench of the Dark was like a distant thing of the past, calling to her to look upon it, and dimly she roused herself further. Lifting her head slowly, she slowly opened her eyes.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Though consciousness had returned to the Jedi, the encroaching shadows that surrounded her did not retreat; quite the opposite, in fact. In the gloom, some thing moved, slow and serpentine.

A familiar, hollow voice scraped away the silence.

“Master... s'Ilancy.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

She knew that voice, that timbre, that tone. It caused an involuntary twitch at her lips which she very swiftly quelled. The Lupine would not allow herself to fall back to the old ways.

Her head seemed so heavy, and she blinked. It was a conscious effort that was made all the more laborious by the fact that the Dark encroached further upon her awareness.

"Cousin... "

It was all she could manage, her voice barely a whisper as his presence pushed against her mind. It was unforgiving, and though stalwart to the last, s'Il was determined to allow him no satisfaction. No inward joy at seeing her as she was now.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Whatever she desired, whatever satisfaction she hoped to deny him, it did not keep the smile from twisting into Vega's pallid lips. With the venerable Loklorien s'Ilancy in shackles, why shouldn't he smile? He'd ordered her wrists be bound, knowing full well that she had it within her to break free whatever chains he threw upon her – yet here she hung. Strung up like a marionette. His presence like a pall, smothering whatever strength was left in her.

“Ahh,” Vega breathed, a metallic whine at the edge of his voice. “You do remember. We have been apart for so long that I worried you had forgotten me.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

"We could be apart for the rest of our lives and it would still never be enough," she breathed out.

Her bindings were laughable, yet she knew full well that Vega was well aware. Was he so desiring her to push back against him? Against his encroaching Darkness? She had known the taste of his energies so well. He had been a source of raw power and bottomless hate, and she had fed eagerly upon his determination. And for one terrible night, they had been so joined that one would be unable to pry the two from one another.

Her eye locked with his own, and ever so briefly she let the old hate bleed into her voice.

"Abomination," she hissed.

"I've nothing to give you."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“I am only what you made me, master.”

If he was an aberration, it was because she had made him so. Near enough now to reach out and touch her, Vega caught her jaw between thumb and forefinger, turning her face up to look upon him: the wretched visage of Executor Van-Derveld. Her pet. Flesh the colour of sour milk held together by taut leather, he was a shadow of the beast he had once been, and yet... he was more. The creature she had kept at heel for so long, had been let loose upon the galaxy - to the ruin of them all.

He smiled, thin lips stretching back over jagged, yellowed teeth.

“You need not give me freely what I have the power to take regardless, a'kha'ri.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

Those old urges welled up for the barest of moments, yet her self-control was - if nothing else - admirable. She grimaced in his two-fingered hold, but gave nothing beyond that. If he wished to sate his desires in her pain, then so be it. He'd not be allowed the satisfaction of her own enjoyment in their reunion.

Instead, she fell back upon the conventions of their shared people. Jedi and Sith were nothing but names now.

"You've no right to use that word," she croaked.

Despite her tone, her eyes were sharpening and her body collecting itself. Her voice would follow in time. For now, she would have to wait.

"The Order will not stand for this... "

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“I have the only right,” he cut in before she could continue, his grip on her tightening convulsively, the curl of his lips now more snarl than smile.

He lurched away from her, turned his back on her even, such was his arrogance. One arm tucked behind his back, the other at his side, his fingertips twitching. As more and more of his flesh had been rendered metal, Van-Derveld had lost the capacity to be truly still. Always, some part of him shuddered and writhed, as if the wires and circuits that had replaced his sinews and veins were constantly pulsing with restless energy.

“The Order... will not stand at all.”

His head rolling backwards with a groan of creaking metal, Vega closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the Dark Side, tasting cold metallic air laced with the taste of his master's impotent anger. Soon, her eyes would begin to adjust to the darkness, but for now it satisfied him to know that he was all that she could see.

“Do you remember what you called me once... your messenger of death?”

[Master s'Ilancy]

She stared at his back, at the motion of his body caused by the act of breathing. It was a sight that was wrong somehow; as if watching him in this involuntary task of pulling in life-preserving air was a sin in and of itself. Her eye moved to his shoulder, then downward along the length of his arm to stop at his fingertips. She watched them fidget, never motionless it seemed. It made her already-present grimace only deepen. There had never been any road for Vega Van-Derveld to travel other than the twisted and broken path. It had given him his first breath of life before breaking him so many times, and then countless times rebuilding his crushed body over and over again.

Staring at his twitching fingers, she did not answer immediately. Instead she waited, curious as to how long his patience would stand for. Once more her gaze traveled upwards, coming to rest finally on the back of his head. She inhaled slowly, held it, then let it out through her nose.

Finally she spoke, her voice even and level, yet low.

"I remember many things, Vega."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“Good. That is why I have brought you here. To remember.”

Both arms folded behind his back now, the Executor began to pace a slow circle around the kneeling form of his former master. A dull thud and the whirr of machinery punctuated each step until he was behind her, where he paused.

“Let us.. remember together, Loklorien,” he said, his synthetic voice somehow enunciating each syllable with slow scorn as he stepped closer.

He slid cold, dead fingertips up the back of her neck and into her hair in some mockery of tenderness – before wrenching her head backward, baring her throat to him. For all her Jedi self-control, he could see the pulse of her jugular; the sight of it drew a sigh from his horrid lips.

“Every.” He pressed his nose against her neck and inhaled a long, rasping breath. “Exquisite.. detail.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

His action caused the barest of exhalations to escape her lips, and s'Il screwed her eyes shut as she felt his flesh upon hers. Even through their years removed, she could remember the feel of his skin; she could recall it with such clarity. On instinct she stiffened, her body tensing as he was hunched over her, his fingers wound cruelly into the strands of her hair and his face against her neck.

"You would be a disgrace to your House," she ground out through clenched teeth, "... if your House itself was already not as such."

She would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her beg for him to stop, of hearing her plead and grovel. No. She would do no such thing.

Her wrists twisted in the binders holding them together; did he expect for her to discard them? It could've been done so easily the moment she laid her eye upon him, and yet there was something so primal, so deep to the core of her inner being that whispered words to stay her hands. And she had. Now was not the time for such a thing.

And when her eyes snapped open to stare at the ceiling of her prison, the crystalline blue of her eye had been overtaken by tawny yellow; that telltale herald of the beast within.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

At her judgement of his house, Van-Derveld simply smiled. He had not known what he was until she had turned his eyes to the truth, a truth which - whether she realised it or not - had become the catalyst for everything Vega had done ever since.

“I am your creation. Now, as before. You criticise your own work.”

He ran his tongue up along the line of her jugular, teeth dragging against her skin and his breath hot against her neck in spite of his inhuman state. She stiffened under his touch and he grinned, remembering how it had felt once, long ago, when her body arched against and with his, the two of them briefly one in monstrous union.

“You have it within you to slip your bonds, and yet... you do not. Why?”

[Master s'Ilancy]

Her clenched jaw seemed to tremble ever so slightly, her lips peeling back to barely expose her teeth. Her eye remained locked upwards, unwilling to roll about for some sight of him. His grip was unrelenting and constant, fingers tangled with her hair like unforgiving tendrils of hate that threatened to engulf her. She swallowed.


His tongue, his breath, his teeth - they pulled her down that long corridor of her mind and memories, dragging her unwilling into the depths of that night. The night that both had destroyed and rebuilt one another; had allowed their blood to dictate the chaos of their joining.

"It is what you would want," she finally answered, her voice a strained whisper laced with almost imperceptible undertones of denial.

"And what you want, I will not allow..."

And though unspoken, the one-word end of her statement hung in the air between the two.

... A'kha'ru.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“So... proud.”

With a yank of her hair, he shoved her, sprawling face first against the floor. Metal groaned against metal as Van-Derveld planted a foot on either side of her prone body, crouching low against her like some carrion crow preparing to strip the flesh from her bones. He clutched the back of her head and ground her face into the floor beneath it, while the ragged claws of his free hand tore into the collar of her robes and raked downward, laying bare her upper back and revealing, among a litany of scars, the crescent-moon brand between her shoulder-blades.

“The last, pure apex of your line.. but not for much longer.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

Stars exploded in her field of vision, and s'Il cried out in unexpected pain. And yet, still she did not make any move to free her hands. Held down like some small creature, the Lupine reeled in his sudden assault even as he tore at her robes. She hissed out a breath into the cold durasteel floor, the muscles of her back bunching in expectancy as she felt fingertips brush along her brand. The sensation coupled with his words were enough to stir her, and she bucked against his hold, straining to arch away from him despite the steel in his grasp.

"You wouldn't dare," her voice held a touch of the old vitriol, bourne of the monster she always kept in such careful check within, and tendons and ligaments pulsed beneath her skin as if threatening the Change.

"Damn you to Weit-Fällt..."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“How could I not, when our blood demands it?”

He felt the ripple beneath her flesh, the creature caged within her fast becoming frantic, and what remained of the beast inside Vega responded in kind. Eyes the colour of hoarfrost were suddenly flecked with gold, but he did not give himself fully over to the Change. Not yet. For an instant he went rigid - a strangled gasp caught in his throat as the beast, trying to claw its way out of him whatever the cost, warred with what remained of his self-control. A second later, hoarse laughter wheezed over his thin lips as he sagged against s'Ilancy.

“Our people.. our children.. can spread across the stars unfettered by.. petty empires and republics.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

"Your blood is nothing but poison. We are not the same, you and I."

His body atop her was enough to drive her further into the decking, and she ground her teeth in stolid determination. His leathers against the bare skin of her back were a stark reminder of her predicament, and the Lupine closed her eyes tightly. His body was like an ever-lowering weight that threatened to crush the breath from her lungs, and she let out a gasp, her chest beginning to ache with the pressure being placed upon it. One labor-intensive breath after the other, and s'Il balled her hands into fists, still choosing to let them remain bound. She knew what he wanted; he wanted her to rage against him, to tear at him as he tore at her. He wanted her hands at his throat even as his were pressed into hers, unrelenting as the revolving planets around their suns. Unforgiving and unwilling to be anything short of victorious. Like two galeforce storms meeting.

His breath against her was enough to cause the barest of shudders, and the elder Lupine flexed beneath him.

"You've become mad like your ancestors," she whispered, a venomous sound that hearkened back to those old days.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

By slow degrees Van-Derveld found his way to his feet, at times freezing for an instant, clutching a shaking hand to his chest as he felt the last frayed edges of his humanity wearing away. It was too soon. Far too soon. He'd wanted to savor this moment longer, their ill-fated reunion - but then, there would be plenty of time to drink in her indignation. They were a long lived species, after all, and there was no one coming to rescue Jedi Master s'Ilancy this time. Not even her decrepit master.

At last upright, he snatched a fistful of blonde hair hauled s'Il up with him before propelling her forward, stumbling into the wall of her cell. He stalked after her and smacked a hand onto her shoulder, turning and pinning her back against the wall.

Face to face with him now, she could see the sallow, raw-boned contours of his face already beginning to contort with the Change.

[Master s'Ilancy]

Her collision with the wall had been jarring, and the Lupine leaned against it for the fraction of a second allowed before Vega's hand turned her to face him. There was pain etched into her features, yet it was a controlled pain that hid well what she held inside. A trickle of blood had run from her bottom lip down her chin, the byproduct of his unceremonious action of driving her into the floor. Through slitted eyes she stared at him, took in the barely held human form he fought to maintain. It caused a thin smile to work its' way to her lips.

"Look at you," she got out, a half-chuckle weaving through her voice as she spoke, "... even your body does not obey you... "

Through his slipping control, she could see his intentions played out in his eyes; see his body hunger for release. And while a flicker of fear sparked in the pit of her stomach, the elder Lupine was loathe to let it show. Instead, she angled her head up and leaned forward ever-so-slightly so that their faces were mere centimeters apart. She could smell his desperation. In the old days it would've intoxicated her, driven her to commit such terrible acts against him that he would've returned in kind. Now however, she ignored the calls of the animal nestled inside. She bared her teeth in a grotesque, bloody smile.

"You've already lost, Vega."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

The less of his flesh was his own, the harder it had become to maintain his humanity, or at least the illusion of it. Yet, for Van-Derveld that was not a curse, but a blessing.

“How can giving in to what we are be considered defeat?”

He understand the truth of it now: that the human skins they wore were not their true form, and every minute they spent in this inferior skin was a minute in denial.

There was a shing of a blade being unsheathed. He crushed his lips to hers, tasting the blood on her teeth, and slammed a silver dagger into her shoulder.

[Master s'Ilancy]

There was a moment, so brief, as their lips came together. It was a moment that transported her all those many years in the past to that singular night. When his scent and taste were so desired, and taken for her own. It was a night that held such sensations that even she could never truly bury them all. His taste - so much the same. His scent permeated the air around her and swallowed her, devouring any sense of self that she still clung to. It was in that moment that she recoiled in desperation, only to be held fast in his forced embrace.

And then...

White exploded behind her eyes as the knife's blade passed easily through skin and on into muscle. And a split second after that, the burning began. It charred everything it touched from the inside out, and tearing her lips from his the Lupine threw her head back, letting loose a feral cry that echoed all around them. She wrenched her body to the side, thrashing in his hold. It was a vain attempt that gave no relief, and as she felt the blade twisted, the burning spread all throughout and fired down raw and taxed nerves. s'Il arched into him then, the shock of this assault causing her to press against his body in the hopes that she could somehow pass through him.

Another twist of the knife elicited yet another scream, and mere seconds later the sound of the binders hitting the deck sounded small and distant. One arm came up then, her hand rising to rest upon the side of his head to feebly push him back.

It was a useless effort.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

With each malicious twist of the blade, her body shuddered against his. Like a marionette, she would twist and writhe at the slightest turn of the hilt. He knew her pain. He felt it as keenly now as he had done the day she had branded him. To their kind, there was no greater agony. She recoiled from it, but Vega gave himself to it, letting her pain rush into him as if it were his own. He fed on it, the Dark Side searing through his dead flesh and creating the illusion of true sensation in a body that had long since become lifeless.

“Your body betrays you, master Jedi.”

As she threw her head back, letting loose another howl that reverberated through him like a clarion call, Van-Derveld buried his face into the hollow of her throat. Nostrils flared, jaws wide and jagged teeth a breath away from tearing at her throat.

[Master s'Ilancy]

The acrid stink of burning flesh and muscle filled the air around; her flesh. She could feel the acidic sting that fired inward and outward, pounded through her body like a pulsating storm of agony from which there was no relief. No respite. Nothing. No part of her was safe from this simple onslaught, and the Lupine twisted in his hold, her arm moving to hook itself over his shoulder even as her legs sagged and knees buckled. Held up now only by him, s'Il let her cry shift into an agonized whimper, felt his breath on her neck and the teeth that were so close...

Her body twitched then, a series of minute jerks that were the reaction to the continued pain that coursed through her. The muscles of her neck corded, as if the Change was an involuntary thing that demanded satisfaction; demanded the shift. And still, with his jaws at her throat, she quieted the roiling, protesting mass beneath her skin. Her mind, maddened in the torment of his Darkness, screamed to be cut free; to be unfettered and unchained.

Fingers curled inwards, raking over his leathered back, and the Lupine let her head fall forward, denying his tongue the inevitable blood that his teeth would've brought forth.

Now her head was against his, her cheek upon his, her eyes screwed tightly shut as quivering lips whispered an anguished plea.

"Please..."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

From a narrow angle, an observer could have fooled themselves into thinking that she clung to him out of choice. That her embrace was tender and not the product of pain that had near enough robbed s'Ilancy of the ability to think, let alone stand.

This was a side to his master that Vega had not glimpsed before: weak, powerless, a whimpering wretch, begging for release. His to break. Her tattered robes had fallen from her shoulders, leaving her all but naked from the waist up. With one hand holding the dagger firmly in place, Van-Derveld pressed the other leather-clad palm against the base of her spine, clutching her tighter to him.

He turned his head a fraction, the corner of his mouth brushing against her lips.

“Louder.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

Her body gave the answer that her voice could not, though it was a terrible shuddering gasp that sounded, like a death knell rattling from her lungs to escape through trembling lips. The capacity to act beyond the feeble pleading she offered was even something beyond her abilities, so great was the pain his blade inflicted. Like a wound festering, the skin around the knife's hilt blackening from the inside out, like a disease threatening to overtake her body from within.

And yet, there was no recourse for her to take and the Lupine felt his hand at her back, crushing their bodies together in an embrace of agony that offered no end in sight. Her eye rolled upwards, and she leaned into him, feeling leather against bare skin. So many years ago she would've reveled in the feeling of such a thing; took so much pleasure in the act of giving and receiving the exquisite pain that he now showered upon her. She would've pushed herself against him in the only way that two of their kind could, trading equally and experiencing the full breadth of agony and ecstasy alike. They would have taken one another to such towering heights of emotion and pleasure...

The memory was quelled, smashed to a thousand pieces. Now only pain ruled her world, and despite the multitude of methods that most Jedi used for so terrible a feeling, this was something so wholly ingrained and singular to the two who now shared this moment. She could do nothing in his grasp, like some piece of gossamer wisp her body was beholden to his every whim and desire. His rotted stench overrode and overpowered her, his strength a force of its' own in the wake of the excruciating agony that his hands dealt her. Only one other had cast her into the inner pit of despair, and that one was long departed.

Her fingers spasmed, splaying out before convulsing and moving up to grip the back of his neck in desperation.

Lips parting once more to let out a pitiful groan, the elder Lupine found enough clarity to implore weakly of him.

"Please, no more... "

[Executor Van-Derveld]

She could barely speak, words half-formed swallowed by gasps. She groaned and murmured, incoherent sounds of suffering that might once have signaled pleasure.

Vega ripped the dagger free from her flesh. Her body wilted in his arms, echoes of pain still resonating through her as he sheathed the bloody blade.

“This.. is only the beginning.”

Red rivulets down her arm, but the silver-wrought wound did not concern Vega, not in the least. The smell of blood and sweat and the sound of her shallow breaths stirred up powerful memories of the past in the mad Lupine. It had been decades since they had joined flesh. There was no love between them, nor would there ever be. It had been a power play then, one creature asserting its will over the other, satisfying the most primitive of desires. She had toyed with him, simply because she could.

Now it was time for Vega to repay his master in kind.

[Master s'Ilancy]

The epicenter of her anguish had been pulled out, but the waves of stinging pain still washed over her as the wound continued to burn of its' own accord. Still she clung to him, and still he held her aloft like a rag doll. All of the Bloodlines could be cursed, and she wouldn't have cared. Schwartzweld could be reduced to a cloud of dust and she wouldn't have cared. In this moment, all that mattered was the minute relief offered by the removal of the silver blade. It was only a small relief, but relief it was.

Her head shifted so that her face was nestled into the crook of his neck, a hollow and empty comfort that held no warmth or kindness. For the briefest of moments she took comfort in his presence, if only for the fact that he was all that kept her from crashing to the floor. Each shallow breath brought her back from the brink of pain-filled madness, yet at the same time they took her once more into the harsh reality of her torturer.

Booted feet trying to find purchase, s'Il lifted her left arm; a painful attempt as the wound in her shoulder seemed to reignite with new fire. She fought the agony, raising a shaking hand to scrape along his midsection and up to his chest. She felt each breath of his in the rise and fall of his breast. Her fingers gave a spasm, and the Lupine felt her perilous footing slip away once more. She scrabbled valiantly to stand of her own accord, despite his unrelenting hold.

A memory flared to life, and she let it burn within her mind's eye.

"It is truly a shame," she spat out weakly, "... that you did not die on the Wheel."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

“A tragedy,” Van-Derveld said, smiling. “If only you'd had the conviction to kill me then, it would have spared you from all of this.”

Once, he would have looked back on that day (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?55317-The-Wretched) in shame, but there was no capacity in Vega for guilt any more. His heart - black and shrivelled as it was - knew only the purest emotions: fear, anger, hatred, passion. It was the latter two that festered in him as he regarded s'Ilancy's attempts to steady herself, both physically and mentally. He hated her and paradoxically, he wanted her for his own, wanted to make her his creature, his bride. His.. desire for her was not borne from any carnal longing, yet he did hunger for her.

The blue in his eyes all but consumed by the yellow of the Change, he shoved her back against the cell wall with ease, his strength fed by her suffering. One hand at her throat to hold the fallen Jedi in her place, the other tore away what was left of her robes.

[Master s'Ilancy]

One hand feebly at the wrist that held her up, s'Il gasped out a weak protest that barely passed out from between her lips. With eyes clenched shut, she lifted her free arm up to try and catch him, to stop him. Such a wasted effort. Her teeth set, her lips down-turned in a grimace that betrayed the effort she gave. Even with the still-radiating waves of pain that the silver dagger had begun, she fought. It was a toothless resistance, and the elder Lupine knew it. He knew it. And yet still she sought to halt his actions. She was an Apex! She was of the First House!

And at the same time she battled within, with the creature that howled and raged to be let free. To run wild and tear at the monster within Van-Derveld even as he tore at her. She felt his hunger, the longing that he held. And yet, it was nothing bourne of any desire for kinship or closeness; no. This was something so much more. It had been twisted and poisoned, unfulfilled for so many years. It was the desire for so much mastery, so much control. Vega Van-Derveld had been left to simmer in his hatred for so long. And yet the need she felt from him was itself a beast standing alone. Not through any perverse form of love or caring. Not through any need to ingratiate himself. No. This was something so gnarled and mangled that it had become unrecognizable. It had become something new and unique to only him.

It had become something that betrayed the fear of the Jedi within her.

One eye slitted open.

A yellow, tawny eye that betrayed the beast within her.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

There at last, the beast made itself known. In the same instant, Van-Derveld gave himself over to it and felt the first, breath-taking snap of the Change, the wet crunch of bones shifting and a body being remade anew, shedding the abhorrent human form it had come to inhabit. Inhuman strength surged through the Executor as he hitched the Jedi's legs up, around his waist, and with a snarl joined his flesh with hers. It would be as it had been all those years before: a grotesque melding of two bodies, an affront to nature. A battle for control that neither could win – that Van-Derveld did not want to win, knowing that winning would mean an end to it.

[Master s'Ilancy]

With a feral cry she answered him. It was agony, ecstasy, anguish, and relief all in the same breath. She gave him all that he desired and more; all that he wished for and beyond. Her pleasure was a thing that required so much; so much that only one of her kind could offer. So Much.

The beast within and the woman above warred with one another. They battled for supremacy of her mind and body. All that she was now; she knew that she could not take any amount of joy in the unexpected pain and wildness that was their violent and sudden meeting. Such a feeling to dash her already ragged and frayed determinations into shreds of what they used to be. And yet, with her legs around his midsection and encircling his waistline, she could not let the call go without answer. She could not let the cry of his own desire meet with nothing short of her own madness.

"... "

Did he wish for her to give him some sort of sign? Some sort of way to know that the beast within was taken to the breaking point?

In all things natural to their kind, her body sought mastery. Sought control.

Her legs spasmed, as if of their own accord, bringing him closer, crushing his body to hers even as she instinctively moved to meet him halfway.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

She was Lupine. No matter her self-control, no matter her malice, she could only deny what she was for so long. Her hips bucked against his, a primal unspoken demand for more. In reply, he gave her everything he could. Whatever the definition of tender, compassion love-making was, the two of them were as far from as it as they could be. This was a selfish union, each taking from the other what they needed because there was no other way, no other who could withstand such violent passion.

After a time Van-Derveld could no longer stand and so they fell to the ground, a tangle of writhing flesh, all grunts and growls. He pushed s'Ilancy face down, a forearm across the back of her neck and the full weight of his body holding her down, shuddering against her until the last of his energy was spent and ragged, panting breaths were all he could manage.

[Master s'Ilancy]

The monster within had gorged itself. In much the same fashion as before, they had raged against one another. Tore away the conventions that the galaxy had placed upon them in such beastly fashion that none could look upon the horrid joining of two creatures so bent toward conquest in all things. They both had taken what they wanted from the other, and both had wanted more. They demanded more. She had grasped his head with both hands, thumbs hooking into the edges of the leather hood he wore even as she'd brought his mouth close to hers, her tongue teasingly running across the jagged edges of his teeth before hungrily pressing their lips together in the sort of stark, raving madness bourne only of pure carnal desires.

Now, her naked skin rippling in the throes of their mutual release, she let her body rest beneath his. She panted, her lungs pulling in shallow breaths that only seemed to reinvigorate her body and renew the uncontrollable desire that the beast within craved. The wound in her shoulder only served to fuel her inner need; the monster's need.

Reaching up blindly behind her, her searching hand sought out and found Vega's head, hovering so close to her own. Her fingers hooked around the back of his neck, and she brought him down, inviting him to her pulsing jugular.

[Executor Van-Derveld]

For the first time in years, Van-Derveld allowed himself to be lead by her. When she pulled his mouth to her neck he could feel the flutter of her pulse against his lips, the blood pounding beneath her skin. It would only take one bite to sever that vein and then it would be a matter of minutes before she bled out beneath him, her last living memory of her submission to the thing that she had so long reviled.

His teeth grazed her skin.

“Loklorien s'Ilancy... tell me, to whom do you belong?”

[Master s'Ilancy]

There was a growl within, a sound that rumbled through her entire body. It was not an answer, rather it was a question returned. His was a query that demanded an answer, and she returned in kind. It demanded so much, that only he could give. Only he could hope to satisfy. Two animals joined in all things pleasure and pain, in all things reviled and needed.

"To whom," her voice was tremulous, wracked with so many aftershocks of of their shared union. She could feel him still, his teeth at her throat and his body atop hers. And so much more...

"... do you belong... "

[Executor Van-Derveld]

Even now she rebelled. He should have expected nothing less. It wasn't enough to humiliate her, to strip away every last bit of tattered pride from her. If she could claim a single sliver of dominance, she would.

There would have been a smile in Vega's voice when he spoke, if he'd possessed the capacity to convey such emotion any more. The leather of his suit creaked as he pushed against her.

“Answer me... or I will carve the answer into your flesh.”

[Master s'Ilancy]

Her body rocked with his motion, beholden to his whims and wants, his desires and wretched ministrations. Beholden to him in all things. The both of them knew the answer, and yet still she resisted. Still she prolonged the agony and delight. She gave a gasp, lips parting to let a sigh escape even as her body stiffened in expectancy once more.

Her eyes shut tightly, his teeth on her neck bringing her close enough to the brink of something considered normalcy. She hissed at him as if in answer, her body craving so much more.

"Apex," she hissed out in answer, "... I belong to the First House... "

[Executor Van-Derveld]

A sound half-way between a growl and a grunt of laughter passed his lips. “Is that so.”

With another groan of leather straining against the twisted flesh beneath it, Van-Derveld sat up. Still straddling her thighs, he jerked against her and grinned when she gasped again. What she would not say willingly, her body said for her.

Head cocked to one side, Vega eyed the brand scorched between her shoulder blades: the proud symbol of the First House. The great and noble house. It marked her as a leader among her kind, as something pure and powerful. With thumb and forefinger, Van-Derveld smoothed out and held taut the skin around the crescent moon shaped scar. It was such a bold, simple design... but it was lacking in something.

With his free hand, he drew the silver blade - temporarily forgotten in the throes of their passion - from its sheath, its length still streaked with her blood.

He held it a hairs breadth above her and... hesitated.

[Master s'Ilancy]

The small part of her that held fast to sanity seemed to rise up, and her body stilled in horrid realization. The sound of his knife leaving its' sheath was like a death bell ringing in her ears, and s'Il gave a sudden, ragged inhalation as she finally grasped his full intentions.

"You cannot," she managed weakly, remaining utterly motionless lest the silver make contact with her flesh.

And yet there was nothing she could do; no resistance she could give other than a pitiful call for him to stop. His body held her down, and his blade kept her still.

"I have given you all," her voice regained a small amount of the calm steel that it had once held, "... you must not take this from me."

[Executor Van-Derveld]

He could not deny her. For the longest time, there had been nothing he relied upon and desired more than his master. She had sustained him, with succour and scorn alike, feeding whichever passion she knew would make him stronger. She had given him so much. More than he deserved even, both for good and ill.

Yet, even in the moments that they were as close to one as two beings could be, there was one thing that she did not yield to him. One sneering point of triumph: that he was not of the purest blood. That as an Apex lupine she should always and would always command him.

Their brands may have been written in a language that only their kind could understand, but that didn't matter. She knew the significance of what he was about to do to her.

“You have given me all that you have. Now... accept this gift from me.”

And with that, the blade split her flesh as he set about reworking the proud brand of the Apex house into the mark of House Van-Derveld.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

The fire that rushed through her body was vicious and biting, relentless and unforgiving as she arched her back beneath his weight. She raged, her body so bent against his own will, yet beholden to it all the same. He, who had given the beast within so much pleasure and release, was now intent on making the two as one through more than simply the joining of flesh. She cried out, a wild howl that encompassed the two of them.

The stench of blistering and burning flesh filled that air, the stench of wretched finality. The stench of one so humbled and broken.

Loklorien s'Ilancy was like some piece of clay, carved upon and shaped into a new creature. A Van-Derveld.

She bucked against his horrid ministrations; against the blade that cut away her identity and pride slice-by-slice.