Ours Are The Furies: Together Alone

[Vansen Tyree]

Mistake number one.

The Marine was fast, Vansen had to grant him that, but he was sloppy. Angry. Smart man would have stayed where he was and aimed his gun: enough distance to fire off a shoot before the Admiral had time to react; enough of an element of surprise to make a reaction utterly worthless. But no. His anger had made him lash out against the Senator first, throwing her aside in some dramatic gesture to show Vansen just how agitated he was by the goading words.

Mistake number two.

The Marine thought too much of himself, and too little of Vansen Tyree. There were a few instances where the old man was glad of that sort of thing, and now was one of them. The Marine thought he had time to assail the Senator before he had to worry about the Admiral. He thought aiming a gun at him would frighten the old one-eyed bastard. He thought shouting in languages he couldn't understand, brandishing, posturing; he thought that would do him a lick of good. It would not.

Vansen was already in motion as the Marine turned his attention to him. The Cizerack had sign posted his intentions too well, and as the rifle came to bear towards him Vansen was already stepping forward, a surprisingly strong hand wrapping around the body of the rifle and twisting it away - not enough to rip it from the Cizerack's grip, but certainly enough to keep it aimed well away from anything that a discharge could harm. His second hand swung up with the blaster he'd been carrying, cracking it across the side of the Marine's skull with enough force to breach the skin and provoke an angry trickle of crimson down the side of his face. In the same moment Vansen twisted more, wrenching the rifle from the Marine's grip, letting the strap still slung over the Cizerack's neck and shoulder yank him off balance, pulling him into the knuckles of the pistol-holding hand that hammer-swung towards the bridge of the Cizerack's nose. The Marine staggered back, and Vansen released his grip on the rifle completely; his pistol aimed and spat out a wave of stun energy, dumping the Marine unceremoniously to the floor.

The Admiral quickly stepped over to the fallen Marine, unhooking the rifle from him and adjusting it into his grip, the pistol tucked back into the holster on his hip. With a nudge of his foot to ensure that the Cizerack weren't somehow immune to stun weapons or something deeply inconvenient like that, he paced backwards to the Senator's side, and dropped into a crouch.

Mistake number three.

Protective concern was thick in Vansen's voice as he placed a hand gently against Taataani's arm. "Are you alright?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani was slow to right herself, feeling instantly the heat on her shoulder where the marine had drawn her blood. The lacerations were deep, but not life threatening. Still, for a woman who had seldom been in a position to have her life threatened before, the violence rendered unto Senator Meorrrei had a profoundly sobering effect.

"jI'm...fjine."

Her voice was distant, as if she was only vaguely aware of the conversation taking place. Taataani kept her eyes on the prone form of the Jaani'saarri, not because she doubted Admiral Tyree's handiwork, but because the words he'd uttered had revealed which one of the Senator's theories were correct.

"Ta'u saai Fey'danna kaiheessa."

She looked up at Vansen with a troubled expression.

"Rrememberr the marrtjyrrss of Fey'dann."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Fey'dann."

Vansen's frown settled into it's comfortable place across his brow as he puzzled over that word. Something lurked on the edges of his mind like shadows just beyond the reach of a floodlight, but whether it was because his focus was elsewhere or just a matter of the addles of age, Vansen couldn't quite manage to grasp hold of it well enough to recall. It was a planet, that much he was sure of.

"A planet in the Cluster?" he mused aloud. That was a guess, but an educated one. Despite certain interests that Vansen had in the Cizerack, their space lay beyond his purview, their defense the responsibility of some other Admiral. In his younger days, Vansen would have made a point of knowing every star, every planet, and every moon in the Alliance by heart, just to prove that he could; nowadays his mind was unfortunately committed to storing necessary but unsatisfying knowledge about the Alliance bureaucracy.

The look in Taataani's eyes spoke of far more to this story than Vansen's military was willing to provide. A subconscious impulse moved the hand on Taataani's arm, a few inches of extra altitude, as if that would somehow offer greater comfort. "I'm not going to like finding out what happened there, am I?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The Senator busied herself with pulling free one of the decorative silk ribbons which held her outer mantle in place. Wincing, she draped the fabric over her wounded shoulder, negotiating the ends clumsily to align them together so that she could tie them. Already, the silk began to seep with her blood. She'd had worse on hunting expeditions, but that was the extent of her experience with injury. Her charmed existence had shielded herself from that - until now.

"Fey'dann jiss one of the motherr worrldss," she confirmed, nodding. "A grreat ssavannah wherre ourr food jiss rrajissed. The people therre arre poorr, but prroud."

But that was just the start of it, and explained little.

"The people therre have alwajyss been jissolated jin ssome wajy frrom otherrss. The wajy thejy drress, the wajy thejy talk. But that jissolatjion held them togetherr. Nowherre elsse jin the Prrjide have men and women carrjied the wejight sso..."

The Senator's eyes met the Admiral's. He likely could complete her thought from where she'd led.

[Vansen Tyree]

Politics.

Vansen loathed it. Detested it. He hated the way that it operated; but most of all he hated the stupid concepts upon which it was built. The Republic had celebrated diversity. Thrived on it. Each to their own. The Empire had done things differently, trying to impose through force a consistent attitude to make the whole galaxy the same. It was supposed to be objectively, undeniably evil. That meddling in the private affairs of sovereign races was something that the Alliance strove with every fibre to avoid.

But now that the Alliance found itself in a position of governance, things became hazy. It wasn't even that the Empire's black and white had faded into shades of grey: it had turned into a muddy, conflicted brown. The Cizerack fiercely guarded their society's right to impose it's values on everyone within it's dominion. The Hapans did the same, their entire culture propped up by institutionalised matriarchy. But that was different, the politicians insisted, from the sexism and racism that the Empire had perpetrated. Imperial prejudice was something to be condemned, but Cizerack prejudice was a right to be defended, and fiercely.

Taataani Meorrrei had always commanded a significant amount of respect from Vansen Tyree; her intelligence, her cunning, her dedication. Now though, he saw a glimpse of the kind of policies and politics that served as a foundation for her importance and prestige. He saw a flicker of the darker secrets of the culture that had allowed her to rise to the heights that she had. His steel gaze swept across her features, silently wondering if she felt the same guilt that he did, knowing that his veteran status was earned from decades spent with an Imperial uniform hanging from his shoulders.

"Just how decisively did the Pride try and remidy Fey'dann of it's..." He trailed off, struggling to find a way to dance around the facts as well as Taataani had. "...differences?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"Sstrrenuoussljy."

It was a single word spoken softly, but with the finality of a sounded gavel, or a headman's axe falling. Taataani's blank expression wasn't for lack of emotion. Fey'dann burned through emotions with greed and intensity. It was a coal fire, burning just out of sight - forever.

"When jI wass jyoung, therre wass an uprrjissjing. A declarratjion."

New pain revealed itself in dull aches as Taataani worked to tie her makeshift bandage. It complemented the pain she was now to dredge up.

"The ssonss and daughterrss of Fey'dann sstand asss one. On equal footjing. Thejy would no longerr feed the mouth that condemned them. Sso thejy rrevolted agajinsst everrjythjing we have been forr overr a thoussand jyearrss."

And inside, Taataani knew that it wasn't simply doomed and romantic. It was right. She'd known it then, and she knew it with Cirrsseeto. What separated a man and a woman, it was merely anatomy. Could a man not have a say for himself? Could a woman not allow herself to show vulnerability? This wasn't just about freedom for males. It was everyone.

And it was doomed.

"The Hjigh Motherr made an example of the jinssurrrectjion. Sshe butcherred entjirre famjiljiess morre thorroughljy than Emperrorr Palpatjine could jimagjine possjible."

[Vansen Tyree]

There wasn't room for anger, or for judgement. It was an event, a revelation that was bigger than now; bigger than Vansen; bigger than what he had any interest in trying to comprehend. That was how it was for men like him. This was how it was with the Empire's atrocities. Vansen may have retired when Alderaan died, but that was not the first sin committed under Palpatine's rule. The Empire had blood on it's hands, and guilt on it's shoulders, but only a mere fraction of it's soldiers had the moral substance to perceive them. It was that guilt that had driven them into Rebellion; that shame over what had been done by a government acting in their name; what had been done by a regime that they helped to support. That same guilt was what swallowed them whole, that consumed people until there was nothing left but the desire to sacrifice all to dislodge a little of that inherited guilt.

Vansen had no time for it. He was not immune to it's effects, not indifferent to the suffering caused; he simply did not have time. Not now. Not ever. There were times, guilty and private moments, where he allowed his mind to turn towards such thoughts. He drowned in it. Sank beneath it until nothing but blackness surrounded him. He stayed until the light had faded, until his breath was almost gone; and then he surged back to the surface, spluttered for breath, and tossed another double of whiskey down his throat. There was no time to wallow in guilt, because there was so much to be made amends for. So much to undo. So much to repair. It was that momentum, that drive, that kept him in service to the Alliance military far beyond his expiration date. It was that drive and momentum that would keep him in service until the day he died. His body would fail, his senses would falter, but he would push; he would stagger forward. He would endure until all he could do was stamp papers in a clerk's office if he had to; because if he stopped, that would be the end of it. All hope for redemption would be halted, and he would not have the strength to force it back into motion again.

He looked to Taataani, to the same familiar guilt that weighed upon her shoulders, on her ears, on her usually proud and defiant form. There was no time for any of that, either.

Vansen's hand gently closed around Taataani's, halting her efforts to attend to her bandage. "The galaxy is full of those who do the wrong thing for the right reasons," he offered gently; not a reassurance, not a comfort, but a verbal offered hand to help Taataani's focus back to it's feet. "Just as it is full of who do the right thing for the wrong reasons. The task of determining which is which belongs to history, not to us."

A crooked finger gently nudged beneath Taataani's chin, tilting her gaze upwards to meet Vansen's.

"Today, here, now, they have crossed a line. Their grievance is with the Pride, but they have brought war to my Alliance; our Alliance; to a station full of innocent bystanders that we are sworn to protect. A head full of politics and guilt cannot help them, but there is more to you than that. I have seen it before, and I see it in your eyes now."

The hand shifted, softly placed upon her shoulder.

"Leave the Senator and the Baroness behind. Find a quiet corner, and shut them away. A soldier, a strategist, a General is what this fight needs. Can you be that for me, Taataani?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

That same leadership trait, applied so smartly. Even against Taataani Meorrrei, it could cast aside stalling introspection and moral exhaustion.

She looked at her protector - no. Her partner. That was what he was, clearly. They were both far too adult for chivalry. Too old for platitudes. Sometimes it felt good to shut up.

Senator Meorrrei reached down to retrieve her pistol, grunting with pain as it irritated her lacerations. Nevertheless, she had the object well in hand, bringing it back up between herself and Vansen. The snub-nosed blaster was carefully pointed away from each of them, and Taataani looked up at Tyree as she tapped the muzzle with a claw.

"jIt'ss sstjill 'pojint thjiss end at the bad gujyss', jissn't jit?"

[Vansen Tyree]

A subtle smile shouldered it's way through the crowd of grim and gruff on Vansen's features, just enough to be seen.

"And keep pulling the trigger until they stop moving," he agreed, with as much reassurance as he could muster.

Most people might have described this as the sort of situation that made you feel young again. Vansen didn't have the patience for that kind of redundant sentimentality. Nothing about him felt young. Everything that always ached still ached. Everything that seized and protested when you tried to move it still did all of those things. It didn't make him feel alive, either. But there was still something about it. Something clear. Something pure. A sense of focus; a brief respite from all of the other factors that came from being able to fixate yourself purely on the path directly ahead. It was that, Vansen supposed, that men like him missed when circumstances conspired to drag them from their cockpits, and their trenches, and their maintenance crawlspaces and force them into clean uniforms and behind desks.

Vansen didn't feel young, or alive. He felt useful again.

"You might have to shoot at some bad girls as well," Vansen pointed out, as he readied his commandeered blaster and began to lead their advance down the corridors. Force smile upon whatever mechanic or technician had spent the time painting stencilled lettering onto the walls of the various intersections, Aurebesh phrases helping to guide the station's inhabitants through it's labyrinthine interior. The grim, trench humour that settled into Vansen's voice was part crutch, part muscle memory left over from decades ago, when events like this would have seemed like an ordinary day. "These are equality terrorists after all."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The Senator pursed her lips slightly in a matter of fact expression.

"Forrtunateljy mjy tjime jin the Ssenate has made me an accomodatjing egaljitarrjian."

Her mind was moving faster than her feet. Cizerack droids. Cizerack terrorists. Explosions all at once, and no comms.

"We'rre not gojing to do much good sstumbljing jin the darrk. We need to fjind a wajy to communjicate."

Expectant eyes probed Vansen in anticipation of a plan. He was a career military man, even spanning service into the years of the Galactic Empire at one time. This used to be an Imperial station.

[Vansen Tyree]

There were options, but each one came with limitations. There were maintenance shafts, utility crawlspaces, air ducts; a maze of hidden passageways that wove through facilities like this. For any other officer, they'd present an expedient path to at least get close to where they needed to be. For a septuagenarian Admiral though, and a Senator whose wardrobe was dubiously practical? There were only so many vertical shafts and access ladders that he could handle while still remaining useful at the other end. But what alternative did they have? Walk the corridors out in the open? Take out every enemy checkpoint one by one, working their way through -

Through. Why was Vansen trying to lead them through the station? The explosions the Cizerack had set off had come from the docking pylons as best he could tell, but there were landing bays nestled between, filled with shuttles, defence fighters, maintenance craft. If the terrorists had disabled the pylons to keep reinforcements out, if they were relying on their droids and soldiers to keep the station population contained, then maybe there was a ghost of a chance. Get to a bay. Steal a ship. Find one of the external ships - the Novgorod perhaps, or s'Ilancy's ship. At worst, he'd be able to provide intel, and relay it back to the Alliance. At best, perhaps they'd be able to help him correct this mess.

The moment of silence was brief, but it still took longer to formulate than Vansen would have liked. "This way," he said finally, gesturing back down the corridor. "We need to get to a -"

The sentence never finished. Vansen felt it, a split second before he heard the whine: burning, tearing it's way through the small of his back; an all too familiar sensation. He stumbled, catching himself against the wall, a whiff of ozone and charred flesh rising to his nostrils. He tried to turn, tried to raise his gun, tried to snap off a shot down the corridor behind him; it went wide of the mark, glancing harmlessly off the droid's synthetic shell. It's retaliation caught him square in the gut, and the Admiral crumpled completely.

Vansen watched in stunned confusion as shock began to rob hid body of function, skin rapidly turning pale, a dark and angry charred crater now gracing the front of his uniform. About time, he found himself thinking, his blurring vision settling on the sight of the uncomfortably familiar droid. It had been thirty years since the Clone Wars; thirty years since a machine like this had last tried to kill him. It seemed fitting somehow, that after all this time a relic just like him would manage to survive and finish the job.

What took you so damn long?

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"Vanssen!"

The shrill of a confederate-era blaster shrilled in Taataani's ears as she watched him fall, but that was the only shot she heard. Everything happened fast, but Senator Meorrrei's fight or flight response had put her fate decidedly on fixed rails. She saw the droid ahead, then the split second of red light to her left as it's blaster bolt pushed just off it's target. Her gun felt weightless in her grasp even as she seemed to be moving slowly through treacle with the hum of pulsing blood in her ears. Eyes tried to find the recessed sights on her weapon like she'd been taught to do, but in her haste she pushed to pale blue bolts to the right of her target. Her focus shifted. The rear sights blurred. The droid fell into focus.

Taataani fired, severing the gun hand at the elbow. She fired again. Again. Again. Each time with a purposeful step as she took the B1 droid apart with nothing but a belly gun and a tank of adrenaline.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen watched in misty slow motion as Taataani Meorrrei turned avenger on his behalf. It felt wrong, somehow: an idle thought nudging at the back of his mind; the wrong person; the lack of a lightsaber. At least he'd been right, though. There was a warrior under all that silk and lace. Good to know that his motivational speech hadn't been wasted.

Part of him wished she'd waited though; let the droid finish the job, rather than forcing him to make the journey to the great beyond the slow and painful way. He tried to move; his insides protested, searing pain mixed with churning nausea as his organs stretched and shifted against the charred edges of his punctured flesh. The sensations threatened to overwhelm him, so intense that he felt his head swim, stumbling dizzily towards the end of consciousness. He fought against it, ignored it, long enough to drag himself and his apparently useless blaster closer to the wall he'd fallen beside. His gut screamed like a slaughtered pig, folding in on itself as he tried to sit up; it ended up more as a slump, the chilled skin of his forehead pressed up against the durasteel.

Struggling for breath, his voice reedy and feeble, he mumbled out the only question that seemed to matter in the moment.

"Taataani... are you okay?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The adrenaline ebbed.

The gun which had felt weightless in her grasp a moment ago now fell free from Taataani's hand to the floor. It felt heavier. So much heavier now. Her own trivial injury forgotten, Taataani fell against the wall at the human's side, nurturing instincts compelling her where medical knowledge couldn't. She eased a hand between the old man's neck and the wall. Gently, the Senator cradled the Admiral's head as she gently maneuvered him into a sitting position, mindful of seemingly-small movements that may be excruciating. Her blue eyes fixed to his pallid face, which suddenly glistened with a sheen of cold perspiration.

And he had the gall to ask if she was okay, with the stink of his own cremated flesh angrily offending her nose. She had a mind to rebuke him in nasty form for what she perceived to be a species of foolish and misplaced chivalry. The only thing that stayed her was that the last few heartbeats of action were beginning to flood back into the part of her brain that was rational. Taataani brushed a hand against her own cheek, the warmth of the near-fatal bolt that missed her a phantom sensation.

Taataani...are you okay?

An inch closer, and she'd never have the opportunity to answer. Old dark thoughts came back. Taurrifar languishing in the cold. Her struggles to save him - too long and too late. Oh, she'd had so much time since then to fear the mortality of everyone she loved.

Never once had she stopped to consider her own mortality.

Taataani...are you okay?

She was alive.

Was she okay?

Taataani lied with a nod of her head as she cradled Vansen protectively.

[Vansen Tyree]

You didn't need two eyes to see a fake nod when you saw one. Damned woman was being strong for him, or something foolish like that. Then again, hadn't he just told her as much? Not the intended context, but still.

As Vansen so often did, he fell back on humour, the defense mechanism that had served him so well over the last forty years or so. When your wits and skills weren't enough, when the odds were against you and the situation was grim, you deflected. You made light of the situation. Gallows humour they called it, though it had been millennia since anything even remotely resembling a gallows had existed on any of the worlds where the phrase was used. Vansen wasn't really even sure why he did it any more. In days of yore, perhaps it had been a reassurance for the men under his command; was that what he was doing now, trying to somehow set Taataani at ease even though she would see through it in an instant?

"If I had known," he forced out, voice notably more feeble than usual and a little shaky, his gut loudly protesting any kind of movement of any part of his body, lungs included. "That a shot to the gut was all it'd take to end up in your arms, I'd have mustered up a firing squad months ago."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Vansen was in pain, that was plain to see. Taataani placed a hand over his that cradled his blaster shot. With her other hand, she caressed his face. It was cool to the touch, with a trace of new perspiration. He looked like he so rarely did - vulnerable. She'd schemed for some time at disarming him. This wasn't quite how she imagined it would be.

"jIf jI'd known all along that jyou werre jusst wajitjing forr the rrjight woman to rresscue jyou, jI would have come wjith an arrmjy."

She kissed him on the cheek tenderly, cradling him close. The fear was there all along, but it was boiling to leave behind crystalized determination.

"Can jyou sstand? jIt jissn't ssafe herre."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen couldn't recall ever feeling so reluctant to move, and yet the desire to let a few centuries slip by in the arms of a woman clashed with the pain that riddled him, and with her query. A foolhardy attempt at motion sent a sickening wave through him, that squeezed a faint grunt of discomfort from his lungs. He ignored it, tried again, fumbled his hand free from Taataani's so that it could cradle his abdomen while the other fumbled at the wall for purchase. He managed to struggle a knee beneath him, burned skin tugging and tearing with every movement; a stumbled surge and he managed to almost fall onto his feet, hunched over and leaning heavily against the wall.

"Not far," he admitted, feeling all of reality begin to swim and swirl around him, blood frustratingly absent from his head as it invested all it's efforts into finding somewhere to leak from. Taataani was there beside him, waiting to be leaned on, waiting to provide him with the support he needed. How long had she been waiting to do that, he wondered? And why, even now, was his stubborn pride fighting to avoid it?

With all the effort he could muster, he forced his spine a little straighter, and allowed his arm to drape across her shoulders. The former hurt more, but the latter was far more difficult. "We should find cover," he grunted out, trying and failing to sound like his normal self. "Somewhere quiet, so I can bleed out in peace."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

His words ran down her spine like ice. Taataani turned to Vansen's face. The face that had turned ashen and grave with the labors of enduring pain and walking. He faced death staring him down the corridor just as Taurrifar had. Not a sudden snuffing of existence like the one Taataani had dodged without knowing. But a threat of a knife already plunged inside, and with no knowledge if it would travel far enough to finish you. Taurrifar had faced that end as selflessly as he'd loved her. Vansen Tyree was looking at death like he was company at the door that he'd always expected.

Not today. He wouldn't darken that door.

Senator Meorrrei's grasp on the collar of Vansen's jacket tightened enough for him to know she was getting his attention.

"Now jyou ljissten to me, Vanssen Tjyrree..." Taataani's voice evaporated it's patrician notes of status. In it's place was a voice that sounded older. A voice with a foundation of iron. The core of a woman who never suffered a refusal in peace. "No one djiess todajy. jI won't negotjiate orr barrterr down wjith Death, and jyou'rre not forr ssale. jYou arre comjing wjith me, and jyou arre gojing to ssurrvjive."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Or what? You'll have my guts for garters?"

A reedy, sputtering cough of a laugh wheezed it's way out of Vansen's lungs, a faint peppering of breathless chuckles in it's wake.

"Wait another minute or two, and I think they'll have fallen out on the deck for you. Save you any undue rummaging around."

It wasn't funny; but it was, and that was a worry. He'd seen this happen on battlefields before: soldiers so wounded that nothing mattered, shrugging off all other thoughts to great their end with a laugh and a smile. Perhaps it was some instinctive reflex. They said that laughter was the best medicine; perhaps that was true, even in death. From the way the edges of his vision had already begun to corrode into blackness though, Vansen doubted he'd ever find himself in a position to compare and find out.

He forced himself to focus, one step before the other, each yard travelled it's own minor victory. He fixed on the next goal, the next minor milestone. Just one more step. And then just one more; and then another. A cascade of broken promises to himself that it was almost over; an avalanche of one last efforts to convey him onwards until his body failed, or his life did. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't like the last leg of a marathon, where narrow vision could help you push on to the end. Each laboured breath, each staggered pace, they rattled around in a void, disconnected and distant, like surfaces felt through too many layers of thermal gloves. The ache and the wrenching in his gut was still there, but between it stretched a vast expanse of faintness, as if he was being pulled backwards and away from everything his body was being required to do.

"I think -"

He struggled out a word, forced himself to reach out through the dark fog, grasp hold of his senses with the very tips of strained fingers. He needed something else for focus, something else as an anchor, something else that his mind had no choice but to focus on.

"I think you should -" He struggled with the words, his mouth dry and parched, a sensation that slowly spread down his throat. It was a shame the shot had been so low, he idly mused; coughing up a little blood from a damaged lung might be quite handy about now. "- that stance on not, on not selling me to Death." He mustered a smile, and a brief moment of eye contact. "Clearly this Admiral is defective. You should at least -" A pained grimace. "- at least try and recoup your losses. Ask for a refund. See if you can exchange me for -" A laugh this time. "- a newer model."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

She was shouldering more and more of the weight, guiding him with steadfast steps toward the end of the corridor. Ahead lay a lift, and at least the illusory promise of safe harbor. Something grim and unbreakable that always existed under the niceties spurred the Senator on. She kept a firm hold on her Admiral, a hold that was more than physical, but supported his spirit.

"Clearrljy jyou've neverr sshopped forr antjiquess beforre. Thejirr age trransslatess jinto beautjy, and thejy capturre aessthetjicss sseldom sseen jin the contemporrarrjy - and thosse that trrjy lack the authentjicjitjy."

Her cheek brushed against his palid temple, and Taataani allowed herself a smile he could only feel and not see for himself.

"jYou won't talk me out of jyou, Vanssen. jYourr sstubborrnnesss hass an equal."

Arriving at the lift, Taataani slapped the recall switch, waiting the arduous seconds as the car rallied to their location. Only now did she ease him against the wall, cupping a hand to his cheek.

"Forrget bejing noble. Be sselfjissh. What do jyou want? Darre to ljive. Demand jit."