Disclaimer: I own no form of Riddick, including Pitch Black or the video game. This is for kicks. I need to get a life, huh?
He never asked about the name. Her blazing eyes had dared him to, but he had no intention of trying. He knew that look. That white hot so-bad-Hell-wouldn't-take-me rage, the primal instinct to pick a fight. So he had just let it fall unchallenged to the ground between them, evaporating almost immediately on the sizzling floors of Crematoria.
He watched her silently, ignoring the multiple brawls and violent disputes going on around him to hone in with mirrored eyes on her slim silhouette. She moved like an animal; lightly, lethally. Dark curls plastered to a soot-stained face, rags wrapped tightly around split knuckles. Damn, she looked good. The every-muscle-in-my-body-has-been-honed-and-disciplined-so-I-can-end-you-right-here-right-now kind of good, the kind of good Riddick could appreciate.
An otherwise unnoticeable convict made a passing remark to her as she walked by, no doubt sexual in nature, and she brought the heel of her boot with lightning speed around to his jaw, decking him in a second. Spitting onto the ground, Kyra stepped over the unconscious body and vaulted over a steel railing, disappearing for the moment.
Kyra...
He doubted that was her real name. He doubted Jack was either, but something told him it was the closest he'd ever come to it. He would never call her that again, at any rate. She was convinced she was no longer that person, and when he bothered talking with anyone in general he preferred it not be with ghosts.
Riddick took a sip of his tea, turning away. He understood re-invention, he understood the shedding of a persona. It was a survival tactic, and from one animal to another, he couldn't blame her. To survive Hell, you had to become a certain kind of demon...But was it Hell who had made her, or was it his desertion?
He pushed the thought away almost immediately, slipping through a cell door and across a ironwork bridge. He had told her to stay on Newmecca, left her with some people who he was fairly confident wouldn't kill her outright. It was more than he had done for anyone else. Ever. He didn't tell her to take up with no damn mercs, get her ass thrown into some high-security slam. She should know by now that the real monsters in life didn't wait until dark to roam about.
But he had never intended for her to become one, either. Hers was an unnecessary metamorphosis, wherein lied the tragedy.
Riddick tilted his head a fraction of an inch as he caught sight of Kyra on the ground floor. She was striding through with an unnecessary amount of confidence and attracting the attention of three low-level authorities looking for someone to intimidate. The leader caught sight of her and gestured to the other, who moved in with deadly accuracy and followed her into an unused cell.
Riddick slid his goggles over his eyes, beginning to make his way down the stairs. The name he could let go of, but there was no way she was getting off without some form of explanation. Five years left her plenty of time to kill plenty of people; he'd like to know how many life sentences she was serving.
Besides, he smelled trouble. He hadn't had any in a few hours. It almost sounded appetizing.
Review for the starving artist? :)