Title: What Happens On Nar Shaddaa
World: SWTOR
Characters: M!Sith Assassin (Dark), Rylee Dray, Destris Veran, and hints of others.
Rating: Soft M.
Word Count: 2169
Warnings: Spoilers for SI Dark story-line and class quests.
Rylee Dray's breath caught in her throat as she read the latest heading in her inbox. When she heard her holomail ping she had expected another syncophant begging her to forward a request for aid on to her Sith, or another complaint about her friend Destris and his increasingly erratic running of the cult.
Since the sith had left Naar shaddaa nearly a year earlier, Destris had been getting more and more demanding of the cult's followers. He had even started insisting that members petition to him personally if they planned on making any life changing decisions like marriage, travel from Nar shaddaa or starting a family. It was getting a little creepy.
The Sith had stated on no uncertain terms that Destris was to be in charge of his cult in his absence, and that Rylee was to look after everything to do with the media, public relations, and any technological aspects that needed tending.
More and more however, Rylee was the person that was approached after cult meetings and in correspondence because she was more approachable and reasonable than Destris.
She knew that her Sith had chosen their tasks well though, if she had been in charge, she would never have been respected. She looked much younger than she really was, she was too soft spoken, too... Ignorable... to be the public face of a cult as large as this one. Destris might be brash, he might act too much on impulse, but he was self assured and not afraid to look someone in the eye while contradicting them. He was likable yet intimidating if you happened to be the target of his ire.
Destris could command attention, and Rylee could manage him from the shadows.
She sighed and placed her holopad gently on the table. She thought back to that day so many months ago. The day her Sith had finally let her see the person behind the pale skin, and red eyes, and massive double ended lightsaber.
She waved to the pretty twi'lek barmaid to bring her another drink. She took a gulp and closed her eyes letting the memory wash over her.
He had seemed so self posessed, cold even when they had first met. He was ruthless in his takeover of the cult. She had found him attractive, but also frightening. He was as Dark as one so new to the Sith ways could be. By the time they met he had only been an apprentice for a little over a year, yet he was already showing signs of corruption from his use of the Dark side of the Force. He wore it well, better than most, but he there was no arguing that the red eyes and the prominent veins around his eyes and mouth were... disturbing on such a young hansom face. The tribal style tattoos across his face and down his lekku had accentuated the look to the point where very few would argue with him.
It had taken months for her to see past the facade and realize that despite his ruthlessness and lack of compassion for those he killed in the line of duty, he spared life where he could. He would banish someone when it was prudent, and kill if it saves a person from torture, but he would rarely indulge in torture and abuse himself if he could find another way to achieve his goals.
It took her even longer to see that he was capable of feeling "human" emotions. He took great pains to hide it, from everyone including himself. He had them though, buried deep beneath the roiling power, and the tattoos, and the armor, and the hatred.
He had swaggered up to her one afternoon, about a month or so after they had met, and casually leaned against her workstation. He had looked down at her with a smirk that had almost seemed genuine, rather than the cold manufactured smile he wore almost permanently plastered onto his face.
She had jumped in fright, even back then he was silent when he moved, and almost invisible in the faintest of shadows. She had not seen him approach. She had babbled on about something or other and then he had smiled. Truly smiled. It had lit up his whole face.
The sith had looked down at his leather clad legs, (he staunchly refused to wear traditional robes, too restrictive for the physical style of fighting he preferred), fidgeted with the buckles on his saber holster and asked her if she would take him on a tour of the facility. She remembered being confused until he had asked to see her favorite rooms and looked up at her from under his pale blue brows. His cheeks had tinged just the slightest tint of mauve beneath the black ink of his markings, and she had thrown caution to the wind.
When they had turned the corner into her quarters, he had kissed her, with all the passion that a Dark sith could muster. He had murmured to her that she brought out the passion in him. He had whispered the Sith Creed to her as he nipped and licked and plundered her mouth with his lips and teeth and tongue. Only his mouth touched her, and her senses nearly overloaded from just that small contact, and she had wondered how she would handle more from him.
She let out a small laugh, taking another drink. She had managed somehow.
Afterward, Rylee had lain next to that volatile, beautiful man and spent a solid hour wondering if it was more sane to hope that he would want her again, or to hope that she was just a momentary diversion for him. She had suspected the latter.
One thing was certain, she had never expected to be made love to by a sith. But over the following weeks he had continued to call on her, even sleeping in her rooms when he could be sure they would not be seen.
She was sure that she had been the only person since he became Sith that had seen him in the throws of his nightmares. The only one that had seen fear in his eyes. The only person that had seen him cry... Or smile or laugh for that matter.
When he had finally gained full control of the cult, killing it's former leader, he had told her that he needed to leave Nar shaddaa. Her heart had plummeted into her boots, but she had not flinched. She had known that this day would come. He was far too much power for an unassuming slicer from a backwater corner of a greasy planet to contain. She hadn't dared to hope that he would take her with him, that was insanity, but she also had not expected him to promise to return to see her again.
She had also never expected him to actually return.
Rylee waved to the waitress for another drink and thew it back in one shot, motioning for the pretty girl to leave the bottle this time. She had a feeling she would need it when she finally plucked up the courage to read the damned mail in her inbox.
She had suspected something was wrong the last time that he had come to visit. It had been over a month ago. Longer than he normally left it between visits. And he never went this long without sending a mail or calling on the holo.
He had taken her over and over again that last visit. She had fallen asleep sore, blissfully exhausted and slightly bemused, only to be woken up a short time later by her Sith Lord sobbing quietly into his pillows. She had turned the light on and looked around in confusion, wondering for a moment if she was dreaming. Even she had never seen this kind of emotional display from him. She had stroked his lekku and asked him what was wrong and he had looked up at her and choked out a cry that sounded like a wounded animal and moaned "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" over and over with his face pressed to her stomach and his arms gripping her so tightly that it hurt. Absently she realized that this skin had lost the last hints of blue, he was now bone white, like a beautiful tattooed ghost.
When he left the next morning he had offered no explanation for his reaction the night before, and he had not said his customary line of "I'll come back as often as I can" as he walked out the door. The sobbing had been hers that night, even though she didn't know why she should have such a deep sense of loss.
She shook head, trying to banish the memories. Enough was enough. She knocked back another shot and picked up her holopad.
With shaking hands, she tapped the mail icon to open the message, for once wishing that it was another complaint instead of a message from her lover. She closed her eyes and waited for the message to load.
She listened to his soft deep voice, as he cordially invited her to his engagement party. He wished her no ill feelings, and that he was doing this to cement an alliance of some sort. She didn't take in the details. Her ears rang and her eyes blurred as she tapped the off switch on the pad. She didn't want to hear the rest.
She didn't even notice that she was holding her breath until it burst out of her lungs as a shard of broken glass grazed her knuckles. Her drink sloshed over her hands as the glass cracked and a few shards fell to the table.
Rylee was just starting to consider the merits of punching some random stranger versus screwing some random stranger when a deep slightly amused voice came from behind her.
"I was just thinking to myself what a pretty lady you were 'till you went and wasted all that good alcohol"
She heard footsteps coming around her chair until she could see a pair of brown pilot's boots standing next to her. Her eyes traveled up to muscular thighs encased in skin tight flight pants that left nothing to the imagination, framed by a dark brown duster that scraped the floor. A pair of pistols sat on narrow hips. Her eyes traveled up to a flack shirt that had the top few buckles undone to reveal a smooth toned chest and a smooth corded throat topped by a strangely rugged face with tattoos on one cheek.
Finally she met a faintly amused pair of eyes that held pure sin. Clear human eyes. A strong, long fingered hand reached down to take the broken glass away and then drew her bleeding finger up to his lips. He kissed the air just above the small wound and then smoothed some Kolto gel over her hand, his calloused fingers rubbing the green goo in for far longer than strictly necessary.
"You look like you've had a hell of a day, and Stars know that I have a few things I wanna... drink... away myself. How 'bout you come with me, and we can help each other forget what a shit hole this galaxy is." His deep voice rumbled down from the pit of her stomach to the soles of her feet, and it crossed Rylee's mind that she might be a little more drunk than she realized.
She swallowed and looked away, about to turn him down flat, when her eyes rested on her holopad.
What the Void. It's not like he hadn't screwed others in her absence. She had been an idiot to think that she was all he would ever need. Screwing some random stranger then. At least it was likely to be less painful than picking a bar fight, and she's probably lose if she picked a fight in here anyway. She didn't think her ego could take being beaten in a seedy Nar Shaddaa shithole.
She tucked her pad in her jacket pocket, and the bottle under her arm, and held out her hand to the man by her side.
"Rylee" She said, trying not to let her voice shake "Rylee Dray".
He took her hand and kissed it, licking the spilled alcohol from her wrist before sliding his arm around her hips and steering her towards the lift to the cantina's accommodations upstairs.
"My real name's a real... mouthful" He growled into her ear, the smirk in his voice clear as day. "But my friends call my Nikos".
As the lifts closed he looked over to a faint purple shimmer in a dark corner and gave an almost imperceptible nod, a look of sympathy flashed across his face. Then he turned his full attention to the beautiful woman with immeasurably sad eyes standing beside him, and pulled her into a kiss that he knew would help her forget, for a little while at least.