Ky sat at the desk in oversized sleep pants and tank top, leftover goodies from the Captain of the Solidad that she and Corso had pilfered. The armholes of the top dipped low on her much smaller frame, and her breasts peeked out if she turned too quickly, a never-ending source of amusement for Corso. He laughed so infrequently of late, and she missed the easy humor that dimpled the edges of his mouth and creased the corners of his eyes.
The 'fresher door opened, and she turned as he emerged amidst wisps of steam, a towel draped around his waist. She drank in the sight of him often forgetting how much he'd filled out since they met. All gangly and awkward angles at twenty-two, his chest was now sculpted and firm and shoulders rounded with muscle that banded down his arms, bunching and writhing under tawny skin. A minuscule knot of pain tightened around her heart. When had she come to love him so much that it hurt just to look at him?
He futzed with his hair, still wet and dripping shimmering rivulets that ran their course over the rippled plane of his stomach to be absorbed by the greedy fabric obstructing her view.
"Come here, love," she said, shutting down the datapad and easing off the chair to stand at the foot of the bed.
He met her eyes and cocked his head in that bewildered puppy way she found adorable, then stepped around and halted a hand's breadth away.
A decision had been made compelling her to stop in the midst of their frenzied lives and absorb the essence of the man who loved her. She knew his body as well as she knew her own enjoying each part as needed to fulfill its purpose but had never taken the time to appreciate the sheer perfection of the sum. She'd make time now for it may never come again when she emptied herself to become the filling cup, and he became the fulcrum on which all five of her senses teetered.
"Don't move." She inched closer and inhaled deeply, flaring her nostrils to catch every nuance. Undertones of gun oil that never fully washed away blended faintly sweet and tangy with the tart lemon and pungent wood of soap. Tantalizingly clean and fresh and yet she wanted to breathe him in heated and sweaty with exertion, his scent released in sultry waves, unique to him alone.
She caught one errant drop of water on her tongue just as it slid past his nipple. He held his breath as the tiny bead of moisture dissolved in her mouth, leaving a perfumy residue mixed with the sharp hint of salt.
The pressure of his hand skimmed her ribs, and she grasped and lowered it to his side. "Don't move," she repeated.
His stomach muscles clenched when she untied the towel and dropped it to the floor, carefully avoiding further contact with his budding arousal while her hands sought other entries to write to her book of memory.
Her fingers brushed along his skin, down the sharp edge of his hip to the thigh where downy hairs parted and sprang upright to tickle the space between each digit. His muscles twitched almost imperceptively under her touch as her palm stroked upward and came to rest in the hollow at the side of his buttock.
She moved on, circling slowly, her fingers drifting up and over the roundness of his ass to his back, traveling each sinewy curve and cranny to trace the five horizontal lines across his shoulder blades. Scars that held unshared chapters of his life, indelible words forever etched on flesh. He flinched as she kissed each unread verse.
Across his ribs her hands explored, the skin slightly wrinkled and rough from a healed blaster burn then up over the shoulder returning to the beginning. She sank to her knee and pressed her mouth against the puckered pink scar from his leg wound on Tatooine before rising again to meet his eyes, dilated with desire, heavy with wanting.
"You are driving me insane," he grumbled, but sustained his unmoving pose, sensing this was important to her.
"Some images beg to be frozen in memory, love." She raised her fingers to his face, tenderly sliding them along the shallow grooves carved across the bridge of his nose and cheek.
"I don't understand. All I know is that I want you." The low timbre of his voice caressed her ears, and his brows pinched together in confusion and frustration.
Her hazel eyes stared into his through lashes thick as pine needles. "Then don't wait."
He cradled the back of her head in his hand and lowered his lips to hers, snugging her body tightly with his free arm coiled around her waist. Her top bunched beneath his fingers, the sleep pants rubbed against the growing hardness pressed between them. Her skin radiated warmth through the cloth, a flimsy barrier denying him access to the smooth flesh beneath. A whiskey deep growl escaped into her open mouth as he closed his fist around the fabric, breaking the kiss to tug the shirt up and over her head.
Air hissed through his teeth as she scraped her nails up his chest, leaving faint, ivory trails of pressure marks on his collarbones and neck to twine her fingers in his hair. His eyes searched hers for meaning then closed against the answer as she forced his face downward and claimed his lips while his arms wrapped around her like durasteel bands. The mounds of her breasts flattened against him, and he walked her backward until her thighs bumped the foot of the bed. Lost in whatever this was she'd started, his hands clutched her ass and deposited her on the mattress, skimming the sleep pants over her hips and down her legs as she scooched her way across the sheets toward the headboard and pillows.
She lay there knees bent and legs spread in invitation, the dim light glistening off the wetness between her thighs. The mattress dipped under Corso's weight as he crawled forward, never taking his eyes from hers until he lowered his face toward the shimmering curls.
His thumbs spread her folds exposing the pale pink layers, and he buried his tongue, licking and teasing, feeling the tiny nub harden. Her body trembled and she moaned while arching her hips upward, pressing against his lips. She gripped the sheets in her fists while his mouth ground tighter, his tongue lapping circles in patterns he knew she liked. The quickness of her breathing, the way her thighs went rigid against his forearms declared she was close, he eased the pressure of his mouth and with one last delicious flick, sent her spiraling into the spasms of release. He pushed her through each shuddering gasp and raised his head only when her arched back sank lazily onto the bed.
Her eyes opened and followed his journey up the length of her body, using her scars as a roadmap, stopping at each one to deposit a delicate kiss before moving on. Her scars, the unrecounted story of her life, written in blood and pain and legacy lost forever. His mouth found the peaks of her breasts, and she curled one lock of his hair around her finger, winding it tight and giving an impatient tug. He smiled around her nipple and settled himself above her, propped on hands and knees.
"Don't stop," she murmured and licked her lips.
"As if I could." He reached behind and slowly eased himself inside, savoring every inch as she tightened around him. She locked her legs across his hips, urging him on, wrapped her arms around the ropes of muscle stretching and contracting along his back. He lowered himself to his elbows, a slick sheen of sweat the only barrier between them and moved over her body like watered silk, his chest skimming the twin crests of her breasts.
She matched each thrust, arching upward with her hips. "Deeper," she moaned, gouging her nails across his back. The streaks of fire on his flesh burst open the door in his mind, goading his lust into unfettered hunger and flooding his head with visions of what it wanted to do to her. 'Get out!" his mind screamed as he bit his lower lip, drawing blood in an attempt to drive the visions away. He quickened his tempo to finish, needing to release it all. With a final shuddering plunge, he buried his face in her neck and emptied his heat, his hunger, his despair deep into her core, locking the beast away again.
Arms and legs trembling, he collapsed on top of her, his ribs flaring like bellows as he panted and nuzzled into her cheek willing his heart to slow its galloping pace. "I love you," he breathed into her hair.
"I love you, too." She kept him locked to her, his weight a comfort, cocooning, sheltering, holding her still amidst the chaos of her days. And what could she possibly offer in return? Reluctantly she released him, and he rolled to his back to curl his arm around her when she snuggled close, draping her thigh over his hip and her arm over his chest.
"That reminded me very much of the first time we made love," he said. "You know, with all the circling around and touching."
"I think I was appraising you then," she smiled. "You know, sizing you up. This was pure appreciation for the beautiful creature you are."
"Aw, shucks, ma'am," he chuckled before his voice became serious. "Back then it seemed like the first of a whole bunch of hellos. Tonight was different, more like goodbye."
"First off, we may not make it through this, but..." She balanced her chin on his chest, so her eyes met his. "I'll never say goodbye to you, Corso. Not ever."
She gingerly touched his lower lip which had begun to swell. "What happened here?"
"Guess I got carried away," he replied.
Later when silence had created a buffer for words and thoughts and made space for drowsy introspection, Corso drifted away, and she rolled out of bed to don the sleep pants and a less revealing top and made her way to the galley.
Half-way through her second two-finger shot, Scourge appeared in all his sleep attired glory and took the counter stool next to hers.
"You do that too often," he commented.
"What, this?" She swirled the liquor around the glass and took another sip. "It clears my mind, calms me down. I don't overindulge so what's the harm?"
"You drink alone every night when he is asleep, and you think I don't hear. It is becoming a habit and habits make you weak. Already you make excuses. You might consider abandoning this one."
"Don't lecture me, Scourge. It's the last damned thing I need right now."
His crimson eyes bored into the side of her head as if seeking to pluck every thought from her mind. He read people like a marquee bill having studied them for centuries and his insights were often uncanny if not downright spooky.
"You will destroy him if you leave him," he said at last.
"I don't intend to leave him." Her rebuttal came too quickly to be a lie.
Understanding can dawn bright even over the wisest of minds. He raised one brow ridge in response. "You are a clever woman, Ky. But, I have other news. About the writings."
"You've deciphered them?"
"In part, yes. It is actually quite ingenious despite the simplicity, and if I had not made the correlation between the elemental tables and the gibberish written, the translation would have escaped me entirely."
"And the procedure that changed you. Is it mentioned?"
"Only vague hints, but it may be enough depending on what we find in that laboratory." Scourge sighed and propped his elbows on the counter. "There was mention of Tave Kal'Evos Xakersta, The Emperor's Wrath in that particular entry. The reference could be none other than myself since I was the first Wrath. It has taken three hundred years to fully comprehend the wages of the Emperor's favor and reward."
He scrubbed his hand across his mouth and chin, pulling at one of the tendril rings. "A story for another day, perhaps."
"That might be a story worth hearing," said Ky. "So, how does this translation work and what exactly did you find? There has to be more."
"I'll be right back," he said and left to return with his datapad. Settling himself again on the stool next to hers, he brought the screen to life and opened two files.
"This," he pointed to a line of numbered characters, "is the Sith alphabet. And this," he pointed to a complex grid of letters and symbols, "is the periodic table of elements. I used the two-letter abbreviation for the element and where it falls numerically in the table to correlate with the corresponding number in the sequence of letters in the Sith alphabet."
He closed the two files and opened a third containing lines he'd already translated. "In other words," he further explained pointing out each entry as he went. "F is number nine on the table but is also the ninth letter of the alphabet; therefore F is S, and so forth. So, 'Fcanuv Ar HevfcaTihar' translates to 'Sutta iv Basuoti' or Spear of Division and 'Livbarpv Ar Parcahearfclf' translates to 'Kamara iv Liudesys' or Chamber of Sorrow. What threw me off for a while were the gaps in the Sith alphabet, but once I figured out he had used ancient Huttese to fill those gaps everything fell into place. Of course, navigating around false and misleading entries was a trial, but even those had a specific order if one looked closely enough."
"Ok, I get it. So what do we do with this information?"
"These clues, the Spear and Chamber relate directly to me, and I must pursue them, for Sayonar's sake as much as my own. However, there is also mention of the rites he used in creating his children, and most disturbing of all, reference and scant notes on the ritual performed on Nathema. He consumed all life and drained every last vestige of the Force from the very fabric of that world. The book must be destroyed for it holds nothing but damnation."
He powered down the datapad and laid it on the counter. "The galaxy has barely survived one Emperor, can you imagine two with this knowledge? No one could survive the war that two such powerful entities would wage in their quest to become gods. They would devour all life in this galaxy leaving nothing but ash then move on, and the universe itself would become a pyre."
"Huh," she grunted, focusing on the glass she tipped back and forth. "You Sith and your need for immortality. Same old, same old. Not to sound selfish, but what do I get out of saving the galaxy a fourth time? Not that I'm keeping count or anything."
"I have immortality, and it's not, as you humans so quaintly put it, all it's cracked up to be. The cost is too great."
He took the glass from her hand and drained the contents, setting it back in front of her with a thud.
"Now that's a waste of good whiskey," she protested.
"My purchase," he countered.
"My gift." She reminded him with a sideways grin.
"Drinks with old friends. What better way to end such an uplifting conversation." He rose from the stool, then leveled his gaze on her. "Bring your datapad to me when you awaken, and I will transfer the entirety of one of my remaining accounts into your name. Unfortunately, my funds are not as they once were before my defection. The Empire confiscated much of my holdings, but I was wise enough to diversify while I had the chance. It contains nearly a half million credits, not nearly enough to compensate for the danger I've put you in, but it is all I can give. Rest well, Ky."
Exhaustion seeped out of every corner, enveloping her in a bitter cloud as harsh as the scent of whiskey on her breath. She suddenly felt old and haggard like she'd walked too many miles on a road going nowhere. Life kept circling around to the same shit, and her traitorous feet kept leading her down the same worn path.
She was never meant to be the hero. Leave that to others like Sayonar or Nariel or even Scourge. Nariel. Stars, she hadn't thought of her older sister in years, and she was too melancholy or just too damned tired to think of her now.
She slid off the stool and meandered back to her room. Fully clothed, she slipped between the sheets staring blankly at the ceiling, hoping for the oblivion of sleep.
"You do that too much," Corso's voice crept across the tiny chasm between them. "I can smell it you know."
"Not you too," she mumbled and turned to her side. "Let it be, babe, and go to sleep."
He sidled over to her and slid his arm under hers to lay across her ribs, spooning himself against the curves of her back, ass, and thighs. "I will when you do."