Ask Alive In A Hive

[Xyrin Davarok]

As sure as that chamber being just another room, as conscious of this woman being Cheriss and not her mirror, confident that this was reality and not her imagination, it was all Xyrin could do at the moment to keep herself from lashing back at this other Sith in frustration.

The Force connected her chest, sent the Sith flying back to land against a wall. It wssn’t far, it wasn’t severe, but it jolted her back to her senses, reconnected the spirit with the soul.

Leave without me, she thinks. That was really just another way of saying Xyrin would take that holocron and Cheriss would leave emptyhanded. It isn’t hers to begin with.

“I…I don’t know what came over me…”

She answered honestly. Maybe she simply didn’t like being touched especially under the circumstances. Maybe it was Sith alchemy. Maybe it was a vision, of her mother, her brother, past, present and future in an instant glimpse. Whatever it was, Xyrin wouldn’t be so distracted if her ‘companion’ decided to abandon her.

“Let’s go.”

She wasted no more thoughts or words on what had happened, earlier and just then, or what might happen to two Sith in Sidious’ ruins.

“Waiting on me?”

Xyrin affectionately asked R6, giving him a pat on the head before walking past him.

The hallway stretched ahead, empty and waiting, as Xyrin got a feeling something beyond the darkness, yet dark, neither Herglic nor Chevin, a presence, maybe not even Sith.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss eyed the girl critically when she rejoined her. Where is Xyrin and what have you done with her? It almost sounded like an apology coming out of her lips, and the earlier attitude she’d been showing seemed to have vanished. Maybe she’d finally learned her lesson.

“Hm. Just don’t do it again.” Cheriss would also know better than to touch her again, for that matter. Xyrin was as prickly as thorns. With that, the champion walked past R6 without another word and into the hallway. When she heard Xyrin speaking gently to the droid behind her, she blinked a few times and almost wondered if this was the right person following her. The astromech, on the other hand, responded with a string of happy beeps. She wouldn’t let him celebrate for long, though— Cheriss snapped her fingers twice to get the droid’s attention.

“You’re leading, R6.” With that, she moved aside so that her droid could pass her. He switched on his light, illuminating at least the lower half of the hall as the group moved forward.

And then, just as suddenly as it had started, Cheriss noticed that the ground was no longer shaking. Was that a good sign? Though the rumbling had stopped, she sensed something up ahead. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Xyrin, do you feel that?” Finally addressing the acolyte as she slowed to a stop, Cheriss turned her head to meet the other Sith’s yellow gaze.

@Die Shize

 

[Xyrin Davarok]

Xyrin was yet again content that, as expected, Rust Bucket had been promoted to the front line the next moment. That way if they encountered anything dangerous his light would guide him right into oblivion.

“Xyrin, do you feel that?”

“Yes, I sense something. A presence I have not felt since...”

Xyrin patted her stomach and turned her head to meet the other Sith’s brown boring gaze.

“I guess I should have eaten breakfast on your ship, Cheriss.”

“YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS.”

Spoke a voice.
From the void.

The first thing Xyrin did was look around Cheriss, not making a show of it but being obvious about it, head to toe, making sure Companion Champion hadn’t touched anything in the last few seconds besides her lipstick.

“Why can’t we pass?” She asked.

“NONE MAY PASS.”

“Okay. Is there a way around perhaps?”

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss had almost thought that Xyrin was going to say something serious for once when the acolyte’s hand went to her stomach instead. The champion frowned.

“Now don’t accuse me of starving you, you—”

“YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS.” Cheriss looked around for the source of the voice. This time it hadn’t come from Xyrin’s mouth or her stomach. But as she did, she saw the other Sith looking her up and down all too obviously. This again? She met Xyrin’s gaze pointedly before the girl asked a question in what had to be a failed attempt to cover that up.

Then the voice responded again. Whoever it was, they clearly didn’t want the Sith to pass.

“There’s always a way around.” Maybe not literally given that they were in a straight hallway, but R6 hadn’t slowed down and nothing had stopped the droid yet. So Cheriss followed after him in spite of the voice.

“YOU CANNOT PASS.” Cheriss didn’t stop walking and neither did R6. “YOU MAY NOT PASS.”

There was no better feeling than ignoring one’s problems.

@Die Shize

 

[Xyrin Davarok]

It was a long hallway. R6’s light shined but not the whole way. Maybe the voice came from the darkness at the furthest end? Yet it also echoed all around them.

“YOU MAY NOT PASS.”

“Wonder if it’s automated.”

Xyrin speculated to nobody in particular as she walked beside two others.

“An automated message since he doesn’t seem to be taking the hint we’re not going to be stopped.”

Between two Sith with lightsabers and a rust bucket there wouldn’t be any stopping them.

“PASS, YOU MAY NOT.”

“Whatever you say, Yoda Cakes.”

R6 would expose those shadows at the end of the hallway any moment, then they’d see if this was a hoax or a threat worth the attention of two women with weapons more dangerous than their lips.

Except Cheriss. That woman had that permanent Hi-I’m-Cheriss smugness in her countenance begging for some Sith to slap it. Never mind her ass. Xyrin would leave some guy to handle that and instead just kick it when the times comes for it.

“There’s no one there.”

Xyrin stated the obvious as Rust Bucket’s lamps illuminated an empty wall at the end of the hall.

“YOU. CANNOT. PASS.”

The Sith turned as the voice came from behind her but she saw no person.

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Whether the voice was automated or not, it certainly sounded like a broken record. Unfortunately for the speaker, their message simply went in through one ear and out the other when it came to the two Sith and the one droid.

That is, until they were forced to a stop as R6 angled his light up to reveal more stone blocking their path. This hallway was empty of living beings, maybe, but not of obstacles.

“It’s a wall.” Cheriss responded to Xyrin’s obvious statement with another obvious statement.

“YOU. CANNOT. PASS.”

The voice sounded like it came from behind her, and she turned in unison with Xyrin. She too saw no person, but there was something else. A shadow as dark as that stairwell had been when they first entered the ruins. In essence, a shadow that was the void.

“YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS.” It repeated its statement. Any trace of light disappeared then, leaving the two Sith in complete darkness. Cheriss couldn’t even see her own hand as she lifted it in front of her face.

“How inconvenient.”

@Die Shize

 

[Xyrin Davarok]

A voice. A void. A shadow. Xyrin was no Jedi Shadow. She was a Sith. She was Sith. She was Sith Sith. She was the kind of Sith Cheriss just wished she was but isn’t.

Shadows. Cloaks. Rectangular. Circles so round. Shapes. Should get a pound cake after this at a cafe.

Actually she’s just rambling in her head, yet isn’t that what all this upside down nonsense about shapes and shadows was anyhow?

The shadow disappeared just then. There one moment, gone the next. Violent delights. A voice in her head. The same words her brother had said. Violent ends.

In the darkness, in the total absence of light, Xyrin had eyes to see she wouldn’t be able to see her own hand so didn’t try it.

-Vwoosh!-

“Oops.”

Xyrin’s lightsaber igniting inches away from Cheriss’ face was just an accident in the darkness kind of like that one time she lit a torch and the firelight was inches away from Cheriss’ face.

“Let’s move forward.”

Not all hallways were dead ends, surely, and who needs a flashlight when you had a lightsaber?

Present tense. Past tense. Whatever.

“YOU SHALL NOT PASS.”

The voice echoed the corridor once more.

“TWO THERE MUST BE. NO MORE. NO LESS.”

“Wait a sec…”

Xyrin blinked at Cheriss, their faces illuminated by one red light if not two, with two yellow eyes gazing above a red blade.

“Wasn’t that what you said when we met?”

@Sicadorito (@Cheriss Ktrame)

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

The reason Cheriss hadn’t ignited her lightsaber was to avoid accidentally stabbing her partner. However, Xyrin didn’t seem to have any worries doing it the other way around, and soon Cheriss found a red blade just inches in front of her face. She instantly questioned why she’d worried about the acolyte in the first place.

Stifling a sigh, Cheriss would let Xyrin move ahead if she wanted to. But when the voice sounded again, she reached for her own saber.

“TWO THERE MUST BE. NO MORE. NO LESS.” That sounded familiar, and even Xyrin recognized it.

“It was.” Cheriss ignited her saber, pointing it diagonally down toward the ground instead of up because she was more aware of safety hazards to the face, and looked around. As much as she could in the dark, at least. Where there had been a single shadow before, it was now engulfing them. Even their lightsabers didn’t seem so light anymore.

“TWO HAVE ENTERED THE MAZE, AND TWO SHALL STAY. YOU SHALL NOT PASS.”

Just as the voice finished, Cheriss felt air behind her, and a beep from R6 told her that the wall had opened behind them. Vanished into thin air. Weird.

“I guess you don’t count as one of the two,” Cheriss told Xyrin before she followed after her droid.

@Die Shize